WONDERFUL NAIVETY
INTERVIEW
Amina Humphreys
With
Images by Amina Humphreys
Words by Stephen cox
In an attempt to find a hobby that isn’t directly related to the consumption of lager, at the start of 2024 I bought myself a new camera. It’s the first time in what feels like a long time that I’ve decided to take on something completely new.
Since then, I’ve been in a conflicting headspace whereby I find myself in a cycle of: 1. Feeling like I can do anything. 2. I need to do everything. 3. What if I’m not good enough. 4. Procrastinate. That loop has meant picking up the camera has been a lot more of a struggle than it should be.
I think when you spend too much time in your own head, in that procrastination space, it’s easy to talk yourself out of simply just ‘going for it’ and instead using weak excuses to rationalise why you can’t start something; I’m not good enough, I don’t have enough time, the conditions aren’t right, I need this lens, that tripod, a new light, or whatever.
I spoke with Amina Humphreys last week and it’s thanks to her that I feel a shift in that headspace, a break in the cycle. I read a quote recently which summarises my thoughts about Amina nicely, ‘the quickest way to success is to start now and figure it out as you go’. At the age of 22 Amina is right at the beginning of her career and there is a wonderful naivety about her attitude. Amina is inspiring not only because her work is brilliant, but because she gives off an overwhelming sense that everything is achievable and anything is possible.
Amina is extremely talented and I know there is so much more to come in addition to her already impressive portfolio. I absolutely loved speaking with her and look forward to following her work over the coming months, years and decades. In the meantime, it’s time for me to pick up that camera again.
Stephen: To start off, do you want to tell me a bit about yourself, your story, how you got to where you are, what you do, who you are any of that kind of stuff?
Amina: Okay. So I'm Amina Humphreys. I'm a freelance fashion photographer and video director. That's what I'd say however I do bits and pieces in between. I've been freelancing for around a year and a half, but I've been doing photography professionally for four years. The freelancing journey has been really fun. A lot of my work happens in London, I work with fashion brands, music artists, and everything in between. I'm still learning. I'm experimenting. I have just started assisting other photographers and figuring out my style along the way, and yeah, I'm loving it.
Stephen: Did you study, or did you just fall into it?
Amina: So I studied creative media at college. That gave me an insight into filming video first and then if anything I fell into photography via that.
I had a friend, one of my really close friends, her older brother was a music manager. He was like “hey, you have a camera, don't you?” And I was like “yeah” because I had one for my course, but I said, “I've never done a shoot before”. Undeterred, he asked me “can you go to London and do a shoot with one of my music artists?”.
I went round all these different spots in London. It was the first time I ever made a mood board or planned a shoot. I remember looking up online, what lens do I use? Then I rented that lens for my camera and I went and did that shoot in London. I still love those photos to this day. I still work with that artist to this day. That's how I started, I started working with music artists originally and then over time it spread out into fashion. I always loved fashion. So it felt like a natural progression to start working with brands.
Stephen: How would you describe your style?
Amina: Hmm that's a difficult question for sure, I'm still figuring it out, but at this point in time I would say it's colorful, eye-catching, natural and fun. That's the beauty of a creative job like ours, you make it your own and it's always evolving like you are.
Stephen: Looking at your stuff and who you shoot, there's a lot of streetwear, it feels like you work with a lot of… almost progressive brands if you like. What's your take on that? Who do you like to shoot? What do you want to shoot?
Amina: I have dream brands that I want to work with. But I know my work isn't there just yet. I look at what that they put out and I'm like, ‘it's not there, but it will be there eventually. It just takes time.’ My editing is not quite where I want it to be yet and I sometimes get mad at myself for that, I feel impatient, I want to be there.
I love brands like Chet Lo and Jacquemus, their shoot campaigns are so cool. I also love brands like Gisou and Skims, please check out their images, so so good. I love all of these brands and would purchase from them, on the other hand, there are other dream clients like Nike and Adidas. Campaigns are my favourite to shoot, you can be more creative and there's usually more budget to do bigger sets etc.
