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Name: Thahmina Rahman

School: Harris Academy Purley

Town: Croydon

County: Surrey

Year: Year 13

Inspiration: My inspiration for these photographs was my theme 'Words and Texts'. Through words and texts I challenged the misconception that Muslim women can’t express themselves creatively due to their religion. I wanted to do this theme because I have recently started to wear the Hijab; I used to wear the Hijab when I was younger and I stopped wearing it because I thought I wasn’t mature enough to wear it and I didn’t want my behaviour to represent Islam in a bad way as Islam means peace. Over the years, I gained more knowledge on Islam; now that I am older and I have matured I wanted to put the Hijab on again to show my commitment to Allah (SWT). When I talk to people about photography they think it’s peculiar that I do a very creative subject and think it’s very hard for me to express myself because of my religion. I want people to know that putting my Hijab back on have made me more confident in my everyday life and it doesn’t restrict me to do creative things.

Title: Oppress

Description: For this piece, I was inspired by Steve McCurry. I loved his portraits and I was mesmerized by his photographs – one in particular of a little boy covered in white powder taken in 1986 and ‘Painted Boy – Bombay, India’ take in 1996; I liked their eyes, they were big and bold and drew me most to the photographs. I wanted to take a similar photograph using a Qur’an quote. I found a quote in Calligraphy form meaning ‘God bears witness that there is no other god besides Him and so do the angels and those who possess knowledge.’ This quote is also the first pillar of Islam. The quote is over the model’s mouth to portray the stereotypical views related to Muslim women; that they do not have a voice in Islam but if you actually listen to what they are trying to say is, ‘I am only following my religion; my religion doesn’t stop my speech.’

Medium: Photography

Width: 59.4 cm Height: 84.1 cm