Shirley Lawson is a Scottish photographer and former model and actor. For the past 20 years, she has divided her working year equally between the futuristic city of Dubai and the historic Italian province of Umbria, Italy, believing the two cultural and aesthetic extremes stimulate her creative senses. Best known for her engaging fine art nudes and use of exotic lingerie, Lawson subjects are all regular women, usually from 35 to anywhere up to 70 years of age. Intimate settings and posing are all choreographed by Lawson herself, who never uses fashion models because her goal is to celebrate the beauty of the female form in all its diversities.
In 2010 she broke new ground as the first photographer of this genre in the Middle East and founded the Diva Project. Her style throughout is characterised by carefully staged settings, always natural lighting, and her trademark use of contrast, colour, and angles. Working in mainly monochrome, the direction she follows is to deliver premium class, magazine worthy images to women who are otherwise seen as ordinary.