Inside the Photographer’s Studio - Faith Aylward
On Finding Your Own Path
December 14th, 2022
By Anna Prudhomme @annaprudhomme
Above the Lighthouse pub in Hackney is half-English, half-Nigerian photographer Faith Aylward’s apartment. Purple beanie stuck on the head, she opens the door into her newly found home. The lights are yellowish, incense is burning and I sit down on a soft carpet while she grabs a cup of tea.
In Faith’s photographic world the colours are neon bright; her subjects are from ethnic communities; and a strong feeling of empowerment emanates from all her shots. Whether photographing singers, artists or fashion designers, the 26-year-old photographer captures the beautiful energy of the creatives that surround her. “I think working with artists is fufilling on the level of contributing to someone's vision and being a part of putting them into the world!” explains the young photographer.
Faith first got into photography during her second year at Birmingham University while studying Politics and English Language; lacking purpose, feeling lost and even self-destructive at times, her creativity started emerging. Looking for a creative outlet, she began assisting a photographer friend, helping mainly with the styling, when one day that friend passed her the camera. “I did some pictures on the shooting of a musician friend and thought they were actually pretty good… I had found something to put my energy into and so from there I just started doing my own shoots,” she recalls.
Soon she was not only capturing musicians and started shooting clothing campaigns for London-based brands such as Aamil or Fomm, Lagos-based Byktan, the the jewellery brand Zuri, alongside shooting for the peer-to-peer app Depop. During the Black History Month, she took portraits of black talent from East London and strong women figures for the publishing house FEM. And as attention grew, her pics were featured in publications such as Viper magazine, Guap, and the New York-based Speciwomen and she began receiving more and more editorial commissions.
“I just want to shoot things I enjoy and work with people I connect with and do things organically.”
Her striking visual style emerged from an enjoyment of experimentation, with her practice at first including a lot of post-production techniques to make the shots look as she wanted them. “I spent a lot of time playing with my images on Photoshop and really started enjoying it as that was where it all came to life for me,” explains Faith, “…I pick things up quite easily, I’m a fast learner, but once it’s done, I want to move on to the next thing”.
On her Instagram bio, Faith claims to have “polymathic tendencies” - and that’s the least you could say about her practice. She models, sings, directs, dances (a master at both aerial hoop and the dance pole), she is a true multidisciplinary artist and this shows in her photographs. A key theme in her photography is movement, with her models bending, dancing and flipping their hair. Having been on the other side of the camera as well, she knows how to get her model comfortable by playing their favourite music, letting them see the images or placing a mirror in front of them. She explains: “Those are just the kinds of things I ideally would want if I were in their position.”
Until recently, Faith was living in an enormous warehouse in Hackney which became her shooting location. The space was through a property guardianship schemes - an arrangement which grants cheap accommodation in unused or “in between use” buildings, in return for living flexibly and keeping squatters out of the space. “I shot so much there and got to develop my practice just because I had this incredible place to shoot,” recalls Faith.
“ If you are meant to do something, you'll find your way back to it.”
After leaving the warehouse, Faith entered a phase of discontent with her photography. Feeling her practice was stagnating, she explains, “I was really battling with myself about it, I think I was not feeling the work was developing and if you're consistently doing things that you're not connecting to, it’s just really discouraging”. At the time, shooting mainly with digital, altering the pics with surreal editing, this moment of reflection lead her to step away from Photoshop, and she got back into analogue shooting. “I always thought film captures a feeling and the energy of a moment a lot better than with digital,” said Faith, who carried a point and shoot camera with her at all times.
Being self-taught when it comes to photography, Faith went through the natural process of experimenting with a lot of genres to find her own style, in the end concluding that there are no “right” ways to do photography. “I think when you learn photography, you imitate styles you like and I was always trying to find how I could replicate a feeling that made me engage with a certain picture,” she said, “but it’s a misconception, because you can basically do photography however you want, as long as the end result is good - right?”
“To have a unique style of image, you need to have a unique method of making images.”
Today the photographer finally seems to have found the way of working she was looking for: “Now I'm back to a middle ground, a sort of balance where I have a film camera with a digital lens. And so I've found a way to marry the two.” Those works should come out in the next couple of months and she seems very excited about this newly developed profoundly personal technique. “If you are meant to do something, you'll find your way back to it,” said Faith - acknowledging that it was a journey to develop and it was OK to take a break and feel disillusioned, understanding if you persist you’ll be rewarded.
When studying politics, Faith admits she used to be wrapped up in social and political conceptions, trying to convey them through her photos but in the end felt those ideas were controlling her practice. In freeing herself from past conventions, she is now diving into personal experiences to inspire her work. “I think I'm just more interested in people's introspective journeys, and that's more what my work is about for me now,” happily asserted Faith.
“I realised that to have a unique style of image, you need to have a unique method of making images” said Faith. Using lightning and colours in a more refined and minimalist way than she used to, she described her newest images as having “a strong and distinct feeling… and there's a sort of darkness to them that I'm enjoying very much!” This “feeling” from the works perhaps coming from Faith’s biggest visual inspiration - film director Stanley Kubrick. “I love how meticulous he is, everything in his film is pleasing to the eye!” she explains.
“I think I'm just more interested in people's introspective journeys, and that's more what my work is about for me now”
Someone who has truly defined their own path, Faith is excited for her upcoming work and her way of shooting: “Today, I just want to shoot things I enjoy and work with people I connect with and do things organically. That’s truly my focus!”
About Faith Aylward
Faith Aylward is a london-based multidisciplinary artist Her mediums include: photography, video, digital art, creative direction, and dance. Graduating with 1st class honors (Bsc) in Politics and English language, she combines her academic background and love of humanities subjects with her artistic work to create unique and striking visuals.