“I’m Shingi, and I photograph beautiful souls in beautiful clothes”.
Going by the name ‘bluespit aka the soul capturer’ on Insta, London fashion photographer, Shingi Rice, takes photos that challenge society’s perception of what beauty is. “If we can’t tell a story with our images, then what’s the point?” (Shingi).
Her camera helps “level the playing field” – (like our kerb represents a level platform for food businesses) – in a world where people are told they have to look a certain way. Singhi Says: “It’s about representation: to show everyone that they are accepted in society. If you push out the same kind of image all of the time, people are going to think that they have to look that way. Part of the reason I do what I do is so that other people don’t feel that they’re not accepted.'”
We saw her latest Vans x Huck campaign – ‘London’s Many Faces: Capturing Beauty on the Streets of Hackney’ – shot at Ridley Road Market and we love it; that mix of grit / glamour captured outside on the kerbs – out-front by the dustbins, by the walls of a council estate, in a local convenience store, on the overground , at a skatepark- is what we love (the fact that Singhi’s surname is a food and she’s also a plant-based chef has nothing to do with it!)
Why Ridley?
“My gran is from Zimbabwe. Ridley Road market, in London, reminds me of there. The little shops they have, with people selling cooked food, fresh fruit and veg, the butchers, the fishmongers, it reminds me of being back in Zimbabwe. You’ve got places like Peckham, too, which they call Little Lagos. I love that – holding onto small businesses, making it a melting pot of cultures. These communities are independent. It makes sense to shoot there”.
(You’ll get stuck in there for hours browsing, we did)…
ON THE BEACH
About Shingi
Born in East London, raised in Southern England and Southern Spain, by a Zimbabwean Mother and Irish/English father, ” I was constantly surrounded by everything non-identifiable to my own culture, being and and what I represent” – this is why her main subjects are what she finds underrepresented in the media: the beauty of colour, especially dark skin, disabilities, be it through portrait or fashion.
