We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Masai Maple . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Masai below.
Masai, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So, let’s imagine that you were advising someone who wanted to start something similar to you and they asked you what you would do differently in the startup-process knowing what you know now. How would you respond?
If I were starting over, I’d definitely take more time to factor in the little things because they do make a big difference, I always used to shoot vertically for some reason. But I broke out of that eventually. Another one would be making more use of the environments I shoot in and investing in better editing software. Before I started using Lightroom, I edited certain shoots through Google photots.
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.
My name is Masai Maple and I’m a photographer and videographer based in Jersey City. Growing up, I remember always being into movies in fact, some of my earliest memories are of when I was in preschool and they’d show us all types of movies like The Lion King, the Raimi Spider-Man movies, and even Ninja Turtles 3. Back in high school too, I even had a youtube channel where I’d make these unofficial music videos out of already existing music videos for that specific artist. Eventually, I decided I wanted to make my own visuals and stories, whether with music videos, short films, or whatever. When I started college and began majoring in media arts, I found myself taking a class where we got to work with DSLR cameras, and remember being fascinated with how they worked. From there, I rented one from school and had a photoshoot with my best friend in her dorm, and at that moment, that’s when I really fell in love and knew this was something I could also see myself doing visually as well. Overtime, like maybe a year or two after that, I got a camera of my own, and the rest just goes from there.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
My mission for right now is pretty much just to have fun, keep building my portfolio, and get my resume up. In the long run, though, I would love to have connections in the music industry and run shoots and videos with different types of artists whether it be for tours, album covers, or even for magazines too.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
For me, personally, the most rewarding aspect of being a creative is just the feeling and the freedom to make what feels right to you. Sometimes, what people forget is that with creatives, their work is an extension of themselves so with every post you see, it’s pretty much me showing different aspects of myself or how I may see the world sometimes. At first, it was a weird feeling, to share and post my work for the first time but as time went on you’ll adopt kind of an “I did this for me” mentality, and at the end of the day that’s all that matters. Just make what you want and tell the stories you want to tell and whoever rocks with it rocks with it.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @flicksbymasi
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPxoxAVOoxifvmCIIBQXmwg