N’Dambi Siva is an emerging photographer that received the first camera as a gift from a close personal friend at age twenty-two during a road trip from California to Texas.  With that chance that was available, this just happened to be every day.  To this day, Siva still owns and actively uses that camera, and draws great inspiration from James Van Der Zee, Roy Decarava and Carla Williams. Ukweli (Swahili for “Fact”) is the first semi-nude/nude series of Siva’s young career, which focuses on the raw imperfections of people’s perfect selves. Shot with digital and film cameras (And even...

Photo shoot credits: Photographer: Jan Lehner Model: Sycha Mubiaya @ D1 Stylist: Chukwunwinke Obi Hair & Make-up: Natasha Zaki Jewellery: Pebble London & Maria Zureta Sycha Mubiaya was on the cover of Helen Jenning’s book ‘New African Fashion’. The book chronicles Africa’s massive influence on fashion, from Yves St. Laurent’s use of African prints to the present day. About the book: “It was in 1907, Picasso admitted to the venerable French writer André Malraux, that he was so utterly stunned by his encounter with African art that he kept repeating the...

A word to the wise:  Never, ever tell 34 year-old model/actress Jay Faabulousone that she cannot do certain genres in modeling or acting because of her size.  She will make you eat your words by showing you that she can and will take it to the next level.  Jay makes it known that she is unapologetically proud of the skin she is in and her full-figure will not deter her from her goals. The 5’10” curvaceous Philly stunner is a chameleon when it comes to her modeling.   Artistic nudes, beauty, erotic, fashion, runway, commercial…this lady does it all and with a smile on her lovely mocha...

Elusive and ephemeral. Wildly chaotic and creative in its moves. Mysterious…you never know what its going to do next and yet it never ceases to entertain and inspire you. The Creative Culture Collective (CCC) and … smoke. These are characteristics that they both share. Last year, Nefertiti of the nefTUNES invited me to a new event she was trying. Its something different, a step away from the Open Mic Fridays that she was famous for at the time. No, this had that air of exotic mystery to it. A little more subdued and laid back compared to the loud cacophony of creativity that was the...

Like the phoenix, I rose up from the ashes of my self-destruction.  I was reborn anew to manifest this life better than before.  Heartbreak, betrayal, fear, and depression nearly ended my life.  There were countless times where I thought, “If I could just disappear, I truly would.  I don’t want to go through this pain.” I looked to people and things to make me happy, excited to be alive, and to feel beautiful, only for it to be a temporary fix.  I craved to have some kind of approval from others to have them tell me that I’m a good person, a loving, caring individual, if I’m talented...

“I never feel like people should box themselves into any one concept.  That goes for jobs, clothes or relationships.  Just live.” From SirReal Kia Chenelle & Christiana Maria Greene are fancy girls with not-so-fancy pockets.  They call themselves Pretty in Penury and they are the stylish yet thrifty shoppers behind everyone’s new favorite style blog.  Collectively, they have backgrounds in styling, modeling, and photography.  But apart from all that, it’s my pleasure to actually introduce them to you as friends of mine. We got together on what felt like one...

In Atlanta, I’ve has found a new home at the Goat Farm. A few weeks back we talked about the place when we featured Pangea’s Meet & Greets from last year. The Goat Farm was introduced as one of the new locales that would be ideal for Garden shoots by photographer Bobby Williams of WillowBMedia. I was inspired as soon as a I saw it. Deconstructed and wild, as if nature was reclaiming the space, at the same time, humanity was still making an effort to leave our artistic mark on the space. Its an excellent, organic, industrial, chaotic backdrop for the images we create. So for my first...

We did a couple of Pangea’s Meet & Greets last year and they were geared towards a few of us getting to know each other better with the hopes and intentions of creating works together. I don’t think I say it enough but Pangea’s Garden is not an online magazine whose focus is a single perspective of the Afrosensual Aesthetic. It is a network of individuals with an appreciation for afrosensual culture and beauty with our varying perspectives on how to celebrate that. When I started it, it was a blog on blogspot where I thought I would change the world with my individual perspective...

Pangea’s Meet & Greets were two gatherings last year that were geared towards a few of us getting to know each other better with the hopes and intentions of creating works together. After all, Pangea’s Garden is a network of individuals with an appreciation for afrosensual culture and beauty. And all of us, with our varying perspectives came together a couple of times to celebrate that. But how do you do that? How do you celebrate that? I am trying not to be self-indulgent here, but I am an artist, a photographer and a graphic designer. So I have various ways of expressing my ideas,...

From The Trove on Henry Adebonojo: With the same great love for capturing the moment through the moving image as for distilling the essence in a single frame, cinematographer/ photographer Henry Adebonojo is “happiest when I am making pictures.”… Shooting the likes of the late Gordon Parks, (for his Emmy-nominated work on Half Past Autumn: The Life and Works of Gordon Parks) George Clooney, Chuck D, Marisa Tomei, Dave Chappelle and the POTUS, Barack Obama, he’s cut a wide swath across the mediums of music videos, commercials, promos, documentaries and short films. The one position...