Shadi Ghadirian's photos have feminist elements. In her photos, she tries to challenge the Iranian society's view of women. Ghadirian gained international fame with a series of photographs entitled "Qajar" that showed an Iranian woman in Qajar clothing with an object taken from modern life. Artworks from this collection have entered prestigious world museums.
In 2016, Shadi Ghadirian completed her bachelor's degree in photography at Islamic Azad University. She held her first domestic exhibition in the Golestan Gallery in 1998. Her photos met with worldwide success and soon found their way into international art circles. She participated in the Moscow Photo Biennale with her pictures in 2013. In 2017, a solo exhibition of her artworks was held at the Los Angeles Museum of Art. During these years, her artworks have been exhibited in Iran in groups and individually and in countries like Turkey, India, UAE, England, and the United States.
Most of her photos are based on the factor of contrast and surprise. Replacing and placing elements in unexpected situations creates a parodic and critical situation that challenges the position of women in the patriarchal Iranian society. For example, in the series of photos "like every day" that she took in 2013, she depicts women with flowered chadors with household items such as irons, hand brooms, dishwashing gloves, brooms, frying pans, graters, squeegees, etc. as their faces. In these photos, she criticizes the definition and reduction of the Iranian woman's identity as a housewife in a straightforward and biting way. These photos were taken from the opposite angle and in the context of personal images. It is as if they are supposed to be installed on the identity documents of those whose whole life is summed up in domestic work. She also uses a similar mechanism in the "White Square" collection. Although the subject of these photos is war, Ghadirian still deals with this phenomenon from a female perspective. Pictures like A grenade in a fruit basket full of apples and oranges, an unexploded shell on a double bed, etc. The surprising presence of war tools in the home frames, disrupting the axis of succession and daily companionship, portrays the influence and presence of the effects of war in the life of a housewife. These photos show that the constant threat of war becomes a part of everyday life and is embodied in the corners of the house, on par with life's necessities. In describing Ghadirian's artworks, Ruyin Pakbaz writes: "In her artworks, Ghadirian often deals with the social construction of female gender in the context of historical space and the contrast between tradition and modernity by using the method of staging or combining private spaces with social events."


Shadi Ghadirian's first appearance in auctions dates back to May 2006 at Christie's auction house. Until October 2021, her artworks have appeared in domestic and foreign auctions 54 times, and 80% of her artworks have been sold in international auctions. Her most expensive work until 2021 was Knocked down in the Tehran auction at $37,500 in 2010.