WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST SHOT YOU TOOK AS A STREET STYLE PHOTOGRAPHER?

My very first shot was 2009 and I had a friend called Jamila. I remember that we were between Shoreditch and Old Street. I just stopped her and took her picture on the street. I look back on that picture now and think, Oh my goodness. I had no idea why I was taking this terrible shot, not because of her, but because of the lighting and the colours and Oh my goodness, it was so bad.

WITH THE DIFFERENT SEASONS AND THE DIFFERENT CITIES FOR FASHION WEEK, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS YOUR FAVOURITE?

It's difficult because each one has a different thing that I really enjoy about it. If we're talking purely from a style point of view, I would have to say Paris and Copenhagen. The difficulty is I love New York as a city and I do enjoy shooting there. There’s London, which is my home and has some of the best style in the world. People are really creative with the way they dress in London and they're not afraid to take risks. There’s Milan, which has amazing light and I always have a really good time with my peers in Milan; Georgia, Tbilisi, is again one of my favourite fashion weeks because it's just so raw. The energy, the people are super welcoming, the style is good. You also have the men's fashion weeks like Florence, one of my favourite cities, it's beautiful capturing men's wear there. For me, each city offers something different and something that I look forward to.

AFTER A STRESSFUL DAY, WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO TO UNWIND?

I think I still need to figure out how to do that. Once a week, I normally have an evening where I just literally disconnect from everything and I'll have what I call my grooming session. It's literally face masks, body scrubs, eye masks, just lying down, listening to music, just to completely relax and unwind. That's something that I've started doing on a Friday night. On a daily basis... I have no idea. I stay up way too late, sometimes working and then just come home and shower and next thing I’m falling asleep. I also have people in so many different time zones that I feel like I'm up all the time; I have people on the West coast, in the US, people in Europe, people in New York, people in Australia. I'm functional in so many different times zones that I need to do better and figure out more ways ways to unwind on a daily basis.

WE'VE SEEN CREATIVES TRANSITION INTO DESIGNING, FILMMAKING, AND OTHER FIELDS. WHERE DO YOU SEE YOUR CAREER GOING? ARE THERE ANY AVENUES THAT YOU MAY PERHAPS BE INTERESTED IN?

You literally took the words out of my mouth, I like design and I love fashion. I wouldn't ever be cheeky enough to call myself a designer, but I do have ideas and there's things I'd love to work on, whether it's a capsule collection, or collaborating with someone. That's definitely something that I would like to do down the line. Filmmaking, again, I feel that my first love is still images, but yes, there's often certain parts when I’m shooting where I think, Hmm, this would look good as a short clip or a documentary. Yes, you can take photos, but you can tell a different story, or paint a different picture with moving image. Those are definitely things that I want to get involved in. I would also love to do an fashion exhibition showing a different side of fashion, not just the high fashion perspective, but people on the street, just the way people dress. Back in the day you had the punks, you had the mods, people in different cities, it’s all a subculture. I would like to capture that and tell the story of people in different cities with so much diversity finding affinity in the way that they dress. I would love to do an exhibition regarding that. So these are all things that I have in mind to stretch my creative muscles.

WHAT DID YOUR FIRST KIT LOOK LIKE WHEN YOU FINALLY SAID, THIS IS WHAT I'M GOING TO DO. WHAT DID YOU HAVE IN YOUR KIT AT THAT VERY MOMENT IN TIME?

I don't even think it was a kit. My very first camera that I had wasn't even an SLR. It was a Canon G9 Powershot. That was my first digital camera that I was using; it was a Powershot When I eventually had my kit, it was a Canon 5D with a 24 to 70

WHAT DOES YOUR FASHION LOOK LIKE WHEN YOU'RE SHOOTING, IS THERE A CERTAIN FIT THAT YOU PREFER? DO YOU THINK STYLE OVER FUNCTION?

It's very much about functionality. First of all, everything I have is black. So that's the first thing, like that's the GoTo [laughs]. If I'm out during fashion week, it's very much functional. I have to think, okay, I'm going to be running around this many shows this today. I want to be comfortable. Of course I’m still thinking about my aesthetic and how I look, but I'm not going to wear a favourite piece running around the street all day. Sometimes you're out in snow, you're out in rain, you're out in extreme heat. So again, it's very much about wearing things that are functional. Most of the time I hate carrying a bag, so I try to carry as little as possible. I'm very much a creature of habit, I'll buy the same brands and pretty much the same things and just wear them in different ways [laughs].

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CAMERA

WHAT ARE THE KEY THINGS YOU LOOK FOR IN YOUR SUBJECT BE IT IN THE STREETS OR IN THE STUDIO?

I like unusual things. I like people’s character rather than what we call conventional beauty. When I'm shooting someone, I'm not just shooting you because Hey, you have a pretty face, I like people that have substance and people that have different views. Conventional beauty is such a narrow view and I don't want that in my work. We've been presented with these images over the years and told, this is what you're supposed to find beautiful. I don't want my work to be perpetrating that view or continuing that stereotype. I mean, who is going to decide what's beautiful? Who gets to say this is attractive or this isn't? I like to catch a wide variety of things, and I want people to look at it and say, there is beauty in this, this is great, this is different, this is not the regular or what we normally see. That's very much how I look at approaching my subjects. There's no way that I can tell you what to find beautiful, but I can tell you what I find beautiful, and what I'm interested in.

AT THE BACK OF THE PROTESTS AND ALL THE BLM RALLIES AND EVERYTHING THAT'S HAPPENED OVER THE PAST FEW MONTHS, DO YOU SEE ANY CHANGE IN HOW MAJOR BRANDS ARE NOW MARKETING I.E INCLUDING MORE PEOPLE OF COLOUR? IS THERE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL?

I’ve obviously noticed change, but why has it taken all of this? Are people genuinely trying to change or is this, Hey, we need to pacify everyone in this moment and quickly throw somebody coloured on our cover just so we're part of the time. You have to also think a lot of these people are thinking about readership and sales. If there's a trend at the moment, everyone wants to jump on it. Yes; and there's no way that being black is a trend and it shouldn't be looked at that way.

If you want to make genuine change then you have to examine your policies. You have to examine your structure. You have to figure out why for how many years you didn't have anyone of colour in your feed working. This is the other thing, it's not just about throwing a black model on your Instagram feed or on your magazine cover. It's who you get to shoot these things and who is working to develop these stories, who is your whole structure. It takes a change across the board and yes, these are baby steps, which should have been done a long time ago, but hopefully they're steps towards a wider change so that we see more representation and inclusivity everywhere. Not just for this moment because of the protests.

WHAT CAN WE EXPECT NEXT? WHAT'S IN THE PIPELINE FOR THE NEAR FUTURE?

There's personal projects that I'm working on, with portraits highlighting different creatives that I have looked up to and people that have impact my life. That's my pet project that I'm working on. I’m looking forward to getting back to photographing people on the street and hopefully rehashing some travel plans. I had tons of plans for this year to be able to travel and do different shoots, but God-willing I'll be able to do that going forward. That's kind of what I'm working on right now, just looking at different ways of doing what I wanted to do and not just rehashing the same thing moving forward.