Welcome back to the Photo Banter Podcast. I'm your host, Alex Gagne, and on today's podcast, I welcome on photographer and filmmaker Yasmin Yasin. Yasmin is a photographer and director based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. worked with clients such as Apple, Nike, the New York Times, and National Geographic to name a few. In this interview, I speak to Yasmin about growing up in Canada.
how she first discovered photography, as well as her background in microbiology and public health field. Also in this interview, I speak to Yasmin about her recent short film, The Hanto, where she documented and followed a local Somali dance group. in Minneapolis. I've been a fan of Yasmin's work for a long time now. There's just like an honesty to her portraiture and storytelling. So I was really excited to get her on the podcast and just kind of discuss her process and what inspires.
her. So I hope you guys really enjoy it. You can check out Yasmin's work at yasminyasin.com as well as on Instagram. I'll put her links and everything in the description. But I hope you guys enjoy this and thanks so much for listening. All right. I now welcome on Yasmin Yasin. Excited to have you on. I've been following your work on Instagram for years. So now we're finally meeting. So thanks for taking the time to do this. Yay. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Yeah, definitely excited to have you on. Love your work and excited to have someone from Minneapolis on the podcast. I was born in Robinsdale, Minnesota. Oh, no way. Yeah, not far. Yeah. but i guess to start off like how's your summer been like what have you been working on anything you're kind of excited about photographically right now yeah um summer's been good i have a
three and a half year old. So my summer is really spending a lot of time at water parks and playgrounds lately, but it's been really nice. And so I've just been taking things a little bit easier this summer and ideating as I... I move on to my next project, which is going to be sort of another long-term sort of personal project that I've been wanting to focus on for a while now and hopefully will be my first photo book.
um pretty excited about that so that's awesome are you like a photographer do you always have a kind of a personal project going or is there kind of times where you don't or like how does that kind of work for you Yeah, I always have personal stuff going. It's like part of my workflow now. I think it works well with my mental health, actually, just to have something that feels like I've carved out a piece for myself that's not.
a commission or something that somebody else has come up like an idea so something that feels a little bit more creatively free for me to hold on to and so I always try to have something that's like happening in tandem with other work. and feels like I'm still keeping this as kind of like a hobby, which is where it started. It started as like passion and like, I still really love it, but I don't want to lose that and have it feel very sort of.
like feels like a tour every single day. So yeah, it's something that I think in the last, I would say a couple of years have been really intentional about like phasing out and like really.
kind of even like hyping myself about these projects i'm like really making sure that they're as big as um something that's like i'm actually getting making money on that is the balance of like you know doing as a profession uh obviously doing stuff that's creatively uh inspiring to you but then making money from it and i think that's the thing i really resonate with your work is that you found a way to uh
i mean there's this like honesty to like your portraiture and the projects you do but then you've also kind of parlayed that into like doing stuff for apple and nike and these brands uh are because a lot of times once you get in the commercial space it's easy to just go like super polished and super all this like how do you kind of navigate that of like making the work you want but then also getting clients to hire you for that work i guess do you even think yeah
I mean, I'll answer that in two parts. Number one being that like, this isn't my main job. And I don't promote that. I'm actually a research scientist. That's my main job. And I do that every day. And that's something I also like compartmentalize. Like I love science and I love.
photography and photography was always a hobby for me while i was studying the sciences and in the research world so um i still kept that old lifestyle still active um in terms of like balancing balancing things out in my life so That's number one. Number two being that that provides me a lot of privilege and freedom to seek out clients who like my work for the sake of my work looking the way it does. And so that means that.
I try not to have too much difference between the clients I get and the type of work I get and the type of personal work that I've always left doing. Again, I say that with a ton of privilege because this isn't my main source of income.
anymore and so it's just where I can really be picky choosy is what I tell people about like what I work on and it's also like I can I think be a little bit more patient about getting the client work in terms of that other universe or the commercial stuff that like seek out me for the stylistic approach that I approach with my work, which is, you know, really focusing on storytelling and community building.
um it's not super clean you know it's it's it's got a little like a little rough around the edges and um and so it feels a little bit balanced probably on a smarter approach just like that is cool that you have another job and and also being able to accomplish it as much as you do and have a three and a half year old so hats off to you uh but yeah like having the patience and really because that's the thing
i mean i struggled with it early on and i'm sure a lot of photographers do is that you're like hungry to get work and you can kind of lose your vision of what you're actually inspired by because you're like this is what will get me paid but like it's probably actually the opposite
Like if you just stick to your vision and now you're getting all these clients because it's an authentic thing and that's why it resonates with people, right? I mean, yeah, I hope so. I will say like to be fully like full disclosure, like disclosure that like.
I've only gotten to this point of sticking to my vision, being really confident in it very recently. I think, especially when we're in the commercial world or as a freelancer, you can get really easy into that really dark place where you're just sort of like... you know especially in the winter times when work slows down you're like yeah my work is the worst like everything sucks um and so it's just been like very intentional about like making sure i get out of that thought process of like
Okay, my work is great. I like the style that I do. And I like it because it's what I gravitate towards in my personal work. And so it's like, if I keep doing it, eventually, I think I will attract the things, the people and the things that I want. And it's a slow process. It's not like a ton of work snowballing in all the time. But I feel like it maximizes meaningful work that comes in versus, I think, other things that don't feel as fulfilling.
It's a tricky space to be in. Yeah, and I will say recently I've gotten out of that dark space of like... I need to get all the work. Look at me. Don't look at them. Look at me. Everyone will get their shot when it comes. What shifted in your mindset? Because you said recently you feel like you kind of just changed your thinking. Was there something that happened? Or what made you kind of click for you, I guess?
