Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Demetrius Dumas. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Demetrius, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I learned film photography a lot by just trial and error of going out and taking pictures of what I felt like was interesting. As this cycle went on, I just started to take notice of certain things in a frame that I did and did not like to create and would just try to keep a consistent idea of what a good picture consists of and doesn’t. Whenever I would be free at the crib I would just look up composition techniques within photos that make the art itself more attractive. I fell in love with this idea of “rules” in a world of art where rules don’t have to be followed at all. With that, watching tons of media on the importance of lighting in photography just made me much more intentional with whatever I wanted to take a picture of and this drastically improved my attention to detail with the story I want to portray to the viewer within the final image. Knowing what I know now, I feel like the process could not have been sped up at all because it ultimately takes time to learn anything and this was only possible for me because I embraced mistakes and being uncomfortable from the start which I feel like allowed me to grow in every aspect of photography and continue learning how far the skill of consistency can get me. The only real obstacle that stood in the way of learning more was just my own misuse of time management sometimes where I was not locked in daily on just ensuring that I am striving for improvement in my craft. This just reminds me every day I can’t get comfortable with where I am at, gotta keep striving to get better every day.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Yoooo, my name is Demetrius. I am a 22 year old film photographer from Chicago, IL. I am currently based in Atlanta, GA. I created the brand “meecheyes” in December of 2022 after my travel abroad trip to the Dominican Republic during my senior year at Morehouse College. I just felt really inspired getting to capture moments and bringing it back to share with all my people through a lens I found so natural. I then had the opportunity to visit Ghana and Senegal in March 2023 with my new film camera that I had not really used as much as I wanted. This trip to West Africa was life changing and I caught most of my experience on film. I loved the outcome of the pictures as I am able to talk stories just off one image and the emotions it sparks in me to remember. From this point forward, I just felt a real joy in capturing moments of time with such freedom. I continued this by just getting more into the fields of portrait and fashion photography. I already loved the creative aspect of the fashion industry with how clothes are worn, and I already felt comfortable working with people so the camera just brings everything together to create art so unique. For my clients, I feel like I set myself apart from others just with my style of photography emphasizing the meticulous shots I create with direct intention of what I do and don’t include in the frame. I am most proud of my graduate portraits in May/June 2023. My first booking came from a Morehouse graduation shoot. It meant a lot to me that someone trusted me to take pictures for such a life milestone. I knew I never wanted to put the camera down after this.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist for me has just been finding a lot of joy in doing something that doesn’t feel like work. I get to create art that people love just by feeling out my own judgement in what is interesting to the eye. With this in mind, I get addicted to the feeling of creation that just keeps me wanting to make something daily. This loop of steady improvement just keeps me excited to keep capturing moments that people cherish forever.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I want to be one of the best film photographers ever who can capture something special in any location imaginable. I also want to be one of those resources anyone who is interested in the fields of art and creativity can learn from. These are my only two goals and they guide me every day to just keep going.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tiktok.com/@meecheyes
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meecheyes/

Image Credits
All images shot on film by me @meecheyes Instagram/TikTok