Bo­bie-lee Dixon

Fash­ion mod­els in mag­a­zines or on bill­boards al­most al­ways look per­fect. The in­tent is for you to feel very much a part of that pic­ture when you look at it–bring­ing what's still, to life. This is the chal­lenge that ex­cites Lon­don-based Trinida­di­an pho­tog­ra­ph­er Don­ald Michael Cham­bers.

With­out for­mal train­ing, the 35-year-old has proven that some­times tal­ent is all you need.

Cham­bers is af­fil­i­at­ed with Elite Mod­el Man­age­ment, one of the world's most pres­ti­gious mod­el man­age­ment agen­cies. And in a re­cent in­ter­view on the Elite web site, he opened up about his in­flu­ences, ear­ly years as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er and the ups and downs of life in the fash­ion in­dus­try. The nephew of for­mer politi­cian and Olympian Wen­dell Mot­t­ley has cer­tain­ly writ­ten his own chap­ters–as he hasn't pur­sued his ca­reer in the con­ven­tion­al way.

He told Elite his pas­sion for pho­tog­ra­phy was sparked while do­ing his BA in In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, at the Ohio Wes­leyan Uni­ver­si­ty in the US. He used dis­pos­able cam­eras to record the mem­o­ries of the re­la­tion­ships and good times he forged dur­ing the four years there.

"I was pas­sion­ate about pho­tog­ra­phy for quite some time, but could nev­er shake the self-doubt of whether this was some­thing I could ac­tu­al­ly do and be okay at," he said. "While hold­ing a reg­u­lar nine to five job, I took lots of pic­tures of fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends and spent hours watch­ing YouTube tu­to­ri­als.

I went home to Trinidad one year and pho­tographed our Car­ni­val. If you have not been, the colours and en­er­gy of this event make it a pho­tog­ra­ph­er's dream."

What hap­pened next would shock Cham­bers. Short­ly af­ter re­turn­ing to Lon­don, he at­tend­ed a pho­to fair host­ed by pho­tog­ra­phy com­pa­ny Canon. He went armed with a port­fo­lio made up most­ly of those Car­ni­val im­ages.

At the fair he met Susie Grelt, an ed­i­tor at Get­ty Im­ages, who ob­vi­ous­ly fell in love with what she saw, be­cause Cham­bers left the event with a con­tract.

"I was ex­pect­ing con­struc­tive crit­i­cism and guid­ance. I got a con­tract! I was shocked, ex­cit­ed, and what I guess felt was most im­por­tant at the time–val­i­dat­ed," he told Elite.

He soon gave up his nine to five job and turned his at­ten­tion to mak­ing a liv­ing from pho­tog­ra­phy.

Pho­tog­ra­phers like Tim Het­her­ing­ton, An­nie Lei­bovitz, Dar­ren Filkins, Michael Hef­fer­nan and Guy Aroch have been sources of in­spi­ra­tion and he be­lieves that the pho­tog­ra­ph­er's con­nec­tion with the mod­el on set is what makes a great shoot and by ex­ten­sion, great pho­tos.

When asked who he would most want to pho­to­graph, ac­tress Liv Tyler was his pick.

"She's a gor­geous woman with stun­ning fea­tures who comes across as hav­ing a very dy­nam­ic spir­it. It would be a dream to cap­ture all of that on cam­era and in my own way," said Cham­bers.

Cham­bers was ini­tial­ly in­ter­est­ed in doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­phy, but af­ter spend­ing more time learn­ing the nu­ances of pho­tog­ra­phy he was drawn to­wards fash­ion pho­tog­ra­phy.

"I was at­tract­ed by the cre­ativ­i­ty it of­fered and all the el­e­ments of pro­duc­tion, art and lifestyle that went in­to the mak­ing of a fash­ion im­age," said Cham­bers.

He said de­spite all the neg­a­tive feed­back he re­ceived about fash­ion pho­tog­ra­phy be­ing un­re­ward­ing and too much work, he fol­lowed his heart any­way.

Cham­bers who al­so holds a Mas­ters in Mass Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, nev­er thought he would have a ca­reer in pho­tog­ra­phy.

But he has no re­grets, and in a brief tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian he wants to come back to Trinidad and pass on his knowl­edge of pho­tog­ra­phy.

"I was home last year and I did some work for Heather Jones and Pe­ter Elias. I am al­ways open to com­ing back home. As a mat­ter of fact, I have been con­tact­ed by some who would like me to host work­shops for up and com­ing pho­tog­ra­phers. It's a good thing and it's pos­si­ble," he said.

For those want­i­ng to get in­to pho­tog­ra­phy, Cham­bers had a mouth­ful of ad­vice: "Make a good busi­ness mod­el at the very start; spend hours re­search­ing and learn­ing. Find a good pho­tog­ra­ph­er be­come their as­sis­tant and see what you learned and more be­ing put in­to prac­tice; don't let self-doubt keep you back. I'm not sure that my self-doubt will ever leave but I use it to keep push­ing me to get bet­ter and bet­ter. You have one life to live - live it, love it and en­joy it; and try a scotch with co­conut wa­ter be­fore you die."

Mod­els: Nan­cy Ser­le, Hen­ry Shoe­brook, Paul Kerr, Tom Watts (Lon­don), Bre Romeo and Soowan Bram­ble (Trinidad)

Hair and make-up: Francesca Per­ren, Tama­ra Tott (Lon­don), Shan­non Cock­burn and Kel­ly Finner­ty

Styling: Kyan­isha Mor­gan (Lon­don), Re­nee Boatswain.

Pho­tos: Don­ald Michael Cham­bers, with as­sis­tance from Re­nee Boatswain (Trinidad)