Yeah, I think it was like, I would say last year where I really focused on a personal project. I lost a lot of money on it. It was my Adanto project. It was a photo plus a short film. That was something that I was thinking about for many years, but I put aside just because I was like so focused on building up that like sort of portfolio and that other aspect of my work and kind of neglecting that personal.
I realized spending that entire year and a half working on that project and seeing it to completion and how much happiness and joy it felt to finish it and see it up on a screen at a movie theater. and know that it was something that I concepted myself, that the community was really stoked about, that I was stoked about. So that was a huge major shift for me when I was reflecting.
on my work over the like the past year and things like that and so that's where I was just like okay this is what actually I love about photography and visual work um and like now motion work which I'm flooring into and so I was like I want to keep like
bottling that up and like keep spraying it on myself you know to like keep using it so yeah yeah i think and we'll get into the your your your uh film project you mentioned the honto is that what it's um and i think the amazing thing looking at that and is that you did that all yourself like it wasn't a client coming to you and it's just it kind of just shows and i've had that same thing with myself with certain personal projects it's like oh wow like you can actually do a lot
with not that much like yeah yeah which which is inspiring like it's not like sure i'd love all the crew and all this stuff uh production or whatever but it's really at the end of the day it's like storytelling and having unique and unique perspective in my mind yeah and i mean i will like say that that project did
end up bringing in a ton of community members and i didn't end up getting a grant so i could actually pay them and so like it felt like the sort of like people were coming into the orbit of the personal project after a while and like becoming part of this massive it was almost like
a crew formed around this idea. Yeah. And it was really shoestringy, like, but it was awesome. It was so fun. And just seeing the reception from like the local TV, like it's like, it's not me. It made a huge splash locally. I mean, I don't think it was.
not going to be big in other places right but it's like it still feels like massive that we could produce something from very little um and from like something that felt very collective and community effort um and so like i still have like now that i've recently moved into my own
personal studio space like the photo project aspect is just all over the walls and just like physically tangibly seeing that it's just been really um motivating i think i'm going to see future work and stuff like that so yeah and it's just amazing that uh what you like what you produce like you said you started off with your idea and then other people in the community like just making the effort to like
go into your local community and like knock on some doors and introduce yourself it's like pretty amazing the experiences and people you probably got to meet just putting in that little effort of starting Oh, yeah, it was super exciting. I think like being able to get to know that. So I followed a dance troops coach and a dance troop for a year and a half and just like getting to know them. Like I have a call with one of them today and I like them every day now or like.
talk to the coach quite frequently to text each other all the time and so building that community connection has been really really valuable um and like also knowing that like okay this is something i concepted and like it's something that feels like you know i gave the film to the
the team themselves to promote themselves and so it feels like it doesn't feel extractive either it feels like okay this is actually physically going back to i mean going back to the community and like can be used in other ways that I don't even have control over anymore and that's been pretty exciting to see what like that my work actually takes on um when I'm not in control of it so I think like some of it's also just letting go of that like need for control too so it's been it's been um
Yeah, I would say like without getting to philosophy, like reclaiming that joy. No, give philosophy. That's what we're here for. Yeah.
um yeah no that's incredible and i saw you have something starting in the fall called table side uh which yeah if i read correctly it's basically kind of like a creative community like you're gonna do some gatherings uh like how'd that kind of come out and like what's your goal with that yeah um so i think for me i've i wanted to you know i've i've done a lot of networking over the last few years and networking feels very fun but sometimes it also feels very clinical um
And so I really wanted to let go of that barrier and really focus on like, what if you just had people who were in the same sort of general sort of creative universe as you? And what if you just had a meal together and got to know each other? My friend Lily and I have been talking about this for a while now. And so we're like, can we create a community and a dinner space? Because food is really a form of connection that doesn't feel too pretentious either. So we're hoping it's going to be cheap.
it's going to be easy to access um we're going to ask for limited phones so it's not it's not for the purpose of posting it's just the purpose of just vibing um and so we'll be pretty curating some conversations and connections but really letting it feel like an enjoyable evening so it's a test run and that we'll be holding in the fall of this dinner um hoping to do just make it feel like a family style dinner that people can share and kind of hang out so um yeah i'm curious to see where it goes
um is that like is that like uh is that open to just photographers is it like invite only thing or like people that want to come they can reach out or like how does that work Yeah, so we have a limited space for the initial run of it, but we were trying to, so we got quite a few responses. So we're trying to balance actually disciplines. So we have quite a few.
like we don't spoil you too much like we have photographers writers filmmakers like sculptors we've got painters too so we're just trying to see how we can mix people up together and i think sometimes As somebody who is very multidisciplinary, it's just like the ethos that I run on, I think it's kind of cool to meet people also that you wouldn't normally meet, but are around you. And so, and kind of letting go of that barrier.
I think like feeling like you need to network versus just hanging out. yeah definitely and how is the like creative community in minneapolis and like because i live in a smaller market myself in boston like did you ever feel the pressure because like some people like you gotta move to new york you gotta move to la but like how do you feel being like a photographer in like
Minneapolis. I love it. I think it's great. I think as somebody who moved here a few years ago now, quite almost a decade, but a few years ago now from Canada, I found the community here just like so welcoming.
um it's really where i've thrived i think and i think minneapolis i think some of the smaller markets are in like uh an earlier phase i think compared to some of the bigger cities world building like still building that sense of community and so people are open to collaborate and do interesting things and like hear crazy ideas and stuff. I find it very, a really thriving sort of cultural environment for creativity. So it's been really, really great. Absolutely amazing. That's awesome.
