GREATEST: Shaniqwa Jarvis
From cover shoots with Obama to navigating the pandemic, the prolific photographer and creative reflects on last year and what lies ahead with best friend Shaina Feinberg.
For our feature with photographer Shaniqwa Jarvis, we asked her to document a photo series during her trip to Copenhagen at the beginning of 2020 (pre-pandemic). We hope these images serve as a refreshing juxtapose to the discussion between Jarvis and best friend Shaina Feinberg that openly recaps the past year and what lies ahead.
Photographer Shaniqwa Jarvis has shot emotionally charged portraits of Tessa Thompson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Cardi B, Trevor Noah, Janelle Monáe, SZA and most recently, former President Barack Obama. She’s lensed advertising campaigns for North Face, Supreme, Nike, adidas and the Standard Hotel and, this year, she designed a pair of sneakers for Converse. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Los Angeles and London. Her first book, the self-titled Shaniqwa Jarvis, is a collection of her work spanning two decades, which sold out almost immediately. Shaniqwa is most definitely a mover and shaker and she is also my friend—she has been for 33 years now. The two of us met as kids in public school in New York City. On a recent Monday morning, she talked to me about shooting our former POTUS, designing a sneaker inspired by her dad and the ups and downs of her life as a professional photographer.
— Shaina Feinberg
Shaniqwa is most definitely a mover and shaker and she is also my friend—she has been for 33 years now.
Shaina Feinberg
Can you believe we’ve known each other for 33 years?
No, because I feel like we’re 15 still.
Me too. I feel so young.
100%. When people work with me and I’m like, ‘I’m 43,’ they’re like, ‘What?’ I think [with looking young], there’s something to be said about fighting for the right thing. If you’re fighting for your right to follow your dreams or other people’s right to follow their dreams, you just look good. When you’re living out what you’re supposed to be doing in this world, your skin is clear!
Yes! Okay, so before anything else, I gotta ask you about Obama. Tell me everything.
It’s a sweet story. I worked with this woman Alana, maybe 13 or 14 years ago. We used to work together as photo editors for InStyle Magazine. She’s a photo editor for People now and she’s been trying to get me to shoot for them for a minute now. But each time the timing didn’t work out or it’s someone I’m not interested in shooting. Then she reached out and asked if I wanted to shoot former President Obama.
Were you shocked when you got the call?
No…
So what happened?
My agent was like, ‘Do you want to do this?’ And I was like, ‘I gotta think about this. Do I want to do this? Like, do I?’ I took the same amount of time I take to think over any assignment I get asked to do. I reached out to my team asking, ‘Are you available on this day?’ Everyone said yes. I wrote back to my agent and was like, ‘OK, let’s do it.’ People are now asking if I was nervous or if it was scary. It wasn’t. He is an amazingly charismatic, good-looking person. A great person to photograph, and I just went into it thinking that I wanted to get a great portrait of this person, just as I do with anyone that I shoot. I want people who love them to see it and be like, ‘This is that person, this is why I love them.’ That’s how I go about it every time.
But in preparing for the shoot, I realized at first that I was overthinking it. I was talking to my team when I realized that. So I stopped and was like, ‘I’m just gonna reference when I shot A$AP Ferg.’ With Ferg, I decided] to use simple things that mean everything to me: a floral couch, a simple chair, a simple carpet. I knew then that I was gonna shoot Obama like I shoot all of my rappers which I think worked for me.
I feel like you took the next iconic photo of Obama. I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass. I honestly have never seen a photo of him like this. The smirk he has on his face! That is so Shaniqwa. I feel like it blew up the internet. People are loving it. It feels new.
All the portraits that I take of everyone—that is the reaction that I want. I want to get who they are out of it. He and I were talking on-set and his whole team—the Secret Service—they were listening and when we finished some people were like, ‘You guys had really good banter.’ I felt like I just kind of blacked out. I had to do two covers with three setups, so I was just thinking about it mathematically. I was hyper-aware of just being me, so that he could be him as quickly as possible. I’m so fortunate that he gave me that glimpse of who he is.
