From Jass Durhal's joyful commercial and lifestyle portraits for brands like Nike and Adidas to Adreinne Waheed's poignant documentary storytelling, these photographers from The Luupe's global photography community have unique and distinctive ways of seeing.

Whether they're in London, Belgium, New York City, Nairobi, or many other cities around the world, get to know their work and collaborate locally on your next project.

Interested in working together? Click on the link below their name and we'll set something up!

Grace Ekpu is a Nigerian photojournalist and filmmaker based in West Africa. Ekpu works on socially-driven stories with a unique and intimate approach rarely seen in contemporary photography. Ekpu has shown work at internationally recognized galleries, published widely in digital and print form, and covered assignments for major media organizations and non-governmental organizations including UNICEF, Action Aid, and the British Red Cross. She’s currently a reporter with the Associated Press covering oceans.

Jass Durhal uses electric, colorful hues, and deep, eye-locking connections to empower the people in front of her lens. Whether she’s photographing a campaign for Nike or making personal portraits like “Soul - Gangsta Grandma,” Durhal elevates her sitters with passion, strength, empathy, and spirituality.

The self-taught, Detroit-born, LA-based photographer began her career ten years ago and quickly learned on the go. She excelled through DIY ethos and with the help of generous mentors who inspired her, refining her impeccable use of lighting and nuanced attention to how color can impact psychology and mood. Enamored by these qualities, we invited Durhal to join our community.

Teniola Komolafe is a portrait and stills photographer based in Sydney. She was born in Nigeria, raised on both coasts of the United States, and now calls Australia home.

She has worked with amazing productions, creative teams, and wonderful people such as Vogue Australia, Google, Darlinghurst Theatre Company, Screen Australia, and the Sydney Opera House.

Adreinne Waheed is a photographer, photo editor, and book author based in Brooklyn, NY, and Berkeley, CA.

Waheed has been making images since age 13. Her photography appears in the NAACP's Twenty 20 in Black; has been published by The New York Times, i-D, British Vogue, Cosmopolitan, National Geographic, and Photo District News; and has been featured by Spotify and Curology. She has exhibited at Betti Ono Gallery, AAMP, SFMOMA Artists Gallery, Long Gallery Harlem, and the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts.

As a photo editor, she has produced and directed numerous shoots for publications including Vibe, King, and Essence. Her photo research work can be seen in the books Prince: A Tribute to his Royal Badness and Black Women in Hollywood: A Salute to Trailblazers at the Oscars.

In 2010, Adreinne created the Waheed Photo Archive, an extensive collection of found portraits of the African American community from the Civil War to the present. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) acquired the archive in 2015. Selected images from this collection and a related essay can be found in NMAAHC’s book, Everyday Beauty.

Her acclaimed photo book Black Joy and Resistance is now sold out.

Sade Fasanya is a Nigerian-American photographer based in NYC. She frequently travels around the world, highlighting and documenting the unique stories of diverse communities and cultures. Sade works across portraiture, film, street, and documentary photography, using empathy to photograph moments in time.

As the co-founder of the visual artist collective, Souls in Focus, Sade builds spaces to inspire, educate and connect the community to culture through varying visual media forms. Her works are currently archived at The Brooklyn Museum and she’s been published and featured in NPR, Buzzfeed, W Magazine.

Melody was born in Miami and always knew she wanted to be a photographer. She pursued her love of capturing the moments and communicating her subjects' unique perspectives and personalities ever since.

She's delivered art for clients such as HBO Max, Billboard, Instagram, ESPN, MTV, Universal Music Group, and more. Inspired by femininity, soulfulness, and color, Melody's lifestyle, editorial, and commercial photography is always consistent in its rhythm, colors, and attention to delicate details.

Aisha Ife is a photographer from Lagos, Nigeria. She specializes in Product and Portrait photography and has a keen passion for art, architecture, and design. She considers photography a means of expression both for her subjects and herself.

Her work focuses on preserving timeless moments for clients of diverse backgrounds. By allowing them to be vulnerable and emotional, she can capture their true essence. As a product photographer, Aisha uses color, geometry, texture, and her love for design to help ambitious brands tell authentic stories.

Jessica Sarkodie is a Ghanaian photographer, writer, and traveler. Her work predominantly comprises travel and documentary narratives, with an insistence on rawness - an attempt to exhibit people and scenes as they are.