I guess to go back, like, where did you grow up? I know you mentioned you moved here from Canada, but where do you grow up and like, how do you initially kind of get into photography, I guess? Yeah. So I grew up, born and raised in Canada, kind of all over. I'm born in Montreal, Quebec, French Canada, but mainly grew up between Vancouver and Vancouver Island on the west coast. So grew up next to alongside the Pacific Ocean.
running around, hiking the woods, very Pacific Northwest sort of environment. And so that, like, just the general natural beauty of the place really fosters, like, wanting to take photos of it. But I also grew up in an immigrant. that's been taking photos since I was a kid. So we have boxes and boxes of photos from East Africa back home growing up and things like that. So I grew up with a very...
healthy sense of appreciating photography without dating myself too much. As a young kid, I would go to Walmart, give them the film roll, wait for the warm envelope after an hour and a bit. That was something that I grew up with as a very, very young child. And so like, and also annotating the back of the photos.
date name what are we doing things like that and so it's very much i kind of joke and say it's like early social media the caption and the photo that's awesome do you still have all those all those old Yeah, my family has a lot of it in Canada, but I've managed to throw some in my bag on the way home when visiting.
yeah so i have i'm collecting a lot of that stuff and so i've had an appreciation of photography um obviously i grew up in an age where like before social media from the first chunk of my childhood and stuff A lot of it was just taking a camera to school in the last day of school, photographing friends with people like that. And so I was kind of known as a photographer around. And then in high school, you know.
Towards the end was when kind of like Facebook and all that social media and networking started showing up. And so that's when I really started getting into sort of everyday education. And it's kind of grown since then. But then I really started taking it seriously after I graduated and started working as a field researcher in British Columbia. So I was working on a big public health project, traveling. I was living out of a suitcase for about a year and a half.
living on indigenous communities just traveling and so in the evenings you know i'd be at a motel or like in a small town and so i would capture a lot of photos so i bought my first fuji film then um camera that was it was like discontinued so it was like out of box super cheap and then i kind of really started like photographing there i bike a lot so it was a lot of like during my bike trips photographing as well so i really started
doing a lot of, like, work in nature and sort of, like, travel photography, really. And then I kind of moved on towards portraits and things like that, and I kind of grew from there in terms of how can I build out a story from what I'm thinking.
yeah yeah because you went I read you you studied microbiology and genetics and then you got a you got a I did my research you got a master's in public health from a little school called Johns Hopkins uh so big time shit uh but guess what made you kind of want to study uh microbiology and like and obviously you're still working in that field now um what do you enjoy about that work i guess um
So I, again, going back to me being multidisciplinary, I actually always wanted to go to art school. And I didn't go to art school as a child of immigrants. I was like, you're not doing that. You're going to science school. I went to the sciences and I was really actually like struggling. I changed my major many times. I thought it was going to be a math major. I thought it was going to be a constant. I just like, I like a lot of things.
So, you know, but then around second year, I sat in my microbiology class and I was like, oh, this is the thing. And so. i love microbiology it's i think it's an art form i think the systems in our body and the way we do things i really feel like it's like art it's design it's beautiful and so it really um
blended itself into afterwards when I started working at a research lab in that area in genetics. Just the creativity of it, like coming up, designing an experiment, you know, trying and failing at it until I can perfect it. And so it was just that. that effort that went into it, that meticulousness, but also just like the tenacity to see something through. I really enjoyed that. And so after college, I quit.
the lab world because i was tired of working with fruit flies to be honest um and so i wanted to work with people and so that's kind of when I started getting into more of that public health sphere. I was like, okay, what can I take what I've learned in a micro system so small and like blow it up and scale it up to bigger. And so that's been really nice to work in public health and work with populations.
so that's the public health stuff is the stuff you're doing now yeah and what is it what is that i'm actually i'm almost more curious and it must be so interesting that you get to work uh i got so many questions but like it must be interesting to work in like to create a field on one side and then you work in this other field But I guess with the public health stuff, what kind of stuff are you working on now? Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to go into too much, but I work on evaluation.
You know, if people are running programs in the public health space for a population, can I make sure that what you're collecting, the information you're collecting, is that you're doing what you said you were going to do? and is it effective and how can we tweak your thing to like make it better? So it's a lot of design of health programs and projects, but it's also large-scale data analysis.
I actually code a lot in my job. I spend most days coding, which I really like that compartmentalization. Shoot a bunch of photos, edit it. We transfer it and then I can come back to this work. I'm just like designing code and I also code on an open source.
So I designed my code from scratch, which is really fun. So I do feel like I'm doing a lot of, again, I'm throwing the word design out because I think that's like... a lot of my work really feels very creative in that aspect as well i know people think it's very like left brain right brain but i do think it's all brain yeah um and so yeah and so i work a lot with children and youth data and things like that
I'm just trying to, like, improve health outcomes in my life course. And it kind of ties into the DNA research I used to do. I used to work in epigenetics, which is, like, without getting too deep into it. It's about... you know what aspects in the womb like when you're like your parents carrying you like what aspects from their environment can affect your future when you're out here in the universe so it's like
um again just like a lot of prevention like what how does environment affect you and I'm still doing that similar thing where I'm looking at like how does where you live and like the circumstances you're in and the health of like the neighborhood design and like the system you're in. affect your health outcomes in the future.
