Two weeks ago, our WPPI conference and trade show took place in Las Vegas, culminating in a dazzling awards show which celebrated the winners of this year’s 16 x 20 Print, Album and Filmmaking Competition. All week long, we are featuring some of the Grand Award winners’ work here. Today, we celebrate Forough Yavari, who won in the Creative Division: Illustrative with this image. (See a full list of the winners online; and look for the printed gallery in our April issue.)

I currently live in Australia but I originally come from a Middle Eastern country where there are many brave women fighting for their freedom and rights. I have always been inspired by these women and as an artist, I believe it is my responsibility to share their stories and spread their messages about the value of education, and how they have the courage to face away from their imposed fate and accept any or all consequences of that action. This sparked the idea for this image’s “Rebirth” theme in my head.

The biggest challenge in producing this image was to maintain the details of the fabrics in the black areas—that’s where my beloved EIZO Color Edge monitor played a huge role.

I used a Nikon D800E with a Sigma ART 50mm f/1.4 lens and two Broncolor Siros L 800 heads (one was modified by a Broncolor Beauty Dish with a white diffuser as the main light, and the other with a Broncolor Octabox 150cm modified by a grid and a white diffuser as the fill light). The exposure parameters were ISO 200, 1/200th of a second and f/4.5.

All my illustrative works are part of a series of images. I do not necessarily enter every image into awards, as most of them are more personal or political. My goal is to one day exhibit them all together.

Winning a Grand Award in the Creative Division where there are so many amazing entries is such a great honor and for that I am extremely grateful. I have to thank two people in particular who have played great roles in my photography career—Marcus Bell, for his priceless advice (and introducing me to the Australian photography community when I moved there) and Mark Duffus, for being such a great friend and introducing AIPP and WPPI to me (and encouraging me to enter my work into WPPI’s competition). I am forever in their debt. — Forough Yaravi