Meet Masai

Mustapha- Tell me about yourself.

Masai- I’m from jersey city; I do photography and videography. I still have much to learn in both areas, but I'm learning and growing.

Mustapha- How would you describe your style of photography?

Masai- My style is pretty much vibe-based like I want to create a mood or invoke some kind of feeling in the viewer. Everything I do with my stuff is captioned with a song I have in mind, so I feel it's built around that. So if you look at one of my photos and listen to the song, it's like, oh, that makes sense.

Mustapha- What stories do you try to convey through your photographs?

Masai- I’ve had one experience where I tried story-based photography based on this one idea that this girl I knew approached me with, and she wanted to depict a toxic relationship. 

Mustapha- Do you feel like you want to do more story-based photography? 

Masai- I’d definitely be open to it. 

Mustapha- Does the idea have to be brought to you, or are you looking for things to inspire you to tell a specific story?

Masai- Uh, at that moment, I just did because the idea was brought to me, but if I could think of something like that on my own, I definitely would. It's just a matter of finding the right stuff to be inspired by and like what kind of story I would want to tell with that.

Mustapha- Is there any way you try to incorporate your culture into your photos?

Masai- I guess from the standpoint of me being a black creative and just showing what I can do as a black creative, I don’t think that I’ve necessarily tried to incorporate culture into anything that I’ve done so far, but I would be open to doing that in the future, but right now I’m just showing off what I capable of. 

Mustapha- Being a black creative, do you feel like the field of photography is predominantly white, or is it inclusive all around?

Masai- You could argue that pretty much anything is not that inclusive, but with photography, it's pretty much an open world as long as you have a creative mind and the skills to show off what goes on in your mind and the right people notice it. I feel like it's open to whoever is interested and hungry to learn and grow as a creative. As long as your work isn’t ass, you’ll be alright.

Mustapha- How much does social media influence the way you approach shoots, like when you do a shoot, do you consider how it will look on different phones, computers, or social media platforms like Instagram, Tiktok, and Twitter?

Masai- No, not really I  pretty much just approach someone with the mindset of, I have this idea, I think you fit it, and if you’re interested, I’d like to plan everything out with them to see where it goes from there, but also I'm really careful with how I do it too because we're in a time where you have bots in peoples comments and DM’s trying to hack pages so you have to be real cautious about that. Sometimes I'll even send them the work on my photography account so they know I'm legit and not trying to scam them. You also hear stories of creepy photographers who just want to see women get naked in front of a camera. It’s all about your approach, and I try to approach people I want to work with as carefully and as genuinely as I can so they know, like, ok, I can trust him; he’s not on some weird shit. 

Mustapha- What are some of your essential items/ equipment for shoots?

Masai- For shoots, well, obviously, I got to bring my camera; no matter what I’m doing, I always carry five extra batteries; sometimes, if I’m doing a shoot that requires lights, I do have one of those LED light sticks so I also make sure I come with that, I want to do more shoots with fish eyes, but I’ve had two in the past, and I’ve broken both of them. 

Mustapha- How did you break both of your fish eyes?

Masai- The first one I had, I stuck it onto the camera, and I think I tightened it too tight, and it would just not come off, and when I was putting the second one on, and I was tying it too tight at the bottom, and that one got stuck too. So pretty much, they both got stuck. I want to invest in better equipment like better lenses, a reflector, and more lighting equipment.

Mustapha- Would you be interested in studio photography, like getting backdrops and props?

Masai- oh yeah, definitely

Mustapha- What do you find more stressful, the actual shoot itself or the edits in post?

Masai- Honestly, neither of those has been that stressful to me. The one thing I usually stress myself out about with shoots is finding people for ideas. Like, I’ll have this one idea, and I have this one person that I really think would fit it, but then there's this whole thing with scheduling, or they just won’t respond. That kills my shit the most when they don’t respond, but I'm usually at ease once I get the person I want to work with. It’s not that big of a deal, though, because I do have time to run these ideas it’s just I put unnecessary stress on myself. 