Yeah, I saw you did a photo project. I think it might have been an assignment in Minneapolis where it was something to the fact like from years of like redlining that the temperature was hotter in certain neighborhoods versus others, correct? Yeah, yeah.
yeah neighborhood design is such a cool field like i could that's a whole other like i'm so i love it i'm so fascinated i read about it all the time i think it's super cool yeah there's a lot of research out there yeah and i guess for you because i know there's a lot of people listening to this podcast who like like yourself they might have a full-time job and they still want to pursue photography like what would you say to them like um like
balancing having a full-time job but still pursuing something that you're passionate about and working towards like doing more assignments and stuff like that yeah i would say like probably two things i had a you know During COVID, the pandemic, the earliest part of it, I did a lot of portfolio reviews. I did a lot of outreach, but I would say do a lot of outreach and meet people that you would like to work for.
um it's really helpful because you get an insight into like potentially if you especially if i'm talking commercial work purely or editorial it's like getting to the mindset of the person who would want to hire you and like what they see when they initially work because it's very very illuminating um
And then number two, I would say, again, going back to one, make sure people know about you. Even just outreach, people know about you. It does feel like sometimes we're just sending your name out into the ether and nothing's coming back forever. but it's okay. It's like, what's the worst that could happen? And then the second being that like balance, like work-life balance is really, really great, but not to lose sight of like what you like doing. And so I, I knew that like, I didn't want.
where I get my food source mainly coming from where I like derive my joy from too and so that's kind of how I've separated it intentionally but I think for other people obviously the hope for many many people is to be full-time myself too right but it's just like not the case at times so it's just like making sure that you're being really intentional about who you contact and like the work that you do
So it's like when I create work too, I'm also creating work to show people like how I package it is also showing people the type of work I want to do. So it's like... If I display the work in a certain way, I'm like, I'm doing mainly portraits. And I'm like, this is the kind of work I would like to be hired for. So it's like very intentionality also.
the personal work that you do. Obviously, there's a balance in that as well. You don't want to be like thinking about 100% about who's going to hire you when you're doing personal work. But that is really how people hire you actually is something I'm learning. Yeah, they want to see what you're interested about.
um i guess for you like how did you when you started doing assignment work via editorial commercial like who are some of the first clients you worked with and like how did those like you said you're just kind of doing cold outreach pretty much and it's kind of letting people know you're around pretty much Yeah, I mean, 2020 was when I got my first commission assignment. I actually didn't do much outreach because I was expecting my daughter at the time. I'm like really going through it.
because it was the first few months of the pandemic. But I would say my first story was with NPR. That was my first editorial assignment. And I was terrified because I'd like. I think like when you get your first one, you kind of have to like fake it so you make this. I was like, yeah, I know what I'm doing. I was like, yeah, of course, no problem. I really had no idea what they were asking me to do. And so like it was just running out with my camera.
And I was like six months pregnant at the time, too. So I was like trying to hide that, which was impossible. And so it was just like running around and taking photos. It was a quick editorial assignment. So it was an easy portrait one. And that really snowballed into work for me because I like made sure I promoted it a lot, too. I was just like, look at this thing I did, you know, even though it was like.
I think like two photos in the whole article, but I was just like, look at this, look at this. And so it was really amplifying that work and then using that to reach out to other folks. And so then that kind of snowballed into like National Geographic. And then. So my first big commission assignment was Apple. So that came around towards the end of 2020.
um and i was like five weeks postpartum at the time so like a lot yeah but it was good it was a good assignment and and i and i spent a bulk of my work previously doing um iphone work so that felt very comfortable and easy for me to do um because i do mix like media a lot i'm not moving into film but that's a whole other thing but yeah so yeah
yeah the apple project i was going to ask you about that so you shot that whole because it was basically i saw there was like billboards it was like a campaign about i think it was like international women's day and that was all shot on iphone Yeah, so no, actually the first one, I can't post those photos. Yeah. Usage stuff. But the actual campaign was actually about Minneapolis.
you know, came up with a concept of like highlighting the youth in the community in Minneapolis. And that was the iPhone campaign. So that was a billboard. I think it ended up in a commercial as well. A few other, quite a few things. I think it was a pretty large scale project that they were doing and they invited photographers from all over the country.
to participate in this but i was chosen in minneapolis and so that was an amazing experience there is nothing like so you said you came up with the idea for that apple came to you and was like hey we want to shoot with a brief Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. So it was very much a collaboration. It was cool. Yeah. Yeah, it was really cool. And for me, it's like.
Being new to it, it kind of was a good experience to be like, okay, I'm given a brief. I need to sit down and be like, put something together and like present it in a way that like is confident and cohesive and makes sense to other people just in my head. So that was a really good experience. And then from that afterwards, they invited me to shoot another conceptual project for International Women's Day. And I was like, okay, well, I'm already doing this personal project again about women.
which I do focus all the bulk of my work on. And so it just flowed from there. You know, I had the iPhone to take photos on. Yeah, so that was fun. what do you yeah the iphone photography i'm kind of like i've been shooting a lot i mean i always shoot my iphone but i'm almost taking it like a little more seriously now like it there is something that you said like people it's like i don't know people like you gotta have the new camera but really the cool thing about the iphone
camera at least i don't know if you agree but like you can kind of get into spots that you normally couldn't with your your actual camera and it's like a lot less intrusive but like for you working on those projects and then this using your iphone for your own photography what do you enjoy about it Oh, good question. I, again, I think I enjoy the feasibility of it. Like if I'm going out on a walk with my daughter, I take a lot of photos.
100 on my iphone um i think people who follow my stories and i mainly market myself on stories i don't really post on main um it's all iphone almost entirely i'm not going to go through the whole effort of like taking a photo, uploading it, sending it to my phone, like I'm not, I don't have time for that or like mental bandwidth for that. So it's just like, I definitely believe in mixed media and I don't think.
