JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Photography comes to life

by

20130325

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)


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored