Meet O’shane Howard, a 29-year-old creative specializing in photography. Howard resides in Malton, Ontario, where he has spent most of his life growing up. His kickstart into this career didn’t start with him behind the camera but in front. At 18-years-old, O’shane Howard went into modelling later fuelling his career today. He has built a network over the past ten years to contribute to his growing work.
Originally going to school for fashion and business, O’shane Howard found himself not enjoying the program, later dropping out a year later. He then went on to work for the next couple of years working on personal growth and development. Howard found himself back in school for media and communications. He felt that the media industry was going to get a boost in the next couple of years. A required essential for the program was a camera so, O’shane Howard invested in one and it was the beginning of an amazing journey.
O’shane Howard got himself a mentor, in which he learned how to use his camera and work on his photography skills. From there, he completed a paid internship for two months and then decided to not go back to school. He shortly realized that his favourite thing about photography was capturing memories. From his high school years, he recalls recording and taking pictures of everything.
"When we get older, we're going to want to look back at these images."
Being a photographer has brought out O’shane Howard’s leadership skills and communication skills. He emphasizes that being a good photographer is not only about the images, but also the surrounding people who add to it. Whether it is a set designer, make-up artist or creative director, all these people go into making a beautiful shot.
Révolutionnaire shot by O'shane Howard
With that in mind, O’Shane Howard’s favourite campaign is Roots Canada. Roots Canada was founded in 1973 and this year was the first-ever market for Black History Month. Howard was selected along with other black creatives for this job. He says “it was a historical moment” as Roots Canada has never done anything like this before. Howard says that it was important for a company as big as Roots to do a campaign like this. To be apart of the first group of people shooting for Black History month was another milestone in his career. Along with Hudson’s Bay Company doing their first-ever Black History Month campaign as well.
"To use this opportunity that was given to me to give to other black creatives."
The Roots Canada Révolutionnaire campaign introduced a sister duo. Sisters Nia and Justice Faith created Révolutionnaire as a platform to promote action and education geared towards the black community. Its main focus is to promote those to be revolutionary in everything that they do. Roots Canada has teamed up with the sisters to help celebrate diversity and empowerment during Black History Month.
"It was just beautiful to see so many black people on one set."
O'shane Howard took a series of photos including the sisters and they were posted on Roots Canada.
Check out this podcast featuring creative director and photographer, O'shane Howard. Here we listen to the importance of diversity in media in Toronto.
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