I believe in composition and color and light. And I think you can really do a lot with what you have. And I think the iPhone is a great tool. It's better than a lot of cameras. Yeah, it will. It comes really far.
it will do like sometimes you'll take a picture with your iphone and it looks better than like what your actual camera does how does this work but yeah that's amazing um and i guess for you like i always ask photographers did it kind of take you a while to kind of find your voice as a photographer in terms of like style and aesthetics like when i look at your work when i on instagram i know oh that's yasmin's photo like i know it's yours um but that was that kind of
journey to get to that point i guess yeah i've like and i'm still struggling with a lot about style um i think you know there's a lot of i think sometimes there's a lot of trends in photography and things can blend in i think there was that whole year where everybody was really into like
it was like pastel or like bright colored backdrops oh yeah it was like you didn't even know where you were yeah yeah yeah like textured backdrops or whatever like the fabric and all that stuff yeah yeah yeah and so it's like and i played into it too but it's like it's trying to find like yourself outside of those trends and it's like i think sometimes it's really tricky nowadays especially i think as an artist is fighting the algorithm push or that subliminal push where it's like
The algorithm sometimes knows things that you like or like to see. And then I think sometimes it sees into the work. I really believe that it's a valid thing. So it's been struggling with that idea of like, how do I make myself unique? And also like... Right, the inclination towards trends.
which can be really really tricky because some trends look really awesome and so it's like yeah i think it's yeah i think it's i think it's smart i think it's just at the end of the day like it's have fun with it like if you want to do it like try it out and then like and then it comes
down to like for me i think that one of the hardest things to do is like editing your work like how you're gonna present it like i think yeah this the thing i just remind myself is like just shoot as much and try like you know yeah and i it's really about play i do agree with you 100 i think it's like once we take it again i always think about going to that place as a freelancer it's like play this is why we do this girl we're good at it but we also like
to play that's why we're in a creative area in a creative field and so um playing has been really helpful to figure out style for me because when at the end of the day when now i've been printing out a lot of my work i'm looking at work that i gravitate towards so like just picking up the photos um And that's when I realized, okay, this is my style. And then I think around 2022, 2021, I did an archive dig. So I like pulled out my phone, which has like...
thousands of photos. And I just really was like, okay, let me look at the photos that I'm gravitating towards. Because like, this kind of tells you subliminally what you like. Because you usually snap it on the fly. You're not really thinking too much about it. So I did a deep archivic dig. And that's when I was like, oh, I like shooting through doors and windows. I like certain white space around. So that's like...
That also helps illuminate a little bit. I do encourage people to really dig in your phone, actually, in your archives, because I think you're going to find themes and patterns that emerge in your work. And I do think that's your style, at least a part of it.
yeah definitely that's smart i'm gonna my my dig my deep dive would be like pictures of like baseball games and like but that's i think that's your like style or like niche and it does lean into that idea of like what do you like doing because that's like it's not necessarily what you're good at you could be good at other things but it's also like balancing that idea of like what do i like doing and how can i do it more of it you know and so i think sometimes it really illuminates that
And are you someone that enjoys looking at other photographers' work and buying inspiration that way? Because I know some people don't like looking at other work because they don't want it to influence theirs. Or where do you kind of land on that? Yeah, I like to read a lot. Actually, I watch a lot of TV and derive a lot of inspiration from there.
Just like I especially when I like watching TV that has good writing and like good development. I've always loved painting. I've painted a lot too, so I always go back to that.
um like the impressionist or the colors and things like that um vermeer is always an inspiration for me too so um yeah a lot of i don't necessarily do it from other photographers But lately I will say I've been getting into photo books and just like digging into them and digging into like a cohesive body of work that's like a story.
that somebody puts together and like packages for you in their own way. Any favorite ones that come to mind that you're like, oh, that one's like, I like that one. One right now that I super, super love is some say ice.
um by Andrew Secondi and I love love love love it it's so good um it's black and white which is something I do not gravitating towards so but i i like the idea of a story because like the that books and say ice about it's about a story and i i love the idea of photo books a lot of them have like an essay in the beginning to be like
this is why blah blah blah or how you have it at the end or something like that and so it's been crazy like okay this is your premise it feels like a it feels like a like book that doesn't have words it is a you know it's beauty and That's been something I've been doing a lot of lately. And that's where, you know, the concept of like, I know personally for me, I'm in this journey where it's like, I know I can take a nice portrait. I feel very confident and happy in that. It feels good to like.
You're like, okay, that years of work has felt like confident, a little bit of confidence in that. But then I was like, but now I'm in this phase of like, okay, but can I take that and make it a body? Can I make it into a cohesive story with like... a story arc or something like that. So I've been really thinking a little bit deeper about sort of storytelling.
Yeah, because even with your film, Dehanto, was that kind of the first long-form story you kind of had told, either photographically or with filmmaking, I guess? Yeah, I think so. It was my debut, like, directorial debut, and it was my first, like, very long form, I would say, thinking a lot about story.
um and so the interesting thing about that one too was that um it's a doc right and so there's i i personally for me i follow like ethical standards of documentary telling which is like can't tell you what to say or what to do or anything like that and so it's different from narrative i think because narrative you can really be like this is the character this is what they like and this is what they're gonna do and there's the end but
With dockets, you kind of get what you get, and then you sit down and you're like, okay, this is the footage I have. What do I do with this? So it was really an interesting experience. to take my perception of the team and then actually see what their own perception of themselves was and how they were going to portray themselves to me too.