Well, I love it. So, you’ve shot everyone now.
Well, not Beyoncé.
He and I were talking on-set and his whole team—the Secret Service—they were listening and when we finished some people were like, ‘You guys had really good banter.’
Shaniqwa Jarvis
Has there been any unexpected challenges to working on set this year?
Uhm, yeah...COVID is the fucking biggest disrupter, and not just because it’s COVID. It’s also because we don’t know that much about it, so everyone is making up these ideas of how we’re keeping safe. I found it really challenging because during this time, we’ve been asked to make stuff with less people and sometimes less money. They want the same type of content but for you to do it with less. At least within the photography world. That’s been really annoying and painful.
How many months was there no work for you?
Well, I started working again at the end of May, and when I started shooting again, it was for a client-slash-friend of mine, and I was like, ‘Eh, I shouldn’t get on the plane.’ But it broke my cherry. I did it and I was like, ‘OK, this is fine.’ I got tested and it was fine. I did the work, the photos looked great and it was great seeing people. That kind of opened me up. The minute I was fine with traveling, people kept asking me to travel and I’ve been traveling since. I’ve always been a bit of a germaphobe—passed down by my dear mom. So I’ve always wiped down my seat and brought my own food. It’s always been the way I’ve liked to travel, so it hasn’t been that stressful to do that now.
Speaking of your mom, I know that so much of your art is inspired by or made possible by your mom, Justine. But this year you designed some sneakers for Converse and they were a tribute to your father. Is that accurate?
Fully accurate. So the photo I used on the shoe, I took in Mexico, maybe five years ago. Then Converse came to me, my friend Curtains was working there, and he was like, ‘I think you should be a part of this group that’s making shoes for next year.’ I decided to put the floral image on the shoe and call it a day. I worked with the design team at Converse and they were brilliant. I knew that the style of the shoe was inspired by my own style, which was inspired by my dad’s style. My style comes from my dad 100%. My mom would always say, ‘That’s what you’re wearing to school? You take your style cues from your dad.’ So when the shoe was coming out, I decided to make this collage about him. It was something I was making with my hands and it felt great and different. I made a film component too, which I reached out to my siblings about. You know, our dad passed away when I was about to start high school. What I remember about him is so different from what my siblings remember. So it felt nice to have them lend their voices to it. Luckily my dad’s good friend, Cecil, had these great moving images of my dad dancing. It was the first time that me and my siblings had seen him moving since he passed away.
And yes, I created this personal work for the release of my shoe for Converse. It feels good to be my own person, but all of the people who raised me and walked the earth before me laid the groundwork for me to be me and to do what I do. I know some people would say, ‘You’re giving these ideas to these brands.’ And I’m like, ‘No, I’m telling a small part of my story and if it makes people buy things, fine.’ The most important thing is it’s allowing people to relate to these stories and share their own.
Yes! OK, let’s talk about Social Studies. Tell me about it.
It’s a fucking fabulous thing. The beautiful origins of it are this: Angelo Baque [Awake NY] was supposed to do this pop-up experience in Miami and he and I had worked on the Virgil 10 with Nike—we had helped them with the programming of the New York version. So he was like, ‘What about you come and work on this experience with me. We can launch your book and do all of these other things.’ It went from being a pop-up to being what Social Studies has morphed into now.
The idea [for Social Studies] was to pull together people we love and respect and do community-driven programming. Kids who wanted to talk to or wanted access to individuals within the design and art community could [do that] directly to those people. They could come talk, meet people and purchase something directly from the people they respect. At Miami Basel, everyone ran their own booth, so someone coming to buy my book buys it directly from me. Normally, everything in art and fashion is exclusionary, but doing it this way gave people access who wouldn’t normally have that access. We talk about inclusion all the time, right? But the truth is, the world is like, ‘You’re there and we’re here, keep your fucking distance.’ Angelo and I—as kids of color and kids from NYC—we always felt like we were being kept out of things by these random, shitty gatekeepers. We wanted to create something where the gatekeeping had to step aside. We wanted to show kids the tools that we used to make things happen. That’s a long-winded way to say that Social Studies is a multi-day experience that brings artists and designers together for community-driven programming.
