Through The Lens with Safiyah

Safiyah

My name is Safiyah, I’m from Trinidad. I’m 20 years old and my passion is photography. Most people may refer to me as Saf or VisualsBySaf on Instagram. What I think makes me a creative is the fact that I have a unique eye for photography as do other photographers. I try my best to be creative every day in my photography and in my school work. I’m currently a student at the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago pursuing an Associate’s Degree in Graphic Design, so the knowledge and aspects of graphics play really well into the photography skills I already know and have.

I have many inspirations, sometimes local and international creatives, other times the nature that surrounds me and then of course the internet. For me, the platforms, Pinterest and Instagram of course. It really isn’t easy being a creative, we all have our challenges, and I’ve realised more in the mental health area of things; but I’ve seen local creatives rise to those kinds of challenges and actually see them overcome these obstacles. All of that really inspires me as well, to keep doing what I do no matter what and to take the necessary risks of being a creator. I think this sums up who I am as a creative.

Michael Forest

On the day this picture was taken, I didn’t have an idea or concept for this shoot. This day was when I properly got to meet with Michael Forest and Jonathan Ryan, two local creatives for the first time and we hung out, got to know each other a bit and shot some cool pictures.

Aaliah DeGale

Aaliah and I attend the same school. One day after an early class, we didn’t really have anything much to do afterwards so we decide to go walk around and look for nice, scenic, nearby locations and this was one of the photographs from that day.

Indian Gyal

This was actually one my first proper photoshoots with a friend of mine Geri-Miya. I remember she saw something that made her want to do a shoot like this and we talked about it and made it happen. This will forever be one of my favourite photos from that shoot.

Christopher

Christopher and I collaborated with not much of a concept at first but as we got together for this session we both worked to create some amazing ideas for this shoot and to work with what we had on this day.