07/05/2026
A little introduction for everyone new here 😊
Hi, I’m Irina — the face behind Irina Shender Photography 📸
I’m originally from Belarus and come from a very big family — one of ten children. My mum and dad heroically fostered eight children alongside raising us, and although we didn’t have much growing up, we had each other 🤍
When I was a child, my life was also deeply changed through a charity helping Belarusian children after the Chernobyl catastrophe. Through that program, I was blessed with a second family in the north of Italy, with whom I spent about a third of my childhood. They gave me my very first camera when I was around 11 or 12 years old — and they printed every single photo I took.
Those photographs became some of the very few visual memories I have of my Belarusian family and childhood. We never really had the means to hire photographers or document our lives professionally, so without even realising it, I became the family photographer. Then the university photographer. Then the photographer at my siblings’ weddings, and eventually at every workplace and stage of life I found myself in.
I’ve always been passionately capturing moments that, with time, became more and more valuable. Because memories fade… but photographs don’t ✨
That’s probably why photography means so much to me today. It’s never just about beautiful images — it’s about preserving people, connection, love, and little moments that one day become priceless.
So if you’ve trusted me to photograph your family — thank you truly from the bottom of my heart 💛
I’m so grateful you’re here. 😊 And say hi in the comments, I’d love to get to know you too ✨
