Can we talk about beautiful women?

Nicole McCluskey is an award-winning photographer. Multi-award-winning if we’re going to get into it.

And she has those awards because she’s phenomenal. The Sydney-based snapper, as they’re called in the trade, has something of the magical about her. It’s impossible to describe, but when she points and shoots she captures something that even her subjects may previously not have known existed.

She specialises in beauty photography and many of the images on this site, The Beauty Insider, belong to her. That’s unusual in this industry because beauty images do not come cheap. And Nicole could be charging us many thousands of dollars for each and every shot.

Instead she’s allowing us to run them without paying a cent. And we couldn’t be more grateful.

Why is she doing it? Firstly, because this is a start-up site and she’s the kind of woman who wants to see other women succeed and will do her best to make that happen.

Secondly, this is a site that aims to promote beauty in all its guises and that’s something Nicole has always believed in. She shoots women (and men, and kids, and pets) in an entirely different light from most beauty photographers and we mean that not in a literal, but a philosophical sense.

Yes, she works with the world’s most famous models – often – but Nicole also chooses to work with women outside the industry. Women she feels are are every bit as beautiful as those who grace the covers of mainstream fashion magazines. Possibly even more so.

Nicole sees genuine beauty everywhere. And she takes pictures of it. She shoots whatever and whoever takes her eye and also, what she feels the world most needs to see at the current time.

One of the most amazing shoots she has tackled in recent times was a beauty shoot in the mountains of Nepal. Here, Nicole cast for ‘models’ amongst the local girls and women, many of whom arrived by push bike with little to no idea of what they were auditioning for.

But they audition they did.

And Nicole found the models she was dreaming of. Natural beauties who let their souls shine out through their shy, sweet smiles and open, honest gazes. There was no slick lighting. No international makeup artist. No assistants. No wind machine. And as the light began to fade, Nicole shot the images of a lifetime.

This is just one of them.

It’s a perfectly still image of a local girl modelling jewellery which was hand-made in her village. She wears just a touch of makeup which Nicole applied herself and a pat of talcum powder to remove shine. And she’s heavenly.

Nicole was deeply moved by the young woman and the resulting images.

“The light was fading and all I had was a back-up camera and a 50mm lens,” she says.

“And there was a moment when I felt such a responsibility … these girls had given me their trust and I didn’t want to let them down.”

And as you can see from even this one image she didn’t.

The shoot was a tremendous success and more importantly, life-changing for the women who gained status within their villages due to their involvement. For Nicole, nothing will ever be the same.

For while the glamour was missing, the heart was there and in abundance.

“It was one of the greatest shoots of my life,” she says.