She partners with inventive brands like The Body Shop, Hanahana Beauty, Vlisco & Co, and Osei-Duro on stories and campaigns highlighting great design, off-the-beaten-path sustainable travel, and lesser-known cultural narratives.

Sasha Kelley is an Oakland-based multidisciplinary artist who explores collective archives, divine archetypes, and collaboration with Black/brown/queer communities. Sasha Kelley has exhibited at Sonoma County Museum, Krowswork, Somarts Cultural Center, and Bettio Ono Gallery.

Their work is featured in the permanent collection at BAMPFA and has been published in Fader, Umber Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Black Futures by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham. In March 2023, Sasha will be participating in Black Space Residency, while also premiering a new series of social practice works at Swim Gallery.

Sydney Seabron is a documentary filmmaker, and cinematographer, who weaves visual magic through her lens, capturing stories that inspire and uplift the human spirit. With a signature style marked by soft imagery, composed frames, and emotive lighting, she invites the viewer on a journey to discover the limitless possibilities within themselves.

Her mission is to empower all individuals and brands to find their own definition of freedom, to ignite a spark that burns bright and true. Select clients include Google, American Express, Live Nation Urban, Exposure Labs, We The Culture (Meta), Bronner Bros., and Black Love.

Nathalie Gordon grew up in London and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. She started her creative journey in the entertainment industry, where she learned the art of storytelling through a lens.

Lighting is Nathalie’s love language. After honing her skills as a photographer's assistant, she developed her own signature style- bright, bold and full of color, which she brings to beauty and fashion brands like Vulkan, Eco Style, and The Lip Bar, and publications like Essence, where she recently photographed an editorial collaboration with Coca Cola.

Diane Allford bridges photographic genres, from runway photography and commercial work to personal essays on life and culture in New York City. Her vision comes together in its attention to light and the theater of every day - whether it's capturing that energy organically, or with some level of commercial staging.

Allford's photos have been featured in numerous international publications including Vogue Italia, Bustle, and Simon and Schuster books, and recently appeared in Cadilac's "Audacity of Blackness" commercial.

Ayesha Kazim is a photographer working between New York City, Cape Town, and London. She utilizes analog and digital mediums to capture the intimate, transient moments of everyday life. Her British, Nigerian, and South African background influences her desire to create nuanced portraits that speak to a wide range of audiences and communities. Ayesha’s creative practice balances introspection and curiosity as she photographs subjects exuding resilience, power, and quiet confidence.

Ayesha has been fortunate enough to work with clients including Airbnb, Dior, and Adobe. Her work has also been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, and CNN.

Tobi Sobowale is a British-Nigerian Multidisciplinary Artist and Photographer from South London. Specializing in Beauty and Fashion photography, she has been shooting professionally since 2020. She has a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Architecture.

Her work primarily looks at capturing the overlooked quieter expressions of people, primarily black women. She explores the complexity and dynamism of the black woman who is often presented as strong. Through visual storytelling, Tobi uses color, composition, and lighting to evoke emotion and thought for those who experience the work she creates.

Stephanie Matthews is an award-winning creative director, photographer, producer, and mentor. With over 16 years of experience, her work has been published in the U.S. and internationally and includes brand campaigns, celebrity magazine covers, fashion editorials, a Times Square billboard, private client projects, and gallery exhibitions.

Tiff J. Sutton is a portrait photographer. Her work is characterized by the Black gaze, dual perceptions, and unique landscape; by placing Black femininity at the forefront; through complex, layered images, and introspective portraits.

She has attended community colleges and Washington University in St. Louis. Sutton has been featured in NPR and Humble Arts Foundation. Sutton has won the Black Women Photographers + Nikon Grant and was a resident at the Gullkisten Center for Creativity in Laugartvn, Iceland in June 2022. She draws upon Black feminist thought to create abstract portraits of Black women. She is based in St. Louis, Missouri.

After retiring from nursing due to lupus Ashley discovered a love for the art of photography.

Photography became an outlet and an escape from her reality and health battles.

She takes great pride in her work and in capturing emotions of strength vulnerability, and boldness.

Ashley uses light to paint classic and elegant art that is inspired by Peter Lindbergh, Irving Penn, and Patrick Demarchelier.

