“My idea of beauty is a moment,” says Detroit native, Jasmine Durhal, 20. “If the moment is captured, and if I feel something when I look at the image, its beautiful.”
Durhal picked up her first camera at the age of 6 or 7, collecting old cameras her grandmother would buy from the thrift store.
“There would be no film in them, but I would just sit around and play with them all day,” she says.
Her grandmother would also buy disposable cameras for her as a child and she would take pictures of her barbies. Those small investments resulted in her undying passion for photography, but before that she thought she might have been interested in fashion design.
“I realized that whenever I looked in magazines the clothes weren’t what I was looking at, but the actual image and how they took it,” said Durhal.
She would try to recreate the photo in the magazine by taking self portraits of herself.
“I guess that’s when I fell in love,” she says. “I was about 15.”
Everyone has an addiction and for Durhal it’s photography. The feeling she gets when she’s behind a camera is better than anything, she says.
“I call it my drug; it gives me this high that I only think people who do what they love can feel,” she says. “Especially when the connection with the model is good and we’re both moving and flowing, and the shutter is consistently clicking.”
And that’s when she’s reached her unstoppable point.
“I get so carried away,” she says with a laugh. “Sometimes I have to stop myself.”
From edits to long shoots, she loves everything about it. Except shooting things she personally doesn’t want to shoot.
“My goal is to be the best at what I do and how I do it. I want to travel and impact people with my images, change lives and allow the world to see the world I see,” she says.
As for inspiration, she cites world renowned African-American photographer Gordon Parks.
“He was the first black photographer to take is as far as he did,” she explains. “He was the sauce back in the day!”
Also, she’s inspired by life itself. She’s beginning to grow as an artist as well as a person, learning what she likes and what she doesn’t like.
“I’ve learned that if you find the art within yourself, then no one can do it like you. It’s a piece of you.”
Durhal is currently a photographer at a creative branding agency, The Art Direction, where she’s inspired by her colleagues/family.
“Being around creative people is always good.”