When a Photographer Has a Message
Like most photographers, I started with taking pictures on my iPhone, thinking it was the worst type of camera. I couldn’t get that blurred background, things sometimes didn’t appear the way my eyes saw the frame, and zooming in created the most perfect pixelated image. Hardly a thing could be clearly seen. But nonetheless, I was thinking big with my iPhone. I was thinking in whole, as an entirety.
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Things change when you pick up an expensive camera. In 2019, I discovered my mom’s ancient Nikon camera: the D90. It didn’t even have autofocus built in, which we photographers rely on. And suddenly, this ancient camera that once had a $900 value framed my thinking to become so small, so specific. Like when I used to crouch down to take a picture in focus of a single piece of grass in a field, it seemed so magnificent then. And I’m sure I could’ve worked toward making a single shard of grass look incredible. But thankfully, that’s just not what my frame of vision developed to become after six years of using multiple expensive cameras.
Months later, my niche would boil down to portraiture. For four years, it’s been my side hustle. This wasn’t brought about in any unique way. Being in high school at the time, and the one with the “good” camera, friends asked me all the time to take pictures of them for their Instagrams. This was all nothing but just playing around. But once summer came around, taking portraits became an addiction. I couldn’t stop thinking about it––the next technique I was going to try, the next style I wanted to achieve, and how I might just nail down the tone curves in Adobe Lightroom (that brought me many headaches). YouTube was my teacher, specifically Julia Trotti. Every morning, when the dew hadn’t evaporated from our windows yet, I’d watch her behind-the-scenes videos and observe the way she directed poses, observed her surroundings, and the physical distance or angles she took her photos at.
Pushing five years of this side hustle, I struggle more than ever to explain to people––to you––what it is I see through my lens, beyond just a picture. I’m talking about the bigger meaning of why people, more specifically people of color, hire me to take photos of their HS portraits, graduation photos, their weddings, or even club RSO events. I also struggle to know whether I’m doing something right in life, how subjective this answer has become in our society.
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As a minority in America, I can’t help but notice the demographics of my clients, and the differences between them. Most of my high school seniors are white, some Asian, some Hispanic, and only a few Black. Many of my graduating seniors are more diverse: Asian, Hispanic, Black, Muslim, and of course white.
I’m an East Asian girl. I grew up not seeing myself represented in main roles. I also grew up extremely frustrated when it came down to learning how to do my makeup. Every beauty video or inspiration on the internet was meant for the white audience, and not girls like me. For a while, I hated my Asian features: monolids, button nose, and a relatively “flat” face. The lack of seeing diverse girls throughout my developing years usurpingly led me to believe girls like me weren’t the “standard.” I felt far away from the long-legged, blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty ideal that magazines and movies always sold to me.
Sooner than later, this grows to be more than just not feeling beautiful. We’re either not seen at all or criticized in life. It has taken me a long time to feel comfortable with myself. But it should not have taken this long, and to put it plainly, I should not have to doubt whether I belonged in today’s beauty standards at all. And this realization in my life is what I’ve started to carry with me when photographing portraits of people––this representation that is so important.
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It all began to unravel within me during my junior year of college, when the Pakistani Student Organization reached out to me asking to photograph their Mock Shaadi event. This was their second time contacting me after I had done their Qawwali Night event. At the time, I didn’t charge them anything for the first event, as it was my first ever RSO event to photograph, but more so because it gave me something to do during the school semester, my downtime for photography. I normally don’t attend any events on campus, which is a shame. I know I should.
But I’ll never forget how euphoric Mock Shaadi was but also realizing how out of touch I was with other cultures surrounding me. It was bright and colorful when I walked in—pink, red, blue, and green decorations hanging, a red carpet spread across the floor, glittering lights, and a huge backdrop for friends to take photos at. Music was playing, and the organizers were rushing around before opening the doors to the public. I was nervous. It had been a while since I’d felt nervous photographing something, but soon the banging drums rumbled into the room. It was only getting started.
The event lasted five hours, and by the end, I had never felt so exhausted. I had taken at least four thousand photos, which I narrowed down to four hundred for editing. After two weeks of sorting, editing, and finally sending those off, another RSO reached out: the Indian Classical Arts Society. Then another—the South Asian Student Association.
Now, as a senior with less than a month left of classes, I’ve worked with those clubs again, along with new ones: the Arab Cultural Student Association, Jazba, Pre-Med Society, Resource Economics Society, Indian Student Union, SGA, and many more. Each shoot has taught me something new—not just technically, but emotionally and culturally.
