Dr Safeeya Mo­hammed

guardian.wemagazine@gmail.com

“Every­one has a pur­pose in life and a unique tal­ent to give to oth­ers. And when we blend this unique tal­ent with ser­vice to oth­ers, we ex­pe­ri­ence the ec­sta­sy and ex­ul­ta­tion of own spir­it, which is the ul­ti­mate goal of all goals.” ~ Kallam An­ji Red­dy

Blend­ing his tal­ent, ded­i­ca­tion and the con­stant pur­suit for ex­cel­lence, an elec­tri­cal en­gi­neer that piv­ot­ed to en­tre­pre­neur­ship, fol­low­ing his dreams, She­me­on Williams was ec­sta­t­ic on hear­ing the news, “You’re one of the top ten wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers in the world!”

Rem­i­nisc­ing on the jour­ney, this top pho­tog­ra­ph­er shared, “af­ter sev­en years, sev­en months and sev­en days, I left my en­gi­neer­ing job to pur­sue full time en­tre­pre­neur­ship.”

What piv­ot­ed this trans­for­ma­tion?

“I read this book called Sev­en Habits of High­ly Ef­fec­tive Per­sons, which asked me to list ‘What was im­por­tant to me?’ So I put God, fam­i­ly, me (as in my hob­bies and in­ter­ests), work and then char­i­ty. But in re­al­i­ty, I was just work­ing all the time and I knew this was the time to make that crit­i­cal change! I had to choose, and that choice was in keep­ing with God, fam­i­ly, hob­bies and in­ter­ests, be­fore the work as an en­gi­neer and that en­abled me to leave and fol­low through with pho­tog­ra­phy.”

In 2018, She­me­on was se­lect­ed for the Young Lead­ers of the Amer­i­ca’s Ini­tia­tive (YLAI) Pro­fes­sion­al Fel­low­ship. There he en­gaged with bril­liant minds who ex­pand­ed his en­tre­pre­neur­ship knowl­edge and ce­ment­ed his love for his true call­ing - con­nect­ing with peo­ple through cam­eras.

Then in 2019, an­oth­er piv­otal ac­co­lade re­in­forced his pas­sion­ate pur­suits. He was se­lect­ed by Ig­nite Caribbean as one of the 30 Un­der 30 Caribbean Amer­i­can Emerg­ing Lead­ers/Change Mak­ers. This award is pre­sent­ed to in­di­vid­u­als demon­strat­ing lead­er­ship, mak­ing a mea­sur­able dif­fer­ence in their com­mu­ni­ty.

Pho­tog­ra­phy un­locked his po­ten­tial

She­me­on de­scribed with ex­u­ber­ance his keen in­ter­est in cap­tur­ing those pre­cious mo­ments in life and im­mor­tal­is­ing them in pho­tos.

“Pho­tog­ra­phy taught me about many spheres of life that I nev­er knew ex­ist­ed. Whilst cap­tur­ing wed­dings in Trinidad I’ve got­ten to see the un­der­pin­nings of every creed and race and saw that when we are with fam­i­ly and friends, ex­act­ly how sim­i­lar we re­al­ly are. I learnt that your God giv­en tal­ent, well nur­tured, can un­lock many doors faster than you’d ever ex­pect.

“This award is tru­ly mon­u­men­tal as the race for the top spots take place over a cal­en­dar year. Each month the top im­ages from all over the world are se­lect­ed and the pho­tog­ra­phers with the most awards at the end of the year are se­lect­ed in the top ten.

“I use the award plat­forms to prove that Trinidad and To­ba­go is the most beau­ti­ful des­ti­na­tion in the world. It’s re­al­ly chal­leng­ing to com­pete as the oth­er pho­tog­ra­phers are phe­nom­e­nal and pho­to­graph against amaz­ing land­scapes. It re­al­ly takes a lot to dig deep to de­liv­er award wor­thy im­ages. It would be im­pos­si­ble to do with­out the Lu­vo Team be­hind me sup­port­ing at every step of the jour­ney.

“These im­ages are ac­tu­al­ly part of a larg­er goal. I want to cre­ate a book of all these im­ages that fea­ture per­sons en­joy­ing the love­ly land­scapes, sites and at­trac­tions of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The book must show­case the is­lands in the best pos­si­ble way, so as to in­spire per­sons to vis­it, en­joy and take pride in our isles. My vi­sion is that all the pro­ceeds of the book will go to the Na­tion­al Trust so that they could main­tain the beau­ty of our na­tion­al sites and at­trac­tions.”

His ad­vice to oth­er en­tre­pre­neurs

“God placed in each of us a tal­ent. It’s up to us to de­ter­mine whether we bury it or make the most out of it. I buried mine in the world of work. Two years be­fore I quit en­gi­neer­ing, pho­tog­ra­phy and videog­ra­phy were not even a hob­by on my re­sume.

Luck­i­ly I was able to find it through giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ties that nur­tured me and it has de­liv­ered for me ten­fold. Take the time to un­lock your po­ten­tial, the world is wait­ing!

Wedaward is a com­mu­ni­ty of the best wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers from all around the world. Best in­ter­na­tion­al wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers can share their pho­tos and per­son­al in­for­ma­tion on the Wedaward web­site and com­pete with each oth­er in a Wedaward month­ly com­pe­ti­tion! At the end of each con­test year, the TOP 10 Best Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phers in the world are award­ed.

https://wedaward.com/en/page/about_awards/top/2023