JENDAYA DASH
Jendaya Dash is a Queens native, Brooklyn based photographer and dancer. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in 2014, Jendaya decided that she would follow her passions and pursue a career in dance and photography. Since then she has gone on to intern for dance photographer Rachel Neville and has become a member of Rod Rodgers Dance Company.
I was first introduced to the art of photographing through my father Rodney Dash. Growing up my father would always do test shots on me, so technically I started out in front of the camera. As I grew older, around the age of 11 or 12, I would help my dad out on his shoots holding the reflector. When I began high school I begged my dad to buy me a standard point and shoot camera of my own, although he would let me use his cameras when we would go out (specifically his Nikon D70).
I use photography to evoke emotion from my audience and most importantly myself. If I don't feel any sort of emotion when I look back at one my photos then I know that I didn't capture something right. As a dancer, I feed off of emotion and that's what I have carried over as an artist of multiple art forms -- THE ART OF EMOTING.