Somewhere along the way, a deeper purpose began to emerge—one I’ve come to value above all else. It wasn’t just about taking good photos anymore. It became about representation, identity, authenticity, connection, and community. Capturing these events meant preserving the stories and spirit of each culture, making people feel seen and celebrated. Through my lens, I was not only documenting memories but also helping build a space where people could recognize themselves and take pride in who they are. But I also wasn’t just connecting themselves through these photos, I was connecting our neighboring communities, me included, to these people—where we could feel and see the deep connections and love in our communities, and share those moments, held in memorable photographs.
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In high school, my photography grew up with the phrase, “there is a story in every photo we take.” But I’ve come to my own terms reconstructing that phrase, just slightly––by only one word that yet shifts the meaning entirely.
There is a message in every photo we take. This phrase is inclusive even of the selfies you see on Instagram, or Facebook, depending what generation you belong to as my reader. You might be just simply happy and want to say that in your smile in a photo. That’s a message. You just got engaged and take photos to say that love is possible. That’s a message. Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, you’ve been divorced yet you celebrate it years later through photos of your new life to say the unexpected happened, and you’re okay. Here you are, onward. That’s a message. In hindsight, life is all a huge message. Photography has been my tool to expose that.
For me, and to these people I photograph, there’s a message that stands between the both of us. But to some, a picture is a picture. Meaningless. As a photographer, I see the message regardless, and it’s still my duty to accurately portray that. With photographing my cultural clubs, there is a huge obligation I have to understand this community. To be with them, an ally. I must see what is meaningful to them and not just me. I undergo this with the hard understanding that my photos have the power to amplify or harm. My photos—me—I am representing this group through my pictures that will be exposed to the public. It’s my job, as a photographer but also a good Samaritan, to spread the message that they, we, are a beautiful community in our own unique ways that shouldn’t alter our rights––that it is not amongst ourselves we must be fighting against, rather with.
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People don’t realize that being a photographer means that at least only 10% of my job is actually taking photos. After that, 30% is speaking with clients, then the other 30% is marketing, and 30% editing. But adding this all up, it means 90% of my job doesn’t even involve being behind the camera clicking away.
There’s push and pull with media in the photography industry. It helps to get your work seen, but it also makes it harder. It once inspired me to create, until it forced me to create. But all this boils down to money. You must keep up with the game if you want money. You put your business at a huge risk if you show any source of advocacy. You’ll very much get censored. You’ll lose potential clients. Your business might just fall apart. And I see that fear looming, hanging above us photographers. But I understand and will rather say it’s what they want from us. We were set up to feel this way. However, this doesn’t excuse us.
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It’s been a privilege to photograph cultural events for these organizations. That trust—reaching out to me again and again—speaks louder than any words, and it’s something I deeply honor. There’s no greater feeling than knowing that something about my work must feel safe and right to them. That trust doesn’t come easily, and I don’t take it for granted.
Especially with our Indian Classical Arts Society (ICAS) RSO—whose every event I’ve had the joy of photographing this year—it’s felt like more than just documentation. I never assume I’m always getting everything right, but one of their members, who also happens to live in the same dorm as me, once ran into me while I was on RA duty. She stopped to say hello, but then told me something I’ll never forget: “You capture us so beautifully. You know us. You understand. It makes us feel whole whenever we see the work you’ve done for us.”
And that––that is all I’ve ever wanted to hear as a photographer. To know that I’ve seen people authentically—seen them as a respectful third party—but somehow still helped them feel more connected to themselves. That’s the one thing I’ll always hold onto as something I know I’m doing right.
What outsiders may never fully realize is just how deep this work runs. How deeply intimate and emotional it’s been to be invited backstage—to witness the in-between moments: friends helping each other tie headpieces, mark hands with designs, stitch garments tighter, rush in laughter and nerves. The closeness is real, and I get to see it through my lens. And then there was Arab Cultural Night—where I found myself tearing up listening to students speak with raw emotion about their homeland and their hopes, their freedom. Only to then be swept into a different kind of emotion, standing on chairs to photograph the dance floor shaking beneath me—joy, pride, and resistance, all in motion. It’s more than photography. It’s presence, it’s witness, it’s memory-making. And I’m endlessly grateful to be trusted with it.
But my words will never do justice to tell you the many wonderful things I’ve seen and documented. They will never be able to entirely capture the emotions and meaning I get from these events and my communities. So perhaps—just perhaps—my photographs can show, message to you, what my words cannot fully.
