Tamara Fleming Captures Newark's Beauty — and Beyond

"We are who are and it is beautiful," said Tamara Fleming, in her joy for capturing images of women in urban communities. Fleming, the co-founder of FEMWORKS LLC, a multicultural marketing, public relations agency and photography studio, said she feels it is essential for women to feel beautiful in their own skin.

Fleming's passion for photography and capturing beautiful images derives from an incident she doesn't remember. An accident when she was about 4 years old left her essentially blind in one eye with only marginal peripheral vision. She relates her fear of going blind propelled her to "capture beauty."

At the age of 19, Fleming moved from her suburban hometown of Jacksonville, N.C., to Newark. Initially, she didn't know what to make of the urban community. She said the unknown "forced me to get out and explore more." While taking pictures of locals, she met kindred spirit Kimberlee Williams, her future FEMWORKS business partner. 

With life experience her primary education, Fleming's first Newark photographic job was as house photographer for African Globe Studios, an African American theater company. From there, she went to work with PR Newswire where Williams was also employed.

Rising through the ranks in the agency, Fleming began organizing photos and photographers for larger scale national and international distribution. Working with photographic demands of corporate America, it became apparent to Fleming there were "not enough images of African American women in their communities."

Fleming and Williams then developed FirstEye MediaWorks, LLC in 2004, which a few months into the venture launched FEMWORKS LLC, an agency promoting a niche multicultural market. Fleming said the agency was "born out of two women seeing a need for the urban community to get the exposure they needed and corporate American needing to speak to their needs." Among the agencies distinctions are as a Member of the Newark Regional Business Partnership and Certified National Member of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

Among the largest and most successful campaigns the agency has created is Status is Everything, a site which promotes HIV testing, in 2010. Developing the logo, custom creating the images, developing the marketing language and organizing press conferences were some of the components of the campaigns success. This campaign was the first time there was an "open representation of gay Newark," Fleming stated.

The launch was so successful that funds were received for 2011 for further promotion. Recently, FEMWORKS managed the media for the Lincoln Park music festival which was attended by more than 50,000.

Fleming is also keen on inspiring girls to see their beauty as they are and love the skin they are in. In July 2010 she raised funds to travel to Haiti. There she worked with a group of 100 girls aged 9-16, teaching them photography. The key to her fundraising success was a picture she took in Africa in 2006 called "Beauty Girl," where she photographed a young girl viewing her reflection in a mirror.

The inner joy captured in that picture was what she wanted to bring to the Haitian girls. Fleming wanted them to understand "people will say you are not beautiful. It is up to you to show them you are." 

Fleming feels it is her "responsibility working with young girls and showing them the beauty in themselves." As she aptly states. "create your own life and make what you want possible."