Today we’d like to introduce you to JP Dewberry.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I had always been interested in two things from as young as I can remember -fashion and literal translation. When I was about 5, I knew I wanted to write treatments and or produce TV commercials. Had no idea what the job was or what it was called but it was either that or a masseuse LOL.
I’ve always been creative and very good with my hands making things etc.
However, even though I was born in Los Angeles and lived there for many years of my life, we moved to Texas-specifically East texas. Dirt roads. Country. Horses. Hated it. It took me so far out of my creative element for the eight years that I lived there that it took me damn near twice as long time to get back to who I was creatively. I attended Prairie View A&M University and learned absolutely nothing about marketing, media nor communications in classes. All the lessons that I learned were part of the hard knocks curriculum, and I spent a lot of time and wasted a lot of money trying to find my people and place. So much so that by the time I looked up it was five years later, and I had amount of debt and no degree after trying to follow a curriculum that was nothing that I thought it was.
But in that time I came across people who helped me rediscover the creative side and that’s where I actually fell into photography. I had to leave school and that’s when I started taking classes in Houston to sort of back my retail “career” -aka mall job lol. So I got certified in image consulting, men’s basic tailoring, and fashion merchandising. From there, I met a lot of designers and I started designing things myself, but moreso in a draping aspect, and the photography came from me taking pictures of my own designs. The very first photographer I worked with suggested that I find models to take pictures in some of my looks. My stint in freestyle design led to working on music video sets with a few video girls who were very popular with Mike Jones and Paul Wall. Also around this time, I was approached by the owner of a barber magazine called Against The Grain who wanted to feature my then red mohawk on one of his covers. My stipulation was I’ll do it IF I can take my own pictures. So between helping models develop their modeling portfolios and resumes and doing this shoot for the magazine, I walked into the beginnings of what is now JP Make Da Photos.
At that point, I decided that I would never take any a** shots and that I only wanted to take pictures of things that were never prominently featured in photos in the black community. The humor, the audacity of our ideas, the ability to turn some of our most tragic experiences into million dollar ideas that resonate with the whole, our “brother from another mother” moments that we commonly share even though we’ve never met each other are all things that I strive to portray in my photography.
I’ve had a less than easy life, and there’s a lot of levity that comes with that…
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Hell no, and how long is this virtual piece of paper because I’m at a loss to even pick just some of the struggles. However, they do include mostly mental and emotional degradation. I questioned my value, my worth, and my blackness at every turn for so many years behind many of the experiences that I had gone through.
I’ve dealt with everything from being laughed at and made fun of to dealing with racism as early as kindergarten at my affluent private school in Cali, to being homeless sleeping in my car for almost a year.
I am 100% self-taught- no photography classes, no seminars to teach me how to market myself or what things to look out for, etc. I suffered all of the pitfalls firsthand of my business and learning what worked for me what didn’t what worked for any crew that I’d want to work with and or hire etc. There were many shoots where I didn’t get paid & I spent more money than I had or made, and I had to pay crew or I had to reimburse a client because they didn’t like their photos.
I literally was robbing Peter to pay Paul because I owed Steven and then had to come around and ask for it back from Gary to give it to Lisa. For years. Not to mention being a black female working with celebrities and how differently men treat you when they find out that JP is not a guy but a girl.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a photoshoot producer, creative director and art director. I am NOT a photographer. Sure, I press the button the majority of the time, however that is not where my actual talent lies. I am the person that you call when you have a story that needs to be told without words. I always say that “laughter has legs”. If it isn’t hilarious, I likely won’t shoot it. If the client is very serious and rigid or a perfectionist, they’d be better off shooting with someone else. When it comes to what I do as a creative and, well most things in my life, I am a child. I’m always going to try to find a way to insert something in a photo that doesn’t necessarily belong or something that will catch you off guard or is the antithesis of something else. The dichotomy of the oxymoron is one of my most beloved and favorite tools.
My preferred style of editing is colorful, unrealistic, cartoon/anime-like. I love Jill Greenberg and David Lachapelle. I’m the person that is known for having the most random out of the box ideas that are specifically tailored to each client’s personality, experiences, business, or lifestyle.
One of the things that I am most proud of is that I AM NOT FO’ EVERYBODY (in my best Samuel Jackson voice) 😂! I’m more about quality versus quantity of clients. I am the soul doer of everything when it comes to my business: I develop the concept, I source the crew & the props, the location, I do the set design & photography, I do the editing I do the wardrobe styling or the consulting, the art direction and come up with every scene.
I develop everything in a storyline-type fashion or at least I try to. I try to have a before and after, or beginning middle and end, it’s like cinematography photography. My goal is always to shoot things in such a way that people can tell what’s going on so they get whatever action is going on in the photo without needing to explain in with words.
**Secretly, My overall goal for every shoot is to get that burst of egregiously loud laughter after the 5 to 30 seconds it might take someone to fully ingest the entirety of the visual lol.**
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
The thing that I like best has nothing to do with the people or any aspect of creativity and more so the natural landscape. I’ve always wanted to live in Atlanta ever since the first time I visited here because it always seemed like they designed the city around the trees and the nature. It’s like living in a Lexus commercial every day.
Contact Info:
- Email: jpdewb@gmail.com
- Instagram: @jpmakedaphotos
Image Credits:
1. Actress: Sydnee Simone MUA: LyzaDora Beauty
2. Marcus Graham Project Founders: Lincoln Steffens, Larry Yarrell; 2nd Photog: www.MenkitiGlobal.com
3. Director: Sir Black
4. Wedding photog: J. Vince
5. Actor: Ceasar F. Barajas
6. Recording Artists: Les Nubians
7. MUA: Laura Bueno Chef: @SheCookedIt
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