Mypicsmoray - Portrait Photographer

Recently moved to Forres, Shakeel photographs the vitality, light and energy of
● people
● families
● performers
● healers
● bands
● dancers
● ceremonies

Photography without the photographer unduly influencing the event - solely observing and capturing it.
Shakeel joins you doing what you’re doing, and photographs you as you do it.
I don’t change what you do to make it photogenic. I don’t influence the event, or manipulate it. Instead, I’ll capture what you’re actually doing: dancing, singing, getting married, your wedding, teaching, your spiritual practice, a gathering of friends, a birthday, a memorial, a funeral, a speech, performance, a rehearsal. Showing the actual atmosphere you create: the chatting, the smiling, the chaos, the discussions, if necessary the grief, the concentration, the shoes, the hair, the tears, the jewelry. And if you like, I can make it look a little bit different too . . .


About Shakeel

Working in 35mm, 6x6 film and digital, I started as a portrait photographer in 1988. Clients have included Mencap, The US Airforce and The Barbican Centre.

After taking thousands of portraits, I put down the camera for more than a decade. I'd gotten too commercial, too production-line, too financially-oriented, and lost the feeling behind showing people who they really were. I stopped loving photography, so it was time to stop doing it.

In 2007, being inspired by seeing people in terms of their light and energy, rather than as straight portraits, I started capturing people’s light again.

I see my role as a photographer to allow the energy and emotion of people to be harnessed and shown through the medium of photography.
Photography seems to me to portray not just people. It also portrays the relationship, however it may be, of the photographed to the photographer. My role is to understand you, and what you want to achieve, so I can help you express it.

From 2007 to 2012 I worked in the Brighton and Lewes community in Sussex, photographing initially dancers and healers. Since then it's been a privilege to be invited to photograph yoga teachers, reflexologists, babies and families, thai yoga masseuses, Bowen practitioners, family constellations, aromatherapists, authors, other photographers, gigs, rehearsals, new website images, venue openings, eateries, dance classes, theatre productions, film shoots, and week-long psycho-therapeutic processes.

A common theme that emerges is that people who don't consider themselves photogenic, or have a lower self-esteem than they'd like, can feel better about themselves when they've been really 'seen' and photographed.
Not posing, or feeling that they have to present a particular smiling image to the world, but when they're feeling comfy enough, and sufficiently relaxed to be themselves.
I see one of my roles as a photographer as allowing people the space to be themselves, even creating a space more conducive to them being themselves, such that they will allow they inner light to emerge, be seen, appreciated and photographed. My previously having been a professional life coach, a radio presenter, and an interviewer helps to bring an easy opportunity for rapport for both the 'sitter' and me as the photographer.

I operate in available light, and low light conditions. I can bring studio lighting, umbrellas, softboxes and backdrops to your venue, home, office as you please.

Quotes vary from outdoor studio setups with power to families coming to my home studio set-up, to me attending a wedding rehearsal in a Church before the big day shoot.

In January 2014 I'm offering a one hour photoshoot at my home studio in Forres for just £25 for three final images.
Travel and portable studio set-up time adds a bit more to the fee. How about dropping me a line to chat your ideas through. . .

All the best
Shakeel