So many people in our generation had to invent a way to make it, like you and Angelo. It’s cool you’re showing the younger generation that there’s multiple ways to do things. You’ve done Social Studies for how many years?
This was our third year—all virtual this time because of our dear friend Corona. This year, a lot of our programming was about voting. We had Kimberly Drew do her Black Power Lunch Hour. De’Ara Balenger and Paola Mendoza do a voter guide. It was super fucking important to all of us that Social Studies was an online resource, so that kids can go back to it and re-listen to this stuff. We’re learning as we go. The next time we do one, we’ll go harder.
Now let’s go back for a second. Before the pandemic you and your partner, Rajendra Debah mounted an exhibit, Rituals, at HVW8 gallery in LA. How was that?
When people don’t expect a lot from you, you can do anything. We originally made the piece for a company as a form of marketing and it got shelved. So we took the work and used it in the way we had always seen it: as an art piece that asks why can’t we see Black and Brown families just living, doing and enjoying themselves. For me, with Rituals, it was working through this idea of why can’t Black and Brown people have their Seinfeld, their show about nothing but is actually something? The opening for Rituals was great. Raj came up with this idea to have a house DJ play and we had food and merch made by our friends at Union Los Angeles. It was a sweet experience.
Do you and Raj have a project you’re working on together now?
We signed with Arts and Sciences, so we are constantly pitching together now. And then we have things we want to do that don’t really involve each other. A lot of my art is therapy. So sometimes the stuff I want to process and talk about has nothing to do with Raj and the same for him. It’s good to have a mix of things.
I feel like spotlighting Black and Brown communities and people has always been a part of your work], but recently that’s become really “trendy,” for lack of a better word.
Yeah. I think that George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, for example, got the whole world looking at this very rich country—the US—that is living and making money off the backs of a certain part of the population. Like, white supremacy plays a huge role in this country and finally people were starting to see it. It’s very interesting to me. It’s a global wake up. Some white people are like, ‘Oh shit, maybe I’ve only moved forward because I’m white.’ If you don’t get it that Black and Brown people have been creating under this stifling situation, then it’s time to wake up. But now, many months later, brands and companies are already going back to where they were before.
It’s crazy to me how many people and brands were like, ‘Wow, things are so bad and now we are taking responsibility for that.’ Like, uh, you’re just realizing that? That’s…
Wild!
Yes, it’s so wild. That’s exactly what it is. White people are like, ‘Wow this just happened.’
Yeah, no, dude. [Laughs]
[Laughs] So where is your mind now as you wind down from this totally unique and crazy year?
I don’t know where I’m at and that’s okay. I have no idea what’s coming and that’s also okay. That’s my answer. I don’t know. Period.
I don’t know where I’m at and that’s okay. I have no idea what’s coming and that’s also okay.
Shaniqwa Jarvis
I love it. Do you ever worry? Like, I worry sometimes that I’m not where I want to be in terms of success and then I’m like, ‘No I’m doing the work, I’m an artist already.’ Do you think about that?
As you get older, we live in this youth-obsessed world and you’re like, ‘Am I out of touch? Is my work bad?’ I just have to keep reminding myself that the journey I’m on is not based on time. It never was. When it comes to success, I’m trying to train my brain on this: I’m successful because I’m happy and healthy and I have a talented and loving support system, some who I’ve been fucking with for 30-plus years. What I thought success was ten years ago isn’t what I think it is now. It’s constantly changing. Having photographed Obama and, like you said, having it be an ‘iconic’ photo, I didn’t really grasp that until a few days ago. And now loads of people are writing to me and I’m like, ‘Wow, did not see that coming.’ What I'm saying is: you don’t know what is going to happen, so why waste any time over-thinking or worrying about anything? Just do whatever the fuck you want and be really pumped that you’re breathing. That’s success. Being alive. And if you can do what you want to do, however you can do it, that’s fab. That’s success right there.