Meika Ejiasi lives and works in Oakland, California. She loves capturing people, places, food, and emotion for clients like American Airlines, Peloton, Starbucks, and many local shops in the Bay Area.

Akilah Townsend is a self-taught African-American photographer from the Southside of Chicago. Her personal, editorial, and commercial photography draws from personal experiences and inward conversations of my culture and explores notions of Black life, especially Black women's lives in America while exploring ideas of value, beauty, and virtue through my practice. Star clients include The New York Times, Square, Foot Locker, Nike, Comcast, and Airbnb.

Ro Gina Montgomery is a Chicago-based photographer who specializes in modern storytelling imagery for families and brands.

Starting as a “mom with a camera” RoGina honed her skills by taking pictures of her kids and family. In the past five years, her work has been featured by Sony Alpha Universe, Travel Noire, and Getty Images, and past clients include Meredith Publishing, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.

RoGina aims to create images for all mediums including editorial, commercial and personal that depict stories of parenthood and modern family life.

Kelly Marshall is a New York-based photographer specializing in interiors, travel, food & portraiture. Her commercial and fine artwork intertwine to explore how belief systems create structures for our lives, our homes, and experiences. Marshall's work has been exhibited at The Museum of The African Diaspora (MOAD), Southern Exposure, PhotoVille, RUSH Arts, and is a collected artist of the Rockefeller Foundation.

Marshall is a regular contributor to The New York Times, Elle Decor & Architectural Digest. Clients include CB2, The Four Seasons, Pottery Barn, and T Brand Studio. She is a 2018 Lit List Awardee and is a proud member of The Luupe, Diversify Photo, Black Women Photographers, Women Photograph, and a board member of Color Positive, a directory of Black photo talent and arts mentorship programs for New York City schools. Currently, she is directing her first film, Birthing of a Nation- an afro-futuristic account of the reproductive justice movement and the healing arts of Black Women in America since 1619.

Daniella Almona is a Nigerian-born, and Atlanta-based portrait photographer. She is passionate about highlighting people of color in digital and film photography and showing the beauty, joy, and love in her community. “We deserve to feel powerful in our skin,” she says, “and that is my goal with every portrait I take.” I am intrigued by human connection, expression, and color theory, all of which influence my work as an artist.

Montreal-based photographer, Karene-Isabelle Jean-Baptiste, is interested in capturing and recording the world around her. She looks for elusive moments of magic that can appear and disappear in an instant within a scene or a human face. Her aim is to have those moments endure and express the depth of feeling that, at times, go unnoticed.

She was awarded the Photojournalism Diversity Grant by the newspaper La Presse in 2021 and received one of the inaugural grants by Black Women Photographers and Nikon USA in 2022. Her work has also appeared in The Guardian, CNN, NPR, The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Magazine, and La Presse

Taylor Washington is an editorial, lifestyle, and commercial photographer based in Los Angeles who uses film and digital photography to push a creative and aesthetic balance in her work. Her photography, which often focuses on people of color, reflects her identity and goal to enhance how people of color are portrayed: in the sun, expressive, dynamic, and unique.

Nicole Morrison is a food, product, and lifestyle photographer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She creates colorful, graphic images and GIFs that help brands tell their story. She likes to create an aspirational version of reality that feels like a sunny day. A touch of the surreal is always welcome. She is inspired by people and brands that work towards creating a more sustainable and just planet.

Born and raised in Belgium, with Nigerian heritage, Whitley grew up capturing and documenting life around her, from her friends and family to still life and nature.

After her Applied Economics studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, she turned to her hobby of photography as a career, now focusing on portraits and fashion. Inspired by feminine strength, diversity, and unique beauty, Whitley enjoys creating timeless and emotive imagery. Recent clients include Boston Consulting Group and Clavis Publishing

Award-winning writer and photographer Lola (Akinmade) Åkerström has photographed and dispatched from 70+ countries for various publications.

She is one of eight 2022 Hasselblad Heroines. Read more here.

She is the 2018 Travel Photographer of the Year Bill Muster Award recipient.

Her work has appeared in National Geographic, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Travel + Leisure, New York Times, Slate, Travel Channel, Adventure.com Magazine, The Sunday Times, AFAR, Lonely Planet, Fodor’s, several in-flight magazines, amongst others.

She has collaborated with high-profile commercial brands from Mercedes-Benz and Dove to Intrepid Travel and National Geographic Channel.

