Razi Jafri is a designer, entrepreneur, photographer, and co-founder of NeighborFix, a marketplace for neighbors to help neighbors.
I've always loved taking pictures and I've always loved looking at images. I find them to be very beautiful. It's a moment in time that will never happen again. It's a fantastic way to tell a story. It supplements the story, it enhances it.
I'm in a photography fellowship right now called documenting Detroit. It's a cohort of 22 photographers who were chosen to document a project in the city of Detroit. We're all working on different stories. My work focuses primarily on spirituality and ethnicity. We had a major milestone last Friday when we had a show at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
It was an outdoor event, the work of all 22 photographers was presented on the back lawn of the DIA. It was validating in so many ways. I mean, for me as a photographer, and my skills and my abilities, and my motivations to tell the story about Muslims in Detroit.
A lot of friends and family came—even my parents came. To hear people recognizing the value of my work and how important it is—friends who are Muslim, who are not Muslim, who are Jewish, Christian, whatever background—was so validating. My parents told me they had no clue that I had spent so much time on it. They congratulated me, they told me it was incredible work and they even told me that they were very proud of me. That was one of the best nights of my life.