Where should I start?

Well, when I think of Shon, she comes as one in a handful of significant encounters at the crossroads of work and private life. We first met in New-York in 2011 when I was assisting then international celebrity stylist Kithe Brewster who was working on Shontelle’s image right after the re-edit of her album Shontelligence. She was at a turning point in her career and I was just starting mine. I remember vividly how my adrenaline from this job could collide with the dread of her stage fright and other of her celebrity implications. There was those moments suspended in time with her, because I was a young intern in Manhattan with a demanding job, juggling with spine-tingling feelings of soaking in every milliseconds and having to over-perform. As the first celebrity I met so closely, I got to witness what the behind the curtain of this life meant and encompassed. She was calm but had so much going on. She had letters from Beyoncé and Barack Obama on her walls but she was a relatable NY outsider with her fears and dreams. She was obsessed with some luscious Mexican grill’s food of Hell’s Kitchen, but she would be opening the biggest charity catwalk in the country the day before – and so on. That is what stuck with me: the paced swing between public glamor and attention, and the quiet sanctified private life. Somehow she was the beacon of my emerging American show-biz wannabe life and she embodied what I had just began to discern in life: You get to chose some of the pieces of this puzzle called life. At times we would work together, others we would hang out, eat out, dance out. Her story became so inspiring to me and made her gentle big sister love so endearing. Looking back, I realise that we were both proving ourselves professionally all the while coming from far away, so we could relate to each other (and the hustles of a NYC life…!).

As she and her lawyer sister Ray gave me a glimpse of who Bajan people are, it was only the beginning of a long friendship that survived the distance.

Moving back to Barbados after years of inoperative work from her Universal Label – being moved to a new roster of artists following Motown’s restructuring since 2014 – and the COVID pandemic was a real challenge and life changing chapter. Despite the hurdles she seized the opportunity of a home retreat to recenter, allocating more time to her support system and her local peers. She then demonstrated her ambition and entrepreneur voice throughout several music collabs and drops all the while venturing out on the NFT ecosystem and more. This new era of her career followed one with the big American labels’ flaking attention, iconic artists collabs and personal growth and the public eye. Consequently while piloting her project from Barbados we got in touch again and worked on her promotion and styling for her 2022 performance at Titan Festival in London. It marked Shon’s return to Europe years after opening Beyoncé’s UK leg of the I am…World Tour. The audience gave her huge cheers and we felt overwhelmed by it. This new experience together was just plain rejoicing, (re)creating, laughing, brainstorming, …and DIYs.

Check also my analog shots from London below (with Nikon F75, Canon AE1, on Ektar 100 and Kodak Colorplus 200).