15 Emerging POC Women Photographers To Know
© Jheyda McGarrell
New York based Jheyda McGarrell is a multimedia artist and curator of Art Hoe, a creative platform for and by artists of colour to reclaim their own identities, bodies, and art. McGarrell is of Afro-Caribbean and Mexican heritage and in 2017 she published her women empowerment driven photobook "Becoming the Woman You'd Want Me to Be".
© Lubee Abubakar
Nigeria based fashion photographer and art director Lubabetu Abubakar, widely known as Lubee, started photography professionally in early 2016. After graduating and working professionally as a lawyer, she decided to pursue photography and art directing full time. Her work focuses on the notions of self, colour and documenting emotions. Abubakar won the 2016 award for Fashion Photographer at the Nigerian Fashion and Style Awards.
© Jabu Nadia Newman
Cape Town based writer, filmmaker and photographer, Jabu Nadia Newman's most recognised body of work is her intersectional feminist web series the Foxy Five which tackles political issues that affect the daily lives of young black women, however Newman is also a seasoned photographer, working between the genres of documentary and fashion photography.
© Victoria Leona
Teen photographer Vitoria Leona, from Belém, Brasil, communicates self-acceptance in her photography. Leona's work challenges societal ideals of beauty norms by capturing real female bodies. She has been a part of a few group exhibitions such as 'Bloom' at Copeland Gallery in London.
© Isabella Dias
Isabella Dias is a photographer, writer and actress, born and raised in Belém, Brasil, now based in New York currently majoring in psychology and theatre at SUNY. Her work focuses on female energy, the power and the magic women exude. Dias is a regular contributor for teen magazine Rookie.
© Ruth Ossai (For Kenzo)
Ruth Ginika Ossai grew up in Eastern Nigeria and is currently based in West Yorkshire. She is known for her portrait and studio photography that celebrates African Identity, particularly Nigerian identity and culture. Ossai’s works present honest narratives with complexity, beauty, and plurality both in a collective and individualistic sense. Her most recognised project to date is her collaboration with director Akinola Davies to create KENZO's SS17 fashion film titled 'Gidi gidi bu ugwu eze (Unity is strength)'.
© Brandie Wed
Brandie Wed is a Los Angeles based film photographer who primarily photographs young women of colour. Her portraiture and street fashion focused work showcases female unity, diversity and strength.
© Anaka
Anaka, also known as Anunaka, is a creator of analog and digital photography, film direction & editing, choreography and movement meditation, collage and archival documentation who seeks to re-appropriate the collective consciousness of artists in the diaspora and on the continent. Born in Portland Oregon, Anaka is now Joburg based. Her ongoing project Imagery is Infinite Archive is a universal archive of conscious artists that includes photos, video and audio that she has been collecting since 2013.
© Makeda Sandford
Makeda Sandford is a freelance portrait and editorial photographer, director and culture writer from Asheville, North Carolina. Her degree in mass communications and African Studies inspires her to create work that allows people of colour and youth to be more in control of their narrative. She is interested in exploring concepts of intersecting identity, dreamworlds, and the African diaspora.
© Manyatsa Monyamane
Manyatsa Monyamane is a multi award-winning Johannesburg based artist and storyteller, inspired and influenced by African literature, theatre, and everyday surroundings. She completed her BTech in Photography in 2016 at the Tshwane University of Technology. She currently has a solo exhibition at Lizamore Gallery titled Serithi. The body of work explores the depiction of powerful black women.
© Shingi Rice
Photographer, stylist and creative director Shingi Rice was born in east London, raised in southern England and southern Spain, by a Zimbabwean mother and Irish/English father. Rice is a self-taught photographer who first picked up a camera at 13, but didn't take it seriously until she was 18 and chose the path of fashion photography and portraiture at 20.
© Amarachi Nwosu (for Wonderland Magazine)
Amarachi Nwosu is a Nigerian-American self-taught photographer, filmmaker, writer and speaker based in Tokyo. She is the founder of Melanin Unscripted, a platform aimed to dismantle stereotypes and blur the racial lines by exposing complex identities and cultures around the world. Under her platform she has produced and directed films like “Black In Tokyo”, a short documentary that exposed the black experience of living in Tokyo, Japan.
© Haneem Chrsitian
Haneem Christian is a young photographer and creative director who began her creative journey in 2015 after working closely with her brother Imraan Christian on several projects, including Nike Golf global. She burst onto the scene as an independent photographer with her work from Adidas Area3 in 2017.
Photographer, art director and visual designer and performance artist Kanya Iwana was born in Jakarta, lives in Los Angeles and works in Los Angeles and New York City. Her visual work is vulnerable, romantic, dreamy, and cinematically driven.
© Krystal Neuvill
London based Creative Director and photographer Krystal Neuvill's work showcases a women’s soft and feminine nature whilst all the meanwhile being strong and powerful. Neuvill is part of a collective of women who created In Bloom, a creative agency, devoted to inspiring and uplifting through creative work. In Bloom is made up of photographers, artist, writers, musicians and more.