In this journal we bring it closer to home and focus on a very special girl, chasing her dreams in photography, and trying to approach an age old craft in new and interesting ways. Enter Maleika, creative soul and inspirational expressionist. 

She's so special in fact, we had to name a pair of sunglasses after her.

Hi Maleika, tell me a little bit about Calika.co and why you started it?

Calika originally started as a collaboration between my partner Corey and I because we met and connected over creativity and we wanted to carve out a space where we could create together - I’d also been working for 3 years in commercial photography and everything had become incredibly mechanical, way too methodical and somewhat repetitive. I needed to rekindle my love for the art and get back to what made me excited about it in the first place. This is really where and why Calika has blossomed. It was my photography therapy. 

We started out doing gonzo journalism; we’d go out to locations where I would shoot and Corey would write stories about the people and the scene. We captured some incredible things. That led us to documenting the emergence of the Krump scene, art festivals and underground cultures from where we live.  We wanted to do it our own way, to envision our local community through our own eyes, it was a totally fresh approach to what anyone else was doing. Then one day we had a brainwave, what if we could apply this approach to something more traditional, like a wedding, and from that, Calika.co was born. As a couple we understand what it means to be in love, so not only do we bring our creative love to a wedding but we facilitate our couples emotionally.

What were you doing before this?

I broke away from my hospitality job in 2016 after I had finished university and wanted to make photography my full-time thing. I spent 4-5 months endlessly sending out resumes, and despite a handful of crappy offers, I couldn’t face the idea of working for a soulless agency. So I went out on a whim by deciding to find work as a freelancer, which was scary as hell at first, but I slowly started winning clients. Three years on and I've had so many amazing and diverse opportunities to grow as a professional artist. 

What were you doing before this?

I broke away from my hospitality job in 2016 after I had finished university and wanted to make photography my full-time thing. I spent 4-5 months endlessly sending out resumes, and despite a handful of crappy offers, I couldn’t face the idea of working for a soulless agency. So I went out on a whim by deciding to find work as a freelancer, which was scary as hell at first, but I slowly started winning clients. Three years on and I've had so many amazing and diverse opportunities to grow as a professional artist. 

What made you decide to break away from the norm?

I apply intuition to most things in life, and my career is no different. It really struck me one day at work that I just needed to quit and move in that direction if that's what I wanted to do. I literally resigned a few hours later. It was risky and brave, but I knew I had to follow my heart if I wanted to find happiness in my work. I landed an amazing job recently with the local council to document a historical piece of art in the area. It's probably the biggest creative task I've ever undertaken. You will have specific things that call you in life, and whilst it’s great to have a vision, you need to first work with what’s in your reach.  That's what is important right now. It’s important to be stubborn on the vision, but flexible about how you get there.

What has been your biggest challenge?

Consistency of work is a constant challenge, but I’m getting better at building toward that - it’s just so easy to find yourself trying to recreate someone else’s work. Even in the most minute ways. It takes time to build strength in your own inner vision and sometimes as a creative, being pulled away from that can feel crushing. So it’s about developing inner trust and perseverance toward that.

And your biggest success?

Winning the grant from the council for the project felt pretty amazing because it demonstrated both their trust in my skills but also me as a person. Outside of that though, being self-employed most of the time, the wins are small and incremental and really hard to weigh up, especially when I’m so forward focused. So, to quote my favourite psychologist Jordan Peterson, "Sanity is best outsourced". And what I mean by that is, it’s way easier to judge your success when weighing it against things like - I’m winning clients, I’m being booked, my clients trust me, their feedback is awesome and I’m getting referrals - so you have to trust in that social soundboard sometimes, rather your inner critic. The reality is, I’m doing okay, I’m on my path.

Any regrets?

My biggest regret is not getting technically competent faster and making too many simple mistakes along the way that could have been avoided just by being a bit more interested in the tech. I just wanted to get in and play like a creative, but you need to understand the rules and foundations before you start to break them. It's not about just making it look pretty for yourself, you need to make the client happy, and that was a difficult lesson to learn.

Advice to anyone ready to do the same?

Stay focused on yourself and your own path and what it is for you to be successful. You can have peripherals around you, and whilst it’s good to know what is happening and what's going on, it’s easy to fall into the temptation of just copying others, rather than focusing on your own creative vision. I can look at as many Pinterest boards as I like, but for magic to grow, I need to be present every time I get behind the camera. My role is to capture a specific moment of the other person’s reality, not what I think the reality should be.

To find out more about Maleika and Corey check out their website at www.calika.co

Or Maleika’s personal work at www.maleikahalpin.com