We recently connected with Dumebi Malaika Menakaya and have shared our conversation below.

Dumebi Malaika, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?

My love for photography is closely tied to my love for people. There is something so special about being able to capture people the way that you see them which can often be quite different from the way they see themselves. In a perfect world, I would be able to make images free of charge but unfortunately the cost of equipment and simply living makes that impossible.

Generating income as an artist is hard. It is a game of sacrifice. There is a constant friction between creating work that aligns with your vision and creating work that generates enough money to keep you going. Coupled with the desire to make you art accessible to those who wish to engage with it while keeping in mind the importance of charging what your worth. Not to mention that for the majority of artist, artmaking alone is not sufficient then comes the challenge of deciding how much of your time you can allocate to unrelated jobs that take away from the time you get to create. Navigating these endless balancing acts can make pursuing art an extremely tiring endeavor but I am thankful that I know it is worth it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Growing up, I was certain that art was never going to be for me. I was convinced I did not have a creative bone in my body and was satisfied enough with my interest in mathematics to not let that bother me. I was introduced to film photography over the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic by a dear friend of mine and haven’t been able to put a camera down ever since.

I’m still in awe of how far I’ve come. I would have never imagined that I would go from taking causal images in suburban Maryland to creating work for the New York Times and UGG and having my work exhibited in galleries in New York City and my university, Harvard, all while still being an undergraduate student.

Now graduating this May, I have photographed for dozens of clients of a range of projects including portraits, events, concerts, fashion, album covers, and everything in between. I’m incredibly excited to continue to work with individuals and business to satisfy any photographic need.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I am convinced that there is nothing that can stop me from making pictures. Throughout having cameras stolen, being unable to afford film processing, and enduring extremely stressful gigs, I have persisted. One such obstacle was in my junior spring of college. Somehow with only about a year of experience, I was able to establish myself as a go-to photographer on campus. Throughout the year I had undergraduate organizations, university employees, current students, alumni and other university affiliates hiring me for a wide range of different projects as well as freelancing for clients outside of just my university into the greater Boston area and New York City all while not even owning a digital camera. When commencement season rolled around over 40 graduating seniors hired me to photograph their grad photos entirely on film. I was set to shoot an average of 3 clients per day over the two week period between the end of classes and the day of graduation. Being a junior I was expected to leave campus on the last day of class but I petitioned to stay so that I could take images for the graduating students. In the midst of some move out confusion, university cleaning staff mistakenly through away a box full of all of my film while I was in another room attempting to finish packing my entire dorm so I could relocate to temporary housing to stay on campus for commencement. I didn’t realize their error until hours later and as soon as I was aware I was sent on a panicked search asking the staff for help and even dumpster diving in the rat infested alley behind my dorm in search of the film but it was too late. I was absolutely devastated. My bank account was empty for purchasing the almost $1000 worth of film that had just been trashed. With dozens of grad shoots lined up I didn’t know what to do. All I knew that cancelling on them all and being the reason they didn’t have a record of one of the most important achievements of their entire lives was not an option. So I did something that was extremely uncharacteristic of me. I asked for help. Being raised in a low-income household by a single mother made me strongly value being independent so swallowing my pride and telling people about my problem was unthinkable. But as news spread about what had happened, support poured in from my fellow classmates donating extra rolls of film if they had it and enough money to replace most of the film that I had lost. I was in utter shock at the support I received and was able to purchase the film that I needed and photography every single student I had booked. It actually turns out that I photographed so many people in such a short period of time that my 30 year old medium format film camera broke on the very last frame of the very last shoot. Between replacing the film and replacing my camera, I didn’t turn a profit from that run but the experience of capturing such joyful moments and knowing that there were people who supported me enough to help me do so was invaluable.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Coming into college I was certain of how my life would go. I declared my major in Applied Mathematics and Economics and spent every summer interning in finance roles in the pursuit of a career in investment banking. It wasn’t until the summer before my senior year of college that I realized that this path wasn’t what I was called to do. I knew for sometime before then that I loved photography. I picked up a minor in Art, Film, and Visual Studies after returning to campus for the first time after a year of online education and spent that whole year cramming art classes next to my math requirements. But during that summer as I worked 12+ hour days in a finance internship all I could think about was when my next photoshoot would be or how I could use the money from that job to purchase new camera equipment. Spending the majority of my time in the office instead of exploring New York City through the lens of my camera began to weigh on me and by the end of the summer I knew that I had no choice but to forfeit the plan I had for myself in pursuit of the thing that I truly loved. Choosing a creative career over a lucrative and stable career in finance was simultaneously the hardest and easiest thing that I have ever done. Easy in that when you feel such a strong passion the obvious answer is to follow it yet difficult in that you are stripped of all the certainty you once found comfort in. Even now, months later, I still sometimes feel anxious about what the future holds but even so I know that life will always work itself out as long as you prioritize your passion.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://malaikamenakaya.art/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/malaika.menakaya/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dumebi/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/malaikamenakaya
• Other: https://malaikamenakaya.darkroom.com/ (print shop) https://www.tiktok.com/@dujufilmco (tiktok)