Streetwear has just happened naturally, but I'm not opposed to more contemporary brands or styling. I think sometimes what happens is that depending on what you actually like, I wear more streetwear for instance, I have an interest in those type of brands so I lean towards them. I do work with a lot of up and coming smaller brands, but I think that's also the nature of when you start freelancing, you end up working with a lot of up and coming businesses. It's building, I’m building, I’m getting there.
Stephen: In terms of motion vs photo, do you shoot motion as well. What's your take on that and what's the balance between clients requesting video or photo?
Amina: I'm still figuring out how to balance both, at the moment I book a lot more photography work. There is a lot more pre and post-production that goes into directing videos so I think it takes more time and energy to book that kind of work. I would love to get signed as a director, hopefully, that would help me get into the right rooms for more work, but we shall see. I haven't been in a position where I can offer both to a client but possibly in the future that could be. Last year I didn't do much personal work so that's my mission for this year.
Stephen: Personal work. What kind of personal work are you shooting at the moment?
Amina: Video wise, I am currently working on a short film. I am in the early phases with a writer because I'm not a good writer. I think when you find something you're good at, you’re like, I will hone in on that, for me, that’s directing. Anyway… we’re getting that script ready together, once that is ready, I will get a whole team ready. That'll be my job. I'll slowly start to build out a wider team. Maybe a producer, maybe others. I think then I can go and pitch the whole thing to try and get funding. Basically, I really want to put out a short film this year.
Stephen: What's it about?
Amina: I'll give you the premise. It's about two sisters, you watch them over three periods of their life. When they're young, when they're teenagers and when they're adults. You see the trials and tribulations that they go through as sisters living together and how that relationship grows over time. It’ll show that relationship and it’ll hopefully be a chance to showcase my skills as well as work with some great people. It’s also just something that I’m passionate about, a project. I think I've been needing to do something like it because I haven't made anything myself since I was in college.
Stephen: I think it's super important to make sure that you've got your own personal projects and developments going on all the time if you can. I appreciate that's so much easier said than done because life gets in the way, but it goes back to that that saying ‘never stop creating’ because all of that work, at some point you're going to reuse it, you’re going to call on those skills. - Thank you Philip Fanthom for the advice.
Amina: It's true. I've met with a lot of creatives. We've basically made our passion our job. Sometimes we have to get the passion back.
I feel like however you express yourself, however you feel you should express yourself is right. No one should tell you that's the wrong way. If that's you, that's you and I'm here for it.
Stephen: How much do you get asked to shoot for purely social media? I mean like 16:9?
Amina: I would say 60-70% of the work that I shoot is just for social media because most marketing is done on those platforms. I mean I shoot stuff for client websites, but that ‘website stuff’ will also be used across social channels. For a lot of music artists, or just personal clients, they just want to shoot stuff for their socials.
I always ask what my content is going to be used for, however, most of the time, it will be used on social media platforms. It’s not print or magazine, but that is the world we now live in. It's digital.
Stephen: I spoke with Eden Jalland a few weeks back and her view was that the trend seems to be going, and I do agree with her, the trend seems to be going towards more of a ‘raw’ or ‘authentic’ look and feel. I guess TikTok has been the catalyst for this, you don't really tend to see, at least I’m not seeing as highly edited content on my feed.
Amina: We are seeing a push, even in the makeup world, for clean beauty, natural looks, natural bodies. You see this across all industries, even clean eating, every industry is moving towards ‘natural’ or ‘raw’.
People are loving it, I listened to a podcast, I can't remember whose podcast it was, but they were talking about the fact we want to see raw, we want to see people how they really are and connect to real people's stories even through image and video. Don't get me wrong I still love those images where you can see a high level of editing, like Melony Lemon on Instagram - her work is incredible, if you take a look you will know what I mean, I don't want that to ever get left behind.
Stephen: I think there’s huge talent in making a professional image look almost natural and unedited. I think that is such a skill and I love that style. At the same time, I do think there is a place for this fantastical glamour, the sort of thing you see on the runway. To go back though, how is this movement affecting you? Is it affecting you? What are clients asking for?