And so, yeah, I spent a lot, we spent a lot of time afterwards with the team and the editors being like, okay, we have all these pieces, like how do we tell a story with it? Because how did that kind of project come about and what inspired you to want to tell that story? And maybe you could explain, because I believe I read dahanto as a form of dance, correct? Dance is a dance, yeah. And it's one of the most popular dances in Somalia and East Africa.
I titled it that because everybody thinks when they say dance, they say that word. But it's actually, there's many differences. But that's the most popular one. And people associate it with traditional dance. And so... I saw them all over town since I moved here, just like at weddings or at festivals or at block parties, just like dancing. I was like, who are these people? Like, why do they wear uniforms? What do they do? Like, why do they do it? Because I've never seen such an organized team.
um like this before so i've found um the great thing about being in community here too is that people will just like help you find somebody so i got the the coach's number and message was just like hey can i like follow you guys around and they were like yeah sure
And so, yeah, and so that's kind of how I got inspired. I was like, what's your story? Because I was like, you can't just be about performance. And so later, I actually got to know them. They were like, no, we do this because we're preserving dance, traditional dance, like in the diaspora. They were only preserving 20.
about 20 dances back home, over 100. So I'm like, okay, this is actually about like almost like living archive of like tradition. And, you know, they do operate out of the Somali Museum here. So I was like, yeah, it is actually like...
an artifact of something that they're trying to like continue on. And it was really following that team around and really getting to know their story and why they do what they do. That was super, super fulfilling. And how long did you work on that project for? A year and a half.
year and a half okay and did it kind of take you a while to kind of i guess gain their trust and like find your story like how did that process work because i going into i'm sure from the initial starting to work on it to the end it probably changed a lot of like what you thought you're going to create right oh yeah oh yeah i mean you have to build trust when you're just like
randomly approaching people right like I just like I think it's tricky because you know I had that privilege of building that time out with somebody
And so the first three months when I got to know them, we didn't really do anything. I did one time come to an event and I took photos of the teens. There's a lot of teens on the dance street. And so it's hard to get... just from teens some random person showing up um so i took photos of them and i gave it to them it was a lot of like teens posing for photos that for ig like stuff like that and so it was just like just to be like this is what i can do what do you think and they loved it and so
but then it was also just showing up. And so now whenever we see each other, it's pretty much like that trust has been built. And they were able to like really open up and they really got into the process as well. Like they showed up to every screening.
They got really, really excited about it. They're like, why would anybody want to make something about us? Like, I feel like we're in a TV show, you know? So it was like a lot of that, like having cameras follow them. And so, but it was, it was, it was really nice to like build. that over time too and that takes a lot of work a lot of patience and it did feel derailed sometimes i mean sometimes things would get cancelled or sometimes
You know, I'd be like, ah, this footage is boring. And it was like, it was not really exciting enough, right? But I was like, wait, this isn't a reality TV show. No, no. Real life. And so afterwards, it was nice to sit down and be like, oh, okay. Like, there really isn't much conflict.
like there isn't a lot of uh you know sad stuff that feels very punchy i think for for certain films and things like that i was like this is just a group like doing really great stuff and they do like and so we ended up It was a very celebratory piece, and I think that's why it was so fun to screen it last fall all over town and share that with everyone.
and like when you're working on a project like that like how do you know you're done with it or like how do you know you're ready yeah that's the thing with documentary like you could just go on forever and i'm sure like even now you were like i can keep photographing them and keep like it's just like never ending because you're like how do you Okay, we're ready to put something out.
Yeah, no, it was just with me being like, I'm done. Because it was like a hard cutoff. Like, first of all, I was like, no, because I do get requests where people are like, when you're going to do part two? And I was like, there's no part two. Moving on. I need to move on. Like, I need to move on.
on mentally and so a lot of it's just been me like okay and that's kind of I think when I announced my next one coming up it was like okay this is done and I gave it to the museum I'm like this is the film please do what you do with it And that's been nice to just, I'm done. It was a very like actual intentional sort of closing of that door, which is a project I super, super love. I had to stop.
And I guess with filmmaking, obviously you do still photography and now you're directing. Do you find like... getting into filmmaking and directing is like help influence your still photography at all or do you is it kind of two different practices for you or anything you think kind of help one or the other I think it's separate I like
I think they do blend into each other because there's a lot of my work that feels very still in still photography. People feel very quiet. I think I have a lot of quiet work. In my other work, I'm trying to bring some of that motion back in. Although when I rewatch some of the stuff I've made recently, it still feels very still too. But I do think it's totally separate. I find motion work to be a whole other universe.
I do think it's a lot more technical and a lot more meticulous, a lot of planning involved, whereas I think with still, there's just as much, but I do definitely feel more free and still photography. And so...
I think but I do like that new challenge of working with the constraints especially now with motion it's like okay um how do i film something wide but also make it look good for social media like it's also that other things i have there's so many things i have to consider but still it's just like horizontal turn like you know like uh and i saw you've been doing directing some really cool commercials for blue cross blue shield in uh minnesota um and it seemed like like the perfect kind of um
client for you because it's like telling like honest stories of like real people um i guess how's it been working on those projects and when you're working on the uh commercial like that um are are you the camera operator is it more like you're hiring a team
or like how does that kind of process work for you? Yeah, with the Blue Cross Blue Shield, which was so, so fun. I did three pieces and they were so different from each other. So a lot of it involved like, I worked with an agency for a couple of them and then one I did on my own. But those were really, really fun to get to know the client. And they were non-profits. And non-profits do so much work. They don't always do...