Lauren Crew is a multidisciplinary visual artist known for her emotive portraiture. Based in Los Angeles, Crew works as a commercial and editorial photographer and director. Her recent work for United Airlines and PGA Tour won an Anthem Award and in 2022, Crew’s work for Puma was awarded the International Motion Arts Awards, and Communication Arts Award of Excellence, and was selected for an American Photography Award. Some of Lauren’s clients include Apple, Google, The New York Times, and Healthcare.gov.

Her art photography has been exhibited at Art Basel in Miami and SomArts in San Francisco. Crew is currently working on a personal project exploring identity development. Her debut monograph will be published in Fall 2024.

Barbara Minishi has always been seduced by the surreal power of images and recognizes her life changed when she discovered her ‘true’ voice through working the camera.

Primarily self-taught through exploration & experimentation, she values the intimacy, connection, and belonging that photography gifts her as a tool to engage with herself, her community, and the world. She intends that the work she co-creates leaves a lasting connective, educative, and explorative legacy

To date, her eighteen-year career has been successful and impactful with its diverse selection of commissioned and personal work with people, products, and places in editorial, advertising, documentary, travel and fashion which she credits for gifting her the best growth foundation.

Fascinated by myth, mysticism, psychology, and the ‘Heroines Journey’; Barbara is currently evolving a long-term body of work, The 13th Path started in 2013 which combines her love for Fine Art, Fashion, Still Life, Video, and XR.

Yvette Cakpo is a Montreal-based photographer, born in France and of Beninese (African) origin. She specializes in commercial and editorial photography and portraits that combine elegance and aesthetics to highlight beauty in all its diversity. In winter 2022 she launched Portraits with Style, a webzine in which she portrays personalities from the business world and the arts with an atypical profile.

Hayley Benoit is a London-based photographer specializing in portrait, food, and lifestyle editorials for social and branded content. She has worked on film, television, and commercial productions; including a feature film at Lucasfilm and Disney where she worked as a unit stills and portrait gallery photographer. Her photography has been exhibited and recognized by the National Portrait Gallery as part of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Prize.

Taesirat Yusuf is A Nigerian Medical student and an internationally published multidisciplinary artist and curator based in Lagos, Nigeria. “I see my art,” she says, “as a way of documenting, bearing witness to experiences, and visualizing my creativity.”

Yusuf specializes in creative storytelling exploring the concept of gender identity, mental health, culture, and representation in my art practice. In 2022, she curated an exhibition for African women in arts called “Untapped” which went live in the Metaverse and in Chicago. Recent personal exhibitions include A group show at ART BASEL, Miami with Colds Collective, A Perfect Day group exhibition at Superchief Art gallery, Los Angeles, USA, and Balance group exhibition at Imnotart Gallery, Chicago, USA

Lucy Munene is an avid food photographer, videographer, food stylist, and food writer, whose work is greatly inspired by the growing international restaurant scene in Nairobi, Kenya. She loves to travel around the city trying out different dishes which inspire her art and feed her creativity. Her style ranges from dark and moody to bright and airy food photography with heavy saturation to really highlight the tastiest aspects of each dish.

Though her style is evolving, Lucy draws upon her love for food and constant curiosity in different photography and film styles to give each dish she shoots lots of character so that when people look at each image it evokes some emotion in them.

Deanna Griffin is an Atlanta Cinematographer & Camera Operator who loves to tell short-form stories. As a filmmaker, Deanna's mission is to tell the stories of underrepresented communities that deserve light shed on them. She also focuses on telling coming-of-age stories, developing advocacy projects that help uplift communities and areas that need a voice, and creating branded content & commercials.

After starting a fashion blog with a friend, Steph Bolton developed a practical, helpful one-stop studio under the pseudonym Phoenix Michele Photography. As Phoenix Michele, Bolton not only photographs her clients but also helps them brainstorm the most beneficial way to use the content they create.

Yolanda Hoskey photography is an unapologetic ode to melanin. In this storytelling climate calling for change, she fights the system by creating flawless images of black art that she adorns as what dhe describes as "a little creativity mixed with a little ghetto"; a nod to the East New York community that raised her.

Hoskey can be seen challenging traditional social norms and always pushing and putting use to the phrase “young, gifted, and Black." Her work has been published in Essence and Rangefinder and she frequently collaborates with Fujifilm.