Amanda Akokhia is an accomplished London-based photographer with a portfolio spanning from high-end fashion editorials to dazzling beauty shoots and major brand campaigns, working with clients such as Disney, Warner Bros and BBC –you get the picture – but as a self-taught photographer her success is a real testament to what can be achieved with persistence, dedication and the courage to pursue your calling.
Her fascination with capturing beauty began during her childhood in Nigeria. Watching beauty pageants she was mesmerised by the contestants elegance, clothes and hairstyles. She remembers the moment when Miss Nigeria won Miss World and she immediately sketched her outfit – a creative impulse that later would evolve into photography.
After moving to the UK she began taking pictures of friends using her father’s camera phone “I used to invite my friends home, and dress them up in my mum’s clothes, and my mum’s makeup, and take pictures of them in my back garden, it’s what we did for fun, instead of, I don’t know, going to parties,”
She excelled in art and photography during her college years, but the ingrained Nigerian cultural view that didn’t regard creative carriers such as photography as a “serious” profession meant she initially chose a safer, academic path, studying English Law.
Growing up, she recalls “never in a million years thought” that she would actually get paid to do photography.
From corporate offices to photo studios
Despite entering the corporate world, photography remained a constant passion. She was always planning the next session even using her lunch break to do test shoots. She shared her work on Flickr, Facebook and the early photographer-friendly days of Instagram which helped to secure her first paying clients.
But splitting herself between her work and passion she didn’t feel fulfilled “my boss, she pulled me to the side one day, she was like Amanda, you don’t look like you want to be here, and I said to her, well I said, I actually don’t.”
Leaving her job prompted her to reconsider what she really wanted to do, and the answer was clear, “for maybe like six months, I was learning, I already knew about photography, but I was learning even more, I was learning more about retouching, I just immersed myself more into the world, and the business of photography.”
And at just 24 she took a leap of faith and opened her own studio in London, “all I knew is that I had rent to pay, and I had a dream that my image would be on a billboard in London.” Within a year she achieved that dream and went on to open her second studio in West London during the pandemic. Five years on and she is nowhere close to slowing down.
Getting high profile clients
Achieving that first billboard was not just a professional milestone but also a personal dream materialised and it fuelled her even more to spare no effort. She found success through consistency, networking and and as she puts it ”making as much noise as possible in London”
This dedication landed her high-profile clients and opportunities to photograph celebrities like Jared Leto, Chris Eubank Jr. and Jodie Turner-Smith with her work featured on the covers of British Vogue, Harpers’s Bazaar and Cosmopolitan. She views that first year and its pivotal shoots such as the one with boxer Chris Eubank Jr., as key to her momentum.
Amanda’s philosophy is simple “if there’s something that I wanted to see in the world, I’d create it” this led to a natural hair campaign with british singer Jamelia and her daughters, designed to inspire young black girls “to embrace their natural hair, and see that, you know, they don’t have to wear wigs, or they don’t have to relax their hair to feel beautiful.”
Advocating for inclusivity
However star studded her portfolio might be Amanda is driven to ignite change and inspire people to reconsider what beauty means. As her carrier took off she noticed the homogenous casting in fashion, where campaign after campaign you would see the same looks and began questioning where people like her brother, who has Down syndrome, fit into this space.
To advocate for the inclusion of people with visual differences in the beauty industry, she started working on a personal project: “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, we are all beautiful after all.”
She photographed eight models with conditions such as alopecia, vitiligo, and Down Syndrome wanting to make the participants “feel the same way that the model felt when she saw their picture”. Amanda employed her expert lighting skills and team of hair and make-up artists to ensure they received the same high-profile treatment as a paid campaign.
Curating the images into an exhibition, Amanda invited creatives, editors, decision makers and activists alongside the models to start a conversation about representation in the fashion and advertising industry and spark change in casting decisions going forward.
The participating models saw their images at the end of the event, and “there were tears everywhere… because some of these models, they’d never seen themselves like that, in that light before.”
Amanda’s message is clear “everybody’s beautiful, and everybody deserves to be seen” not only a certain part of society.
By expanding the conversation about what beauty is and advocating for normalising disabled presence in campaigns the goal is to change the way we see differences something that separates us, and instead start seeing them as part of being human.
Sustaining success
As a self-taught photographer YouTube was key in Amanda’s learning process, she recalls how she would watch new videos as soon as they came out from Lara Jade, Rosie Hardy. Sue Brice’s inspirational and educational content as well as Pratik Naik retouching tips and, and Prince Meyson’s insights were invaluable.
But she admittedly gravitated more towards female creators, and is vocal about the need to see women in these roles, “so that we can say: Oh, I can do it too! I can aspire to be where you are as well.”
Asking her about the trick to run a successful photography business and securing clients Amanda cites Lara Jade and emphasizes that photography is like 20% of the work that you do, while marketing is 80%. “It’s not just your creativity. You need to have things in place, like marketing, and branding, and sales”
Your work ethic is another key aspect. As you might have expected managing a large team and ensuring a smooth shooting day all comes down to meticulous organisation. She plans, writes, sketches and puts together mood boards and call sheets, to prepare and schedule for a photoshoot, so when the team arrives on set, they all know where they need to be and what they need to do in order to achieve the vision. To lead and encourage her team effectively she even took a course in project management.
Amanda’s tips for aspiring photographers
- Utilise free resources: there are countless free resources like YouTube tutorials on every aspect of photography.
- Master one setup: using artificial lighting can feel daunting, so Amanda’s advice is to ”pick one [lighting setup] that you like the look of and absolutely master it.”
- Network constantly: leverage social media, as “we don’t have to pay to post” and share your images, don’t let them sit on your hard drive and “network through the people that are around you already.”
What’s next?
As the interview progresses I am ready to sign up for a masterclass with Amanda, her energy, enthusiasm and passion for photography is seriously contagious. Then she lets me in on a project she’s working on, her first photobook Light Maps, showcasing her portraits accompanied by lighting diagrams. Mixing together what you would expect from a luxurious coffee table photo book, but also including a commentary into the process of making that image with special focus on lighting. The book will touch on topic that stand close to her heart like inclusivity and representation in the industry and expected to hit the shelves next April.
Further reading
- Build a Photography Career at our Festival
- How to make Photography a Successful Career
- Portrait Photography is a Powerful Tribute to Human Resilience
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