Amina: I'm not an amazing editor. I'm learning. I'm self-taught. There are some really talented retouchers out there, I think for the right project as well, I would just outsource retouching, especially for beauty. It’s interesting I say that because a lot of beauty images that we see are retouched when you might not think they would be. You are not seeing the absolute raw image of someone's skin up close in high definition. Its retouched, but it's done so well that it looks natural. I can appreciate that because I know just how much work goes into getting that look…
Back to your question though, it’s not affected me too much because I've always, like I said my editing skills aren't massive, I think I've always done a more natural look anyway. I would never want to distort the way somebody looks. Generally, clients are asking for basic cleaning and grade and any advanced retouching I would outsource until I feel super confident in my ability to do that.
Stephen: I'm here for it. It's nice. Minimal.
Amina: Yes, minimal. We'll see though, the tides may change.
Stephen: What's influencing you at the moment? You've obviously mentioned a couple of brands before...
Amina: Recently, I've been making some more photography friends. Some colleagues perhaps? I've been making more friends and I've been assisting more photographers and that's something I never used to do. Seeing them work and the work that they produce is really inspiring me just to keep going. Having conversations with them really inspires me, knowing that it's all within reach. Sometimes I think when you work alone or you freelance, you overanalyze your own work or get inside your own head, it can be lonely. I feel like honestly the other people around me, other photographers, other creators, inspire me. There are some other really great stylists as well or makeup artists that I'm like, wow, that looks amazing. I'd love to create something that looks similar to that.
I also love looking on my Instagram explore page. I love Pinterest, but sometimes I feel like Pinterest doesn't give you the source. You can't actually trace back where that image is from or who made it. On the Instagram explore page, it's usually the person who created it that is posting it. Then I go and I stalk that whole page and I'm like, wow, that person is so talented.
There is also this music group on TikTok, they create the most amazing visuals for their music. I think they also did the music video for Jungle, Back On 74. I love the dancing in it and they create these really amazing videos, I remember just watching it and being like, aww, I feel inspired. People are still creating new things that are exciting and it makes you feel excited because sometimes it can feel really….like everything is so saturated… everything has been done. Then you see something new and you're like, wait what?!
Stephen: Saturation is a good word, it leads me on nicely, I spoke to someone the other day, and I won't shy away from the fact that I do like this aesthetic, but the beige, one tone, minimal, black aesthetic, do you know the kind of look that I mean? I feel like it’s the Rosie Huntington-Whitely Instagram feed look. Lots of neutrals. I'm here for it but what are your thoughts on it? I don’t know if clash is the right word, but it's different to a lot of what you shoot, clothes with bold colors.
Amina: I have an appreciation for the minimalistic things in life. I do like things that look bold, but I can really appreciate that look. I love when someone's website looks clean and the image can pop but everything around it feels minimal. Even in my personal life, I don't love clashing things. I'm not opposed to it at all. I feel like however you express yourself, however you feel you should express yourself is right. No one should tell you that's the wrong way. If that's you, that's you and I'm here for it.
I follow these different influencers on TikTok and there's one girl called Amy, she has that Rosie Huntington, Hailey Bieber, cool girl, soft, minimal look. Lots of simple outfits and blazers.
Her clothes are literally something I would never wear, but I love watching her videos and I love watching how she styles clothes. I just appreciate it and I like the thought process and how she cares about the quality of something. That’s interesting to me.
Stephen: To finish off. I want to ask you for a bit of advice. If you had to give anyone some advice, what would you say? It can be anything, general, life or something more specific.
Amina: Oh… I want to say something so cliché. Hmm, maybe it's not cliché, don't give up on whatever you are doing. It's good to see things through all the way. Yes, everything happens for a reason, but I've quit a lot of things in the past and I feel like if I'd seen some of those things through to the end and not given up on them before they'd actually run their course... well there's always a benefit to going through something and then coming out the other side.
