18 Feb ALWAYS BE YOURSELF

I met Irina a few years back when I did her modeling portfolio shoot in my Beeston photo studio.

Last year she approached me about doing her professional headshots and I loved her idea of showing her ‘two sides’.

Here is a short story behind these beautiful photos I took last year of this amazing woman.

“My name is Irina and for the past 15 years I’ve been working in digital marketing. I am also covered in tattoos and until recently I’ve been very passionate about martial arts. Quite a combo, right?

It’s no surprise that people assume a lot of things about you from the way you look and, being born and raised in Russia majority of which is still very conservative and stigmatized about tattoos, piercings and anything unusual, I was hit by all sort of “compliments”, starting from “raging lesbian” to “cancer survivor”, none of which were too pleasant. None of the people however had any idea that I am in fact director in a digital marketing agency, happily married (to a man – what a surprise!) and used to do muay thai for 5 years.

What I wanted to do is to show that looks tell us absolutely nothing. You can assume all you want from what a certain person looks like, but the truth is – you will never know for sure. Looks can be deceiving as my example hopefully shows you.

Don’t ever let people think that your hairstyle, your tattoos or piercings, your hobbies or clothes you wear make you less professional. Without bragging too much – I know my stuff when it comes to digital marketing and my tattoos sure as hell don’t change that.

Let’s battle the stigma and stereotypes together. Be free and be yourself.”

Love,

Irina

Use this link to follow Irina on instagram https://www.instagram.com/izzy_holliday/ 🙂

Thanks for reading