We recently connected with Kwesi Mark and have shared our conversation below.

Kwesi, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you wish you had started sooner?

There are definitely times when I wish I had started my photography career earlier. This is a career where you learn things as you go along doing it. And sometimes I think alot of those lessons would of been so beneficial if I started off earlier in my career. But this might all just be coming from hindsight. I try to still myself everything happens for a reason and the idea that you should be in certain place’s and spaces in your life at certain ages isn’t a real concept. There’s so many people who started careers way later on in their life who ended up successful. Also who can say things would have worked out for me if I did start earlier. So many people have grinded for years without any without any type of movement, until way later on in their life. Everyone pace in life is different.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m Kwesi Mark, originally from Brooklyn, NY. Now an Los Angeles based photographer and creative director. I draws inspiration from film cinematography, iconic album art, and my life growing up as a New York City transplant from St. Lucia.

So initially me getting into photography was an accident. My friends wanted me on instagram but I mainly used twitter and wasn’t interested in it. This was back when instagram was first popping off and twitter was in it’s prime. I want to say 2013, 2014. So I had no interest , but my friends pretty much said make one or they’ll make one for me. And knowing them it it would of been something stupid, so I said ok. But I told myself that if I was going to do it, it would have to be interesting photos. Not like photos of cars, food or me in the gym. And being from NYC I love walking around, I always taking walks, so I just started taking street photos with my phone on those walks.

So I did that for around two years, and at the time I was a writer for a magazine called Artsy. I was going a cover piece for this photo called Ming Smith. She’s been a photographer since the 70’s and shot a lot of prominent black figures. During the interview at her studio I started talking about some of my walk photos, she asked to see some, liked them so much she gave me one of her old digital camera’s. It was at Canon G9, a point & shot I still have and use to this day.

So from there I used that G9 to take street photos, then eventually decided to upgrade to an Interchangeable lens camera. I was feeling the limitations of that G9. Around that time a couple of my friends decided to start an event company called The Wave NYC. I say company, but at that time it was just house parties and back yards; now it’s big venues and parks. But yeah I was the dude with the camera that they knew, so I would start taking photos for them. And that’s really when I started taking more photos of people, because I was still mostly street. So because I was taking photos for them from the beginning, from those house parties all the way to the venues, I got pretty good at shooting people. My event background really plays a part in my portrait photography now, because I really had to learn to get a shot from someone. So lets say I see someone at an event that’s cool that I want to take a photo of, I would interact with them in a way that’ll allow me to showcase what I saw in them and get the photo I wanted.

So I did even work for a while, and got pretty good at it and known for it. Eventually other people besides my friends would book me for their events, to do BTS on things like video shoots or movies etc. But after so many years I really got bored of it. There’s nothing wrong with event work, but I eventually started going on auto pilot, since I did for so long. There wasn’t a challenge to it, and you can’t really express yourself creatively with it as much. Which is why I decided to switch to more portrait work, specifically strobe work in studio.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

One story that comes to mind is when my mindset on photography as a business changed. Over the years I have come to know a good amount of creatives and industry people. And I would see the projects and campaigns they would work on and kinda get mad that they didn’t reach out to me to do the photo work for them. My mindset back then was “we’re cool, I was just at a party or event with you, you know I do photography and yet you never think of me.” But I had to change that mindset. I used to go out alot and I would say I’m doing it for networking. Which was true, but I realized that the amount of people I know, really wasn’t equaling more jobs, the ratio was off. So I came to the realization that yes I was cool with these people, and they’re invite me to things, put me on list and send me free stuff, but they weren’t thinking about me in a work mindset. And it wasn’t their fault, it was my fault. Yeah they know me, but I didn’t have the work to showcase the type of gigs I wanted to do. So thats when I decided I was going to redo my portfolio and try to shoot the type of photography I would like to get work for.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

This might sound strange, but I really like light. I really enjoy taking studio equipment and creating cool lighting with them. I work at a production studio and one of my favorite things is seeing the cool sets and lighting setups our clients do. And just seeing all the creative ways they shoot things. Once I understood light and all the things that is used to create the photos and videos you see, my world changed. I love being on set and trying to figure out how to make a concept work. I love looking at films and guessing how they lit something or get inspiration for a shoot from them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kwesimark.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elkwesi_/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kwesi-mark-99bb6425b/

Image Credits
Nana Razaia, Lia Bass. Kaytranada, Megan Thee Stallion, Chloe Bailey, Asad Peterson, Emre Celik