Feather in the cap

Photographing former US first lady Nancy Reagan for her official White House portrait is one of the highlights of her illustrious career. She was introduced to the former US first lady by Carolina Herrera who designed Nancy Reagan's clothes, because she (Herrera) was highly impressed by Issa-Khan's work.

Since US-Iran relations had hit a new low at the time, only after passing through a very strict security check could Issa-Khan and her crew eventually enter the White House. Once inside, the first lady's assistant told Issa-Khan that she'd get only an hour and a half to shoot the first lady's portrait.

"I said no. I said, I (came) all the way from Persia. You'd better give me the whole day," Issa-Khan says. "I told the assistant, 'Tell Nancy I'm Aquarius… I knew that she (the first lady) was into horoscopes. And her husband President Reagan is Aquarius."

"The minute (Nancy Reagan) heard that, she said, 'OK, you get …the whole day'," Issa-Khan says. "She was amazing … We put her on a chair to shoot her with the chandelier on top of her head so it would look like a crown. She looks like the queen (in the portrait)."

The people around Nancy Reagan told Issa-Khan not to do that. "But I am an artist, I just did what I thought was right," she says. "And that's how the picture came about. We spend the whole day with her, and we had the best time that day. She loved the pictures, and so did …(former US president Ronald Reagan)."

Talking about all the famous people around the world she has photographed, Issa-Khan says she still cannot believe that "these people are so human, they are so real, and they feel shy as much as you (do). But once you open the door for them… they're yours."

In 1999, after her makeup artist died of AIDS, Issa-Khan put her fashion and portrait work on hold, and shifted her focus to nature to capture the beauty of flora and fauna. "I realized this is the most beautiful thing in the world, because you see the purity of life."

The nature photography Issa-Khan, who lives and works in Miami, Florida, has so far produced captures nature in its purest forms. Today, passengers entering and exiting Miami International Airport are welcomed by 25 of her giant photographs at an exhibition titled Gifts from the Sea. They are displayed in the Skywalk between Terminals E and F.

"My many years of fashion and portrait photography have taught me that every individual has beauty that evolves from within. It's my job to capture and powerfully convey that beauty to others.

"Just as (many other) people do, I believe that each plant, each tree, each shell-and nature itself-has an inner force and an inner beauty that glows," she has written in the postscript of the book of photographs named after her and published in 2011 by Whitehaus Media Group.