They do more than sometimes the grants they apply for. They just tailor their grant. So it was just like getting to know them and being like, okay, how can I condense everything that you do in one minute or a minute and a half? And that was an interesting challenge. You're like, how do I tell a story in a cohesive way? It's never going to tell everything that you do, but I'm going to try to tell it from the essence, or at least the basic information of what you do as much as possible.
that was really really fun for me so i was a director and i concepted all the really storyboarded them so it was i was there from start to finish it was fun well you found all the stories for that campaign Yeah, all three. So me, like, I was, we met the nonprofit, did the info meeting and concept. I was like, okay, what information do we have?
how do i take so one of them was extremely challenging i would point out because it was like they do so many projects they're one tiny organization with not many people um but i was like it was spent a lot of time just like thinking and ruminating over it
you know, when I'm like cooking and like, how do I tell us? And then I was like, okay, what if I took all their program areas and turned it into an archetypal character? And all the archetypal characters meet at the location and get home from there.
And so it was like, how do I do that in a very, it was very montage and abstract way. But I was just like, how do I tell this story in a different way? So you like feel something at the end of it. And then you go to their website and then you can be like, okay, this is all for details. Because I didn't.
like i didn't want to do the whole traditional talking heads thing where it's like hi we're organization a we do xyz like it's just i was like how do i make you feel something like you watch what all of them do so yeah it was good and i would imagine it's a different challenge because like with your personal project film dahato you kind of were just working out on your own time and own pace but when you work on these projects it's like
maybe you're shooting for one day or two days with this so it's like a different a different level of pressure i would imagine to like it's not like you're gonna go back and keep reshooting you kind of gotta shoot what you can and then you gotta edit from that Yeah, so all of these were shot on one 12-hour day, so it was really intense. So it took a lot of prescribing of storyboarding. We're going to do this at this time. So it was very quick, quick, quick movement.
Very fun. Very different from the slowness that I enjoy. Because I do like to like marinate. Okay, am I moving in the right direction? How does the story feel? how does somebody who doesn't know anything about the story what are they going to see the first time they see this so yeah it's a little bit different i think especially when you're doing like commission work where it's like you're hired to do something and it's like get it out
But I had a little bit of time to work on this over the winter, spring and summer. And so it was good, but it took a lot out of me. So I am on a little bit.
yeah that's how those commercial jobs are the great they pay great but it's just like a marathon it's just like yeah yeah move on to the next one yeah and it was a series three so i was like oh um and i saw you also directed a spot for uh i think it's like a it's called world remit which is basically like a cash app or like one of these like third party like uh money transfer sites and you got to work with a somali pop star uh i don't know if you're pronouncing his name
How was that experience kind of working on that project? Where did you shoot that? That was shot in studio here at a production company here called Current Residence. So we built it out, you know, we built out. green room. We knew we wanted purple to reflect the brand's brandings. We had a little bit of fog and all that stuff there. But it was good. It was really, really fun. And Soldan Serar is like such a star. He's such a big deal.
you know people like oh my god you're gonna meet him oh but it was it was it was a very interesting experience because it was it was shadow somali um and so that was very different to to to be able to you know translate that and what they wanted to portray and it was for that market too so it was a really great experience okay get a little bit of that mindset like how do we do something that's exclusively for this market so it was a great experience it was uh
it was all in studio all in location i knew i wanted that like reveal of him from the phone and stuff like that Yeah, everybody can go check it out. It's on your website. Another thing I was interested in talking about, I know you work with a rep. I think you're with Tinker Street, is that what it's called? Yeah.
I guess what made you kind of want to sign with the rep? Any advice you'd give to other photographers when making the decision? And how's that kind of relationship work for you so far, I guess? Yeah, I am. I'm rep by Tinker Street for commercial work. And Jesse is great, my agent. We work together on things. Jesse really, I would say, took it under his wing as I started out in this field. And like, you know, it's a great partnership for me. It works for me. And I love that.
um i like having you know somebody to work with somebody to bounce ideas off of um and so yeah i would recommend anybody who's interested with like something to look into for sure i mean i think you know i have a lot of mentors in this industry too that i've built out over the last few years people have more way more experience than me that i talk to on a regular basis and one of them you know to say you know representation is just another tool in your
So it was a very good, like, you know, illuminating moment for me too. It was like, you've got a toolbox of your business and, you know, photography is also a business, especially if you're freelance. So when I'm thinking from, I'm not talking about the creative side, I'm talking about your business of it.
It's a good tool to have, but I would say it's also not to be on end all. And I do get a lot of requests where people are like, I need to get prepped. It's going to change my life. And I'm like, I mean, it might. It's not good. It's not going to change. But you still got to market yourself. You still got to put on the work. You still got to hone in on your style. It's very much a craft.
And I think people who participate in their craft have to develop their style and really intentionally think about where they're going and stuff.
there's many tools to do that right when somebody's got a studio space and and so i do think like it's great to have but there's also other ways as well to like expand yourself up too it's part of a universe i think of running this freelance thing yeah oh yeah it's a steady build and you get sharper and sharper the more like now that you're shooting i'm sure you learn from every job you do and it kind of just helps sharpen your toolkit as you'd say you know um yeah
Because with the rep, what do they bring to the table for you? Is it just hopefully getting your name out there? Is it more just kind of hoping they'll help you out with estimating and that? What is it you're hoping they bring to the table for your business, I guess? I mean, I think it's a both and like what you said, like I do, they bring a lot. I mean, it also depends on like your needs and the rep and it's ever flowing and ever changing, right? Like when I started out.
having like somebody around who could like talk to me about usage which was such a world i was like like what you know um but now that i know a little bit more it's like i think it's ever flying after changing and so it's always good to have that like
Also, I like second opinions when I go to the doctor and stuff like that. So it's always good to have, I think, a teammate and partner in some of the stuff that you do. Some people work best, you know, on their own and know everything about usage and experience.
