Kehlani, Buku Fest, March 2016
To be honest, I had never heard of Kehlani before I photographed her. I had credentials to shoot
Buku Fest in New Orleans, which is predominantly an EDM festival. I didn't have anybody else I
was assigned to shoot while she was on, and a friend of mine told me she was a big deal so I
figured why not?
This ended up being one of my favorite photos of all time! I loved the coloring of the lights
behind her and her overall stage presence and style. Later on when I was exiting the photo pit
after photographing Future, I saw her in the VIP section with some other artists. I mouthed to
her as I exited "You were great!" and gave her a thumbs up, and she said thank you. She seemed
like such a genuinely grateful person.
I posted this photo on Instagram and she liked it, which must have shown up to her million
followers because that's my highest liked picture to date... it ended up getting over 1,000 likes or
something crazy! At that time I was averaging about 60 likes per picture, so I knew something
was happening when my phone was blowing up all day. That's the day I turned off my Instagram
push notifications on my phone because I was so stressed out …haha. Shortly after the festival,
she was in the news a lot for attempting to commit suicide. She has looked very different ever
since that incident. I will always love this photo because she looks like she's genuinely happy to
be on stage doing what she loves, and because it is important documentation of history.