We recently connected with Shanika Gosling and have shared our conversation below.
Shanika, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
I am a Portrait Photographer specializing in personal branding and portrait experiences. It’s my mission to help celebrate, uplift and empower the women around me… to honour the woman she was, the woman she is today and the woman she’s becoming. Our luxury portrait experience is designed to empower and honour the whole woman, and give her the confidence boost and self-esteem she needs to reset and celebrate their individuality and know that she is worthy of feeling beautiful in all aspects of her life.
Shanika, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
When I look back on images of my childhood most times a parent was missing in the image whether it was my mom or dad someone always had to capture us. TO this day I still have the camera my dad invested in to capture our family. Although we have some amazing images that we all cherish I vowed that I would capture the whole family in all its aspects. Ten years ago I started as a newborn photographer and was very successful at it then during covid I realized that many women I worked with were starting a business or transitioning from the 9-5 to entrepreneurship. This is where the shift in my business happened all by itself and it was an amazing experience. I set out to celebrate the professional and most intimate areas of a woman’s life because believe it or not we go through some amazing changes but sometimes get lost in the midst of it. I had that happen to me so many times especially having 4 children between the ages of 25 and 11 months old. (yes that’s what I said). For the last four years, I have been focusing my efforts on capturing women in every aspect of their lives. From maternity to lifestyle branding all while caring for my children and being a wife!
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
This is something that many companies had to do when covid hit. Pivot. The best decision I made was shift my business from working with families to working with women in business. when covid hit people were not trying to capture their families better yet having someone come into their home and capture their newborn babies. I had to shift right away and cine business had to thrive I changed my marketing and geared it towards women in business. By capturing women outside we were able to share their stories in different ways and still keeping a distance. This has been a game-changer for me.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
From personal branding to portraits, I set out to Capture The Beauty From Within and celebrate the professional and most intimate qualities of women. Being able to work with women has been a drive for my creative journey but many of the women I was working with wanted me to edit parts of them that made them who they are. They would say things like edit my nose, can you make me thinner, can you remove the blemish? Now some things I don’t mind doing like softening the skin and brightening the image but when I have to alter you to not look like you that’s a huge problem in our society. The reason why I created the slogan Capture The Beauty From Within and crafted my sessions was to focus on the woman and not her physical appearance. My mission is to empower every woman to embrace who she is in life and business. Making her feel amazing and look amazing is my top priority I want that when she leaves my session she feels like a brand new woman.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.capturedbyshani.com
- Instagram: @capturedbyshani
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapturedByShani
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanika-gosling-44199124/
Image Credits
Captured By Shani