Mustapha- What’s been the most interesting part of your journey as a photographer?

Masai- The most interesting part has been the aspect of meeting new people, whether I’ve shot them or it’s someone helping me out with shoots; it’s been nice getting to know them and see how their mind works and all that, how open they are with the stuff that I come to them with and people that I’ve met that also do what do, I feel like they helped shape and influence how to approach things now because I’ve been doing this for two years and as I go I still take everything as a learning experience.

Mustapha- You said you’ve been doing photography for two years, right?

Masai- Yeah

Mustapha- Did you have a mentor, and if so, how influential have they been in your process?

Masai- I have had people I’ve been around and seen work that inspired me to try different things as I went, like the one example I can think of is my boy Trey; the summer I met him, I was going on every shoot, he had, and I was just doing things like assisting and just watching like ok he does it this way so let me see if I can try it that way because I had ideas in my head already, but he got me into concept shoots so It’s pretty much been watching him work and just saying to myself ok how can I do what he’s doing but put my twist on it whether it be basic shit like shooting vertical instead of horizontally or something as simple as shooting on manual instead of auto. For the longest, I would be shooting on auto and sitting there waiting for it to focus, which would piss me off so badly. I would also do a lot of my shoots at like one or two in the afternoon, and at one point, my other boy Corey who’s a photographer, Mcfleezus, I think you know him, but he told me to stop shooting at one and two in the afternoon and when he said that I realized how much unnecessary work I’ve been putting on myself. 

Mustapha- I had to learn that the hard way; you can either shoot early in the morning, blue hour, golden hour, or at night with really good lights.

Masai- I did a parking garage shoot at one in the afternoon before, and I probably could’ve waited till it was night; it probably would’ve looked a lot better then. 

Mustapha- Yeah, but that is also what we discussed before with the scheduling issues, especially if you have a certain concept in mind and the model you’re working with is only available at one in the afternoon; it's like, damn, that's not going to cut it. Then you try to work around it, but that prolongs the process, and to me, at least, it becomes strenuous because it’s like, damn, I had it set on this day I knew what the weather was going to be like I felt confident and the more you put it off, the more work you have to do. 

Masai- It also makes you anxious because when it's an idea, you’re excited to run, and you have to wait a certain amount of time for them to have that time in their schedule you’re just like, damn, I wanted to execute this as soon as possible.

Mustapha- What do you manifest In your work or have manifested in your work?

Masai- I feel like its a mix of both going with the flow and manifestation because, on one end, I have seen people and thought I want to work with them or they would go great with this idea I’ve been sitting on, but then sometimes I just want to do something a little bit looser so I’ll just pull any random person I see and ask them do you want to do this shoot I have in mind. For future instances, I aim to get into more music videos and connect in the industry.

Mustapha- What makes you bloom as a creator?

Masai- A lot of things, to be honest, because I draw my ideas off of things that I've seen or heard if there's a certain movie I watch and I’m blown away by how it looks visually, it’s like ok can I do something like this on my terms, or whether it be with a certain song or album cover it's the same reaction of ok can I do something like this but on my terms and in my style. How can I incorporate my style in these mediums, and would it work

Mustapha- For the most part, does it work when you do that?

Masai- I’d like to think so 

Mustapha- Do you have anything coming up that the people should know about?

Masai- I do have a few things that I’m planning to do, whether that be shoots or video projects I don’t want to say too much because its one of the things I want people just to see and not know about, like I don't want to say it and you guys are expecting it just know somethings coming.

Mustapha- Are you open for bookings?

Masai- Oh yeah, always just hit my DM’s, please I need money 

Mustapha- And where can they find you?

Masai- They can find me at Masimapple99, and for photography, just hit me on my other page, flicksbymasi, Thank you for having me.

Mustapha- Anytime, man it was a pleasure.