Moshoodat Sanni is the 24-year old Esthetician and make-up artist living and working in New York who’s brought to life some of the most important pictures of black girls across skin tones.

You’ve probably already seen some of these photos scrolling through your Instagram feed and if you have, you have definitely stopped to swoon over the beauty, glitter, boldness, and pure art that is her new body of work – “Moshoodat”.

The eponymous series is being done in collaboration with the really talented Joey Rosado (@islandboiphotography) whose signature attention to the manipulation makes him the perfect yin to Moshoodat’s yang on this project.

https://instagram.com/p/BNR_D8Mhfkd/

Moshoodat had majored in advertising and design at the University so it’s no surprise the high degree of sheer artistic precision that runs through the models’ skins and through the series. There’s also the surgeon’s precision with which glitter and shine are juxtaposed in the photos.

https://instagram.com/p/BMW9EUWhasE/

But it’s not the sheer talent of the artist and photographer that makes Moshoodat so remarkable, it’s her reason for doing the series. Moshoodat has stunned us in the past with those – on her collaborative work with Oye Diran for his Queen of Black Monarch shoot earlier this year. And in 2013, for Zen Magazine’s eco-friendly fashion editorial shoot, Fashion Envie.

Speaking to Buzzfeed about the project, Moshoodat says it’s because she wants “women to feel that they are that powerful, especially black women. I would love to see black women on a high pedestal the way we look at Kim Kardashian and other people that are gorgeous. I want us to view ourselves as gorgeous.” 

This probably explains her inclusion of Ericka Hart and Khoudia Diopwho – two women who have chosen to fight similarly important battles on social media and outside of it – on the project.

Ericka Hart is the New York-based sexuality educator and breast cancer survivor who went viral after she unashamedly displayed her breast cancer scars at Afropunk 2016, an open fair, in September.

For Khoudia Diopwho, Moshoodat applies white strokes to her strikingly dark ski. Khoudia’s modelling career enjoys as much from her talents and hardwork as it does from her influencer role in the #melanin movement.

Challenging stereotypes has never been more creatively tackled than Moshoodat has managed to and for this reason, she needs to be applauded.