Back in May of this year, I was walking around Union Square when I noticed a white tent that resembled a book store or a library. I stood there for a moment to take a look at what was going on. I walked into the tent to find out it was an art installation sponsored by Lush depicting books that had recently been banned across the country. Visually, it was a pretty powerful installation that was entirely white with pops of black writing and stats centered around the banned book crisis. As I always do when I see something like this, I find a person connected to the event that can give me an on camera interview of what’s going on. I shot and edited the video below.
After, I made the video and sent it to Seth, who’s featured in the video. He shared it with the Lush team who loved the video. They then sent me a thank you package. I replied with a thank you and a “if any other events come up in the future, please let me know”.
The future arrived and they let me know. In early August, I get an email from the Lush team asking if I would like to assist in shooting video for Afro-Punk. I happily accepted and a couple of virtual meetings later, I was in.
Afro-Punk is a two day musical festival which takes place on the Brooklyn waterfront. The festival has really turned into an alternative arts festival more so than it’s previous iteration as a black rock festival. Regardless, it’s two days of music, food and the most creative outfits you’ll ever see.
Lush’s involvement as a sponsor meant that they had the biggest activation there which was called Club Lush that consisted of a mini retail space, full beauty salon and a bubble bar.
During the festival, my job was to assist their in house video team with documenting the activities inside of Club Lush such as product demos, talks and much more. Normally, when I get hired to create videos, I’m also hired to produce, shoot and edit but this time around I was simply a second shooter.
In house video team
During my down time, I had the opportunity to walk around and enjoy some of the performance. However, the highlight for me was capturing photos of the incredible people. I could have spent the entire two days just doing that.
In addition to the photographs, I caught a few live performances as well. A couple of acts I’ve never heard of, and a NYC band that was really great that I had heard about. But the one performer I always wanted to see was Tobe Nwigwe. Based off his music videos and visuals, I knew the live show had to be pretty dope. And it was.
After the final night of the festival, I got invited to the official after party in Bushwick. It’s been a whole hot minute since I’ve been to a club but when I get the invite to things, I try and go. I went to go check it out and it was cool. I didn’t stay long. One drink, a few pictures and I was out. But I’m glad I went because I got to see the video team one last time before they headed back to Canada and a few other people from the team I met.
The entire experience was incredible. The Lush team was extremely nice and fun to work with. The weather was perfectly hot and sunny for two days. I left with a bunch of Lush products that’ll keep me feeling good and smelling good until at least February. Below are a few of the final videos that Lush produced. Although, only a handful of my shots made it into these videos, I was just happy to get paid and to be apart of it.
The next two videos below are vertical. If you’re viewing this on your computer, click full screen to watch.