Submerged

March 29, 2020

“Empower a woman with WATER and she can change her WORLD.”

Nature, especially the river, has been known to heal and aid in the fleeing of our ancestors from the slave masters. Follow the path of the river to freedom;

“Wade in the water”

Like the ancestors; the river, it calls to her, it tells her to come and be healed;
She seeks to lay down her burdens, down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside, and she ain’t gonna study war no more.
An internal war caused by the external evils of men and her exhausting mental health from the society she resides in.

As she answers the call of the river, she prepares her mind to release everything…
She submerges and begins her transformation,
Fear takes over and she’s now too heavy; her body sinks.
Eventually, the burdens drift downstream and a sense of clarity is revealed as she herself moves upstream.

The more she believes in herself is the closer she gets to the source,
She rises and floats to the surface…
She becomes one with its ebbs and flow, her femininity is at its divine state,
In time she’ll be ready to return with a new spiritual understanding reflected in her gaze.
She will return wealthier, more attractive, and more easygoing after the encounter with the river…

“Empower a woman with water and she can change her world.”

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A few months ago Ali Hinds reached out to me with hopes of collaborating and building her portfolio as a budding Creative Director. Excited to help, we met up at Ragamuffin Coffee Bar in December where she shared a number of her concepts with me, and the one that really jumped at me was the “Submerged” concept. It aligned perfectly with my brand and current affinity with B&W film. It seemed quite simple to execute, yet profound in its impact, which I loved. By the end of the meeting, we had a Pinterest board and a location in mind. The only thing left to obtain was the outfit and the model. We began model searching in January and towards the end of February, we decided that the lovely Akilah would be the perfect candidate. Special shout out to Sway Caribbean Modeling Agency and her manager for allowing us to use Akilah.

Working with Ali and Akilah was so lovely, they were both very professional and talented. It’s sometimes challenging to execute someone else’s vision but the way Ali expressed and directed both myself and Akilah made things quite seamless. Let’s not forget how effortless it was working with Akilah. She did an amazing job of showing up and demonstrating her creative interpretation of the concept while still being excellent at taking direction and adapting as the shoot went along. What I also loved about this shoot was the fact I had the opportunity of adapting two Mamiya medium format lenses - loaned by fellow film shooter Yoram - to my Nikon F4, gifted to me by the legendary Donnette Zacca. All in all, it was a beautiful partly cloudy day which gave me a nice balance with the lighting when I needed it. Shout to Davy Freshh who helped out with transport and photo assistance, as well as Jemila who took some awesome Behind The Scenes pictures and videos with my Pixel 2XL.