We were lucky to catch up with Jasen Alfrena recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jasen, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I knew I wanted to pursue a creative path in life when I was huge on drawing my favorite anime characters at just the 3rd and 4th grade. Drawing was something that I really loved to do and at that time, at that young of age I thought I was going to become an artist dealing with solely drawing for the rest of my life.

Jasen, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hey I go by Vito and I am a full-time 26year old, Haitian-American Artist living in Philadelphia, PA. I moved to Philly from New York back in 2003. Furthermore I have my Bachelors Of Arts degree in Media & communications at Temple University from 2019.

So I’ve been doing what I do dealing with Videography and Photography for ten plus years now, I’m also a video editor. I started video editing back in 2009, 2011 I started picking up a camera to shoot photos, 2015 was when I started to dive into videography and 2020 that’s when I started to shoot film photos!

As I got older with being an Artist I’ve learned that you have to really be obsessed with what you truly want to do for the rest of your life. Having a purpose is a beautiful thing to live for. And with that mindset, determination, and overall hard work, opportunities have come to present themselves to further me along in my career . I am for sure grateful for every last one! I stand by knowing this is all I want to do with my life, for the rest of my life so I put my heart and soul into it. So I always tell people to find something they would want to do for the rest of their life and stay true to it, put the work in and genuinely care about whatever you decide to pursue.

When it comes photography I do shoot digital work more so for clients. I never really wanted to limit myself to one genre of photography work but my favorite to shoot is portraiture. Majority of my personal work deals with portraits on film to be exact, either 35mm film or 120 film. I have been shooting film for three years now going on four! If you take a look at my website that’s where you can truly witness how much of a range I have in creating my art!

( www.jaysvito.com )

( FAVORITE FILM CAMERAS TO SHOOT WITH MAMIYA RB67PROS, CANON AE -1, OLYMPUS STYLUS 150 )

When it comes to Videography I also don’t like limiting myself to one style or one genre, I love to shoot videos of a little bit of everything, WEDDINGS, RECAP CLUB VIDEOS, CONCERTS, YOUTUBE VIDEOS, ETC. So it does range!

( VIDEO CAMERA SONY A7sIII )

I’m proud of the route I took in my life to become an Artist. And the fact that getting into something solely to get ” Paid ” isn’t what drives me to keep on going everyday, I’m happy for myself about that which is very important to me. Along this creative journey though I’ve met so many great people, each year I feel like I’m getting even better with my craft so I’m happy! In short, freedom itself has always been the goal.

( INSTAGRAM: @jaysvito )

A problem I typically think I solve a lot of the time is when a client comes to me an ask about studio space they are looking for to get photos and or videos done in an I tell them, ” Hey I own a studio, what exactly do you need done? ” . It’s a great feeling to just have a creative space of your own to not only invite clients to come through but a space where you as the Artist can work out of to create your own personal art. August of this year will make it 1 YEAR of having the space itself.

( @ten96studios ) .

I’d say I’m heavily inspired by working with other artists on a project together, observing other artists work whether it’s through social media, photo books or just me being on set observing them make something new for themselves, it’s beautiful learning experience. Theirs times where I do get in creative ruts and a lot of the time one thing that gets me out of it is long walks in the city with a 35mm camera in my hand with headphones in my ears, it’s such calming/therapeutic thing for me to do and in doing so I get ideas popping up in my head again!

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Non-creatives will struggle to understand a true artists commitment to his/her craft. And what I mean by that is them just not really seeing the artist friend around too much, their focus is, majority time about creating. And that’s how I’ve lived my life, just heavily focused on what I love to do most with time which is take photos and or shooting/editing videos. And my mind itself is always on go thinking about what else I can create and sometimes that looks like me in a room by myself just thinking, thinking and thinking till that idea finally pops up in my head and I’m ready to go and create once again!

So as an artist time to myself is a very important thing, that’s all.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Back in 2017 I worked at an electronic store, before that I worked at a retail store folding clothes all day, before that my very first job ever was knocking on peoples doors, trying to sell News Inquirers. These Jobs I look back at now, I could never go back to do any of them because of how resilient I am today.

In 2017 I got fired from my electronic store job and since then I promised myself I would never go into any Job that had nothing to do with my purpose/passion in life. so anything that didn’t have nothing to do with photography/videography I wouldn’t get into. Till this day I’ve kept that promise to myself and after I graduated from Temple University back in 2019 I was blessed a couple months later getting a job dealing with videography solely for a retail company called DTLR which they had me shooting videos of clothes on models but also different shoe drops on models for them. Fast forward to last year ( 2022 ) I left that job early September of 2022 to open up my very own creative studio space with my friend and that’s where I’m at today!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jaysvito.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaysvito/
• Twitter: @jaysvito
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmzWDrQ_IUNdHyhGEtZKW3g

Image Credits
Mildred: LADY WITH HORSE ON A FARM PHOTO Ashley: RED CURLY IN BOTENTICAL GARDEN PHOTO Kerrigan: DISCO BALL HELMET PHOTO Roger: RED ASTRO BOOTS PHOTO Joanna: THE MATERNITY PHOTO Luca: THE MIME PHOTO ( ALL THESE PHOTOS WERE SHOT ON FILM, 120 FILM TO BE EXACT. )