Photographer Ty Bello was snapping photos of British musician Tinie Tempah in Nigeria recently when a woman selling bread happened to walk into her shot.
Struck by the woman's beauty, Bello took to Instagram after the shoot in an attempt to find out more about her. "I'm happy to help her build a portfolio if she's interested," she typed to her followers, adding, "I'll find a way to track her down somehow."
The woman was later identified as Olajumoke Orisaguna, a local bread-seller and mother, BuzzFeed first reported.
After Orisaguna was identified, Bello was able to get in contact and photograph her for the cover of This Day Style.
The story quickly went viral around the globe.
"When we made the images, I hoped that people would connect with her story, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect it to be on this massive scale," Bello told The Huffington Post. "This is crazy-beautiful."
She shared the images from the magazine spread on Instagram, along with more about Orisaguna's life.
A hair stylist from Ire in Osun state but not making enough profit between she and her husband, a sliding door installer in from same village, to care for their two young children. At the invitation of a distant relative who knew someone operating a bakery, she relocated [to] Lagos with her 14 month old daughter to give bread hawking a try, leaving her husband and older 5 year old behind. As I listened to her I [wondered] if the beauty I had seen on my screen as I edited my image was a fluke [...] well until she smiled. I realized that I was wrong. I had in fact underestimated the beauty of this 27 year old woman. As always, it was her eyes and of course her perfectly chiseled features that jumped out at you when she chuckled. This lady belonged in front of my camera.
Orisaguna is excited to get her career started as a model, Bello said.
"Olajumoke is elated and trying to take it all in," she told HuffPost. "Today she just concluded on a two-day shoot with CNN international. She's really inspired so many people out here in Nigeria and apparently across the globe. It's all so surreal."
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