Culture photography.
Carnival, moko jumbies, quelbe, boat building, markets and the everyday. Documentary work made by someone who lives here, not someone who flew in for a week and photographed the same three things everyone photographs.
What cultural work covers.
Festival and carnival
Troupes, moko jumbies, J'ouvert and the parade. Shot with access rather than from behind a barrier.
Music and performance
Quelbe, scratch bands, steel pan and the venues they play in.
Craft and makers
Boat builders, basket weavers, distillers, bakers. The trades that are still here.
Markets and food culture
Vendors, produce, fish landings and the places food actually comes from.
Documentary and editorial
Longer form coverage for publications, tourism boards and cultural organisations.
Archive and heritage
Careful documentation of sites, objects and events for institutions and record.
Island life, as it happens.
How this work is made.
Start with the people
Cultural photography without relationships is extraction. We ask first, explain what it is for, and come back with prints.
Show up early and stay late
The good frames at carnival are at five in the morning and at the end when everyone is tired. Not in the middle.
Shoot with restraint
Documentary work goes wrong when the photographer becomes part of the event. We work small and quietly.
Deliver with context
Images come captioned with who, where and what, because a cultural image without context is a decorative one.
Culture photography, answered
Yes, across the USVI and BVI. It needs planning well ahead because access, routes and timing are set early.
Yes, and it should be. Cultural imagery is what distinguishes a destination from every other beach. We handle releases so it is cleared for commercial use.
Yes, including on non commercial and archival projects. Tell us the budget you have and we will tell you honestly what is possible.
We ask. For anything used commercially we get a release. For documentary and editorial work we follow standard practice and we will not publish an image someone has asked us not to.
Pairs well with
Working on something cultural?
Tell us the project. This is the work we care most about and we will find a way to make it work.