yeah it really depends yeah no that's smart and uh i guess for you what kind of assignments or um work are you interested in right now like what kind of stuff are you hoping to work on like moving forward or what what are the stories you want to tell i guess
This is going to sound ridiculous. I've been telling everybody and I'm hoping to just like put it out into the universe. I would love to work on a holiday campaign. What do you mean? Like a holiday, like a winter, like, like holiday campaign that's super campy.
i just did i worked on one last two weeks ago they had like i gotta say i'll send you photos after it's like candy canes and all this yeah like i just want to go like high camp um i think that would be super fun um and then just generally the hope is that photo book i'm working on i'm really excited about it so that's like my main thing this year
what's the can you talk about what the photo book is what's what's the project that's going to be in the book or yeah yeah i can definitely talk about it i mean it's going to be about like womanhood but like all the facets of it the good the bad the ugly the abstract the weird the medium people who conform people who don't um and it's just like sort of the i always this without going to launch feel like
I got into it by being really, really into watching Alabama rush, like people rush for sororities in Alabama on TikTok a while ago. And it really shifted my perspective on this project that I started. And then I didn't know where to go with it.
And so I started a project called Adornment in 2022 that was just like about, like, can you show yourself as a person, as a woman? And I invited both men and women. And then I noticed the women would show up with like... bags of clothes the men would just show up and be like okay take it take a photo oh so this is like a studio portrait shoot
It was both. I said, can you pick an environment that's meaningful to you? It was interesting because the women would sometimes pick studios and then they would bring clothes and I would wait for them sometimes to do their makeup for half an hour.
just watching them do this sort of production of like preparation and so i was like after i started and then i kind of set the project aside for a while and i started watching the sororities and other things like that on tiktok and i was like really curious about the sort of performative aspects of the rituals behind it like the stuff that we do, the items, the objects that are meaningful, the things that people use.
to present themselves to me as a photographer, as a performance almost. And so I would say it's almost like another way of looking at performance. I think Naoto was... literal performance and i'm kind of looking at performance from another aspect of it as well like you know the pomp of being a woman and the ideas behind and the expectations behind it so i'm just inviting people to like show me their interpretations and i'm hoping
follow them um and see what i can come up with i'm gonna kind of see where it leads me so i don't so you're still you're still active actively photographing that project Yeah, I'm actually recruiting right now. So I asked people to like, I got a key long list. And so it was sifting through their responses and actually just like solicited information on Google Forms on my Instagram.
I got a lot of responses and I put a couple of questions in there and I was like, how do you interpret womanhood? And I was really curious to see people's responses. And I said, like, go, you can go good, bad, ugly, abstract. It was really cool to be like, oh. So now I'm hoping to like start photographing in the fall and the winter and spring and then start really, really building that out. And I'm really curious to see the first couple of people where it's going to lead me because.
maybe following them for a while as well it won't just be a one-off sort of shoot so oh so kind of like documentary like following a person like what like in maybe this their day-to-day life like what they're interested in or whatnot kind of
Yeah. Yeah. Or like a group of people or things like that. I've gotten, and I also encourage people to apply as, they can apply as singles, pairs, groups. So I've gotten responses from like, generations of one family but like or like groups of friends and so or like somebody a lot of people some left not a lot of solo people which I found very interesting and so a lot of sisters a lot of so
I'm going to see where it takes me. I'm really, really curious to see how people interpret that because it's almost like they can interpret it as a, it seems like it's emerging that it's a collective group thing. Yeah. That's a cool thing about your work. I think you mentioned it in your, like on your website, like you kind of just like.
uh exploring different like subcultures like you you know you had like one on your website i don't know if it was an assignment or personal project but it was like people roller skating or like or maybe it's this project and it's just you're you're you use like getting out there and it's kind of meeting different people
pretty much yeah and it's so fun like you know and this one's a subculture i'm part of so it's like even more fun to see like my interpretation of things and other people's but i like subcultures i like digging into sort of like It's not a secret society, but sometimes it feels like it, you know, they've got their own rules and practices sometimes and expectations. And so it's kind of interesting to be a tourist and like get to know them and build that trust.
leave yeah yeah exactly well yasmin um it's been great talking to you i really i really appreciate your work and for taking the time and i guess this uh last question i guess uh i guess we kind of already touched on but any anything next for you any goals or anything you want people to know about your work or anything like that um no I think I'm good I like I'm excited I'm excited to like
i appreciate i'm a huge fan of your work and you know and the podcast and so i was like so excited to get the email but yeah i think in my work i was I mean, I hope people are okay to build connections. I'm on Instagram, try to answer all my DMs and stuff like that. I think as somebody who's new to the industry relatively, who comes from a totally different area than the sciences.
I like answering people's questions too. And like getting to know them and things like that. And so I'm more than happy. I love, I love your Instagram bio. You have a local cool mom. yeah it's so great i love it i'm trying yeah yeah you gotta ask my daughter to be here okay well thanks so much and uh i'll link your website and everything um and uh thanks again and uh keep in touch
Thank you. Nice to meet you again. So there you have it. That was the Yasmin Yasin interview. Just want to thank Yasmin so much for taking the time to come on the podcast. It was a real pleasure talking to her about her work and her journey with photography and everything she does. I'm a big fan of her work. So definitely go check out her website at yasminyasin.com. And you can follow her on Instagram. Her Instagram handle is Y-A-Z-Z-I-Z. But I'll follow all the links in the description.
and definitely go check it out. And as always, thanks so much for listening. I got more podcasts coming, so stay tuned. And as always, thanks so much and take care.