An Email from Zookie! Photography

When Zakiya emailed me last week I replied, “I love your pos­i­tiv­ity, your approach and your web­site. I’m delighted by your email and you know what, I feel hap­pier already for read­ing every­thing you’ve sent me. I love what you do. I would like to fea­ture your video sub­mis­sion BUT there’s a con­di­tion!…  Can I share your email on my blog? I’d like my read­ers to read about you exactly as I have… Thank you for inspir­ing me this morn­ing. Keep smil­ing!”

She said yes. This is what was in my inbox to make me grin so hap­pily for a full day last week.

An email from Zookie! Photography

Hey Claire!

My name’s Zakiya and I’m a pho­tog­ra­pher of women [HEYYY!]. My busi­ness is called Zookie! Pho­tog­ra­phy — you can vet me out here: www.zookiephotography.com [click on the link to ‘meet’ Zakiya and hear her infec­tious laugh­ter… Claire x]

What I have here is a video sub­mis­sion. It is not of a wed­ding, but after a wed­ding. The Bride, now mar­ried, and her wed­ding dress.

I pho­to­graph women, soon after (a cou­ple days) to some­times wayyyyyy after (30 years) her wed­ding day, in her wed­ding dress.

The idea started with my friend’s wed­ding, and then my own wed­ding to be hon­est. I remem­ber my friend look­ing so amaz­ing, even when she tech­ni­cally shouldn’t have been (sweaty, hair a mess, drunk as hell) — she was radi­ant! She was beam­ing, gor­geous, and in love. And she was allowed to stay in that vibe by every­one around her, as peo­ple not only left her to it, but encour­aged her — they told her how gor­geous she looked, how bril­liantly she lit up a room. They gave her the space to be beau­ti­ful. And I always found this to be true in life. When you give some­one the space to be as they are, they will shine so brightly and freely that you are the one being blessed with their joy.

I found this so beau­ti­ful and such a won­der­ful thing as I knew that she was very often not com­pli­mented about “beauty” as she did not match up with society’s view of “pretty” — but here, in her own space, and given per­mis­sion to be as beau­ti­ful as she is by her fam­ily, friends, and more impor­tantly, her­self, she glowed!

I thought to every com­pli­ment I’d ever heard to any­one, and all the gen­uine ones came up the same — they were all com­pli­ment­ing on how happy the per­son was in some form or fash­ion. Happy peo­ple shine bright and just grav­i­tate joy — that’s why we all love chil­dren, because they are unapolo­get­i­cally joyful.

I know that women are told day in and day out that they are not good enough — even for their wed­ding day, when their life part­ner has told them that they are per­fect, they still believe that they must “change” and “be bet­ter”. Look bet­ter, sound bet­ter, all for this one day when the per­son loved them just as they were any­way. We are told to find some­thing about our­selves that we hate, and if we can’t find some­thing, we are vain!

I want to change this. I want women to love them­selves, even if it is just for 5 min­utes every day where they appre­ci­ate them­selves, their skills, tal­ents, body, every­thing — appre­ci­ate it fully. I became a pho­tog­ra­pher because of this. I loved giv­ing my friends, fam­i­lies and strangers, the free­dom and pri­vacy to accept and embrace their beauty. To just appre­ci­ate themselves.

I showed them what they looked like to me; glow­ing and beau­ti­ful. I retouched none of my pho­tos which enabled me to give them proof for the few that needed it after the photo shoot, when they couldn’t believe that it was them. I showed them the pic­ture right out of the cam­era. (as in no Pho­to­shop. I do very lit­tle light­ing chang­ing as well)

I pho­to­graph women, as they are, when they are happy.

For one of the type of shoots that I do, The Dress Photo Shoot, we take the woman to a venue of her choice. She gets her hair and make up done pro­fes­sion­ally, she can bring a friend or loved one, and we just have a damn good time! For 3 straight hours, she is pam­pered and show­ered upon with love, and allowed to shower her­self with love. The results are always beautiful.

All of the shoots are pri­vate, and I don’t use my clients for adver­tis­ing — so I fre­quently get vol­un­teers who get the entire shoot and pam­per­ing for free, in exchange for me being able to show their images publicly.

This was one of those women : www.sarah.zookiephotography.com

Lordy! I just realised that I’ve writ­ten AN ESSAY in your inbox! I shall wind it up now

I was rec­om­mended by many pre­vi­ous clients to con­tact your blog and to let you know of this shoot that I offer, so that if you want to, you can let any­one who is inter­ested expe­ri­ence it for them­selves. There is no age limit, and no style limit, because it’s actu­ally not about the dress, but more about them. The dress is just so spe­cial and filled with love, that it makes them glow when they think about it. And besides, why should we only wear that stun­ning dress once?

So again, my name is Zakiya, and I am a pho­tog­ra­pher of women. I give them the space to love them­selves, and you can find out more about me here: www.zookiephotography.com

Thanks for your time

Many kisses
xx
Zaki

–

Zakiya Gayle
Hello! | Owner of Zookie! Pho­tog­ra­phy
www.zookiephotography.com
www.facebook.com/zookiephotography