My name is Shemoi Gidden , I'm 20 years of age , Jamaican /British descent . In all honesty I never thought photography would be the love of My Life because I thought fashion was going to be my career choice because I graduated high school with the desire of doing fashion marketing as a career, due to the opportunity of an internship that's in fashion marketing. A month went by and my boss noticed that I seemed bored with the work I was being presented and I wasn't being motivated with the same work I was doing for the past month.
My boss asked me straight forward if this was something I wanted to do and I told him honsetly ,"no I hate this shit" and he respectfully understood my reason for saying that, so that same week he needed someone to take photos for his products because his 'go to' photographer flaked on him and I so happened to be the only intern in the office that was available at the time to take the photos. In my head I thought , how hard can this really be, so I went ahead and gave it a shot and the end results came out more than what was really expected . My boss looked at the photos I took and immediately told me I should think about taking photography into consideration. I was so unsure about it because of what my mom would think about myself going into that career path because as everyone knows, photography is a very risky career path and requires a plan B , but one night I found this photographer on Instagram that really caught my eyes. His name is Tim McGurr (13thwithness). His photos where just different to me. He made everyday life and traveling seem so natural to the eyes. When I first went through his photos , I got so caught up with each post that I ended up looking through 1200 out of his 1450 photos on his Instagram. I went to bed and woke up thinking to myself, I'm going to be on his level one day , so I went ahead and decided to start taking pictures. I saved up and bought a camera , nothing special at the time but it was getting the job done . My mother was furious when I told her my new plan , she thought I was joking at first but I looked at her like I was dead serious about my choice. If anyone has Caribbean parent then you know telling your parents photography is going to be your career you would be lucky to be even breathing at pass that point.
Like I previously stated, my mom was furious of course but eventually calmed her self down and started doing her, and when I mean started doing her I meant that literally she mildly disowned me. She thought I wasn't doing anything with my life , she wanted me to follow her in her footsteps, medicine or fashion but I jumped out the box , and there was a consequence to that. I only looked at that as motivation to prove her wrong and kept on with my photos . A year went by, all was good until I met someone on that I immediately needed in my life as a friend and shortly became my photography mentor . She goes by the name of Marta , even to this day I think her photos are one of the best photos I've ever seen. I can even compare her photos to '13thwitness', that's how you know her photos are very good. She came off as a very cool person at first , not knowing that she would be family 2 years after, but like family Marta and I have a love and hate friendship. We argue more than how we take photos together which is pretty frustrating at times, but in the end she and I are family and nothing is going to change that..
There was a period in my life when I was without a job , and a camera because of financial issues and people thought I was done for. They thought I gave up on photography , a lot of the guys I looked to started to give up on me because I wasn't making effort to get back on my feet . Eventually, I came out that hole I was in dipped into my savings and spend $1300 on a new camera and got back to work and it felt good because now I've been busy working on projects with Marta. Coming up with concepts that people haven't thought of and being recognized by people that are big on social media. I also got to meet my idol a couple months back. I just so happened to be at the right place at the right time, had the opportunity to talk to him and show him my photos and I was surprised when he thought my photos were amazing. That had to be one of the proudest moments of my life.
I'm really glad I chose photography as my lifestyle. It's apart of me . I wouldn't be defined as Shemoi if I gave up photography. I just know one day I'm going to get to were I wanna be , because I have friends and family that support my work and that's all I really need as my backbone and motivation. Sincerely - Shemoi
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August 2015
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