All parents treasure a beautiful image of their child. But supposing your child is seriously ill or nearing the end of its life? That’s where Samira Magrabi comes in. She tells Faith Eckersall about a special organisation...

The little boy was suffering with a rare disability which meant he had delicate joints.

As Samira prepared to photograph him she wondered if he would be up to the rigours of a shoot designed to capture his beauty and personality.

As it is, she needn’t have worried. “He was able to come to my studio and we got some wonderful pictures of him being cuddled by his sister, and then the mum brought out some Christmas hats so we had some festive images, too.”

The pictures were being taken as part of Butterfly Wishes, the photographer network founded by Samira, who is based in West Parley, and her friend, Liz Wood, which provides free photography sessions to terminally-ill and life-limited babies and children up to the age of 18.

“We were inspired by the Tiny Sparrow network in America, which operates in a similar way, and just put out the call,”

she says, admitting they ‘didn’t know what we were getting into.’ “We didn’t think it would take off the way it has. It started with about 10 of us and now we have 300 photographers but always need more.”

They ask volunteers to have at least six months experience because: “We can’t risk the images coming out wrong,”

and they also request that volunteer photographers do not use the images to publicise their own commercial name.

“It’s free and we do it for the families, not ourselves,” she explains.

Parents wishing to use the service fill in a website form – many have simply been too overwhelmed to organise a photo session or too poor to afford one – and then Butterfly Wishes try and match them up with a photographer.

Sometimes, tragically, they are needed very urgently if a terminally ill child goes into decline.

“I have two sons of my own and it is really difficult to know there are children who could literally pass away at any moment but you cannot let that affect you, you are there to do a professional job,” she says.

Samira, who only started in photography in 2011 after friends admired the images she’d taken of her own children, needed all her professionalism when confronted with the most difficult job of her career.

“Normally we do not photograph stillborn babies or those who have suffered a neo-natal death – the charity Remember My Baby helps with that,” she says. “But a client called me after their baby was stillborn at just 25 weeks and I had to help.”

Her own baby son was just three weeks old and Samira had to leave him in another room with a friend while she prepared for the shoot. “It really does hit you,”

she says. “I gave the mum a hug and she started crying so I did but then I just got on with it.”

The baby was dressed in tiny, hand-knitted clothes. “I asked the mum and her partner what images they would like and then we took them with the little girl, as well as shots of her tiny feet and hands.”

Samira is very keen to publicise Butterfly Wishes’ work and was delighted to be awarded a Points Of Light award – a UK government accolade given to a different person each day – by David Cameron.

“We got a call from the Cabinet Office about a case study they said they were doing about volunteering and we weren’t sure, so we started Googling their names to find out if they were genuine,” she says. “But they called back the next day and told us we’d be receiving the Points of Light certificate.”

This led to Samira appearing on South Today and Liz appearing on Anglia TV, which has helped spread the word.

“We are not an official charity although we have received donations towards our expenses, which tends to get spent on leaflets to put in hospitals and hospices to publicise our work,” she says. “We are so privileged to be able to help.”

*butterflywishesnetwork.co.uk