EARLIER this week, 25-year-old Linden resident, Michael Bonds posted several photos on his social media accounts. The collection titled “BlackGirlMagic”, which was professionally photographed by Bonds, immediately went viral on social media.

Michael’s popularity grew. The creative in an interview with BUZZ said he had been working on a concept to promote ‘black women’ for some time, and finally decided to engage models he had worked with in the past.
Creating a vision board of ideas, Michael, along with the models, selected a colour scheme and brainstormed several concepts which led them to the ‘BlackGirlMagic’ theme and aesthetic.

“I specifically went about looking to feature dark skin models,” he added, noting that while he was able to capture the essence of the models through his lens, they were truly the stars of the viral images.
‘Love a black woman, from infinity to infinity’

Michael said he worked closely with the models to execute every aspect of the concept: the styling, the fashion, and the makeup artistry.
He said one of the models, a seamstress, pulled the outfits together while the others worked on makeup and other arrangements.

Beginning his photography journey five years ago, Michael said he noticed his interest after a friendly competition.
“I first started when I use to go to UG [University of Guyana]. It started off as this little competition between me and my friend.

“I had all the latest Samsung [cellular phone], [and] he had one of the latest iPhones, and we started comparing,” Michael related.

“We decided to make it a challenge to come up with photographs at the end of the week,” Michael said, adding: “It moved on from photos of flowers and then I started to take pictures of people and I went on to buy my first camera… I started from there.”

He said the Arts have always been an interest to him. He felt that content creation was always his calling.
“I have always been interested in art in general… [There was a time] when I used to draw, I use to paint and I also used to partake in music. But, photography just stood out to me,” the young content creator said.