You Gotta Keep Hustling Ft. Izzah Shaheen

This one is a conversation I have been wanting to bring to you for a while. I sit down with Izzah Shaheen, a photographer who started shooting at sixteen just for fun and has now built a name for herself in fashion and weddings. But this is not a glossy success story. It is about the grind, the moments she was not taken seriously, the business that flopped, and the small, stubborn belief that kept her going.

The girl with a hundred business ideas

Izzah tells me she grew up in a small town just outside Lahore, back when the internet was slow and DSL was a luxury. She was that kid who was always searching, always curious. “I wanted to know about everything, different businesses, how people bring change,” she says. Her mother’s family would tease her, ke iska dimagh hamesha chalta rehta hai, her brain never stops. But her mother listened. Every wild idea, every plan, her mother would hear her out. Izzah says that one person who takes you seriously can make all the difference. “If you have someone who listens to your ideas, you don’t lose that sense of belief in yourself.”

Picking up a camera and not looking back

She never planned to be a photographer. She wanted to study, travel, meet people from different parts of the world. Photography started as a hobby at sixteen, taking pictures of her siblings, her home, little things. But then people began to notice. She started getting inquiries, mostly for weddings, because families felt more comfortable with a female photographer around their women. Still, being taken seriously was a whole other battle. “People would see me, a young girl, and not take me seriously. Mujhe bahut gussa aata tha, it made me so angry,” she admits. She learned early that you have to show up, do the work, and let your images speak.

Learning to let go and build a team

For the longest time, Izzah did everything herself. Shooting, editing, client calls, you name it. But she hit a wall. “You cannot do everything. You need to know how to delegate,” she says. Now she runs a team, with different people handling fashion campaigns, wedding shoots, and corporate videos. She still knows how to edit, how to retouch, but she is not the one doing it all. That shift, she says, is what allowed her to grow. “If my editor is sick, I can step in. But I don’t have to. I supervise, I know what each person is doing. That is how you scale.”

The product that flopped and what it taught her

At one point, Izzah tried to launch her own product line, a lifestyle brand. It did not work. “I learned the biggest lesson of my life from that failure,” she tells me. She had a good product, but she did not understand branding, marketing, how to build a name online. The sales never came, and she had to shut it down. Now she is working on something new, but with a completely different approach. “You have to know the market. Just having a product is not enough. People need to trust your name first.”

Parents, stand your ground, and train them

Like so many of us, Izzah had to fight for her career. Her parents did not understand photography as a profession. It took months, even years, to make her mother see that this was real work. “You have to train your parents, just like they trained you as a child,” she says. “You teach them about new technology, new ways of working. You take a stand, respectfully, and you show them results.” She does not sugarcoat it. There were arguments, there were days her mother would not speak to her. But she kept going. “I would rather make my own mistakes than regret not trying. At least I know I gave it my all.”

Stop complaining, start building

Izzah is blunt about the opportunities in Pakistan. “The market is not saturated. There is so much still to be done. People complain about the industry, about the country, but they don’t step up.” She reminds me that she started with nothing, doing free shoots to build a portfolio, earning maybe three thousand rupees in her first year. “You have to gain experience. Do collaborations. Learn from senior photographers. And stop giving excuses. If you are not willing to work hard, don’t expect results.”

Why this conversation stays with me

Izzah’s story is not about overnight fame. It is about the small, daily choices to keep going when no one is clapping. For every young woman listening who is tired of hearing log kya kahenge, what will people say, this episode is a reminder that your belief in yourself has to be louder than the noise around you. You don’t need everyone to understand your dream. You just need to start, and keep hustling.