So many of the biggest moments in photographer Raven B. Varona’s (also known as RavieB) career have happened through the power of sharing her story, like when she sent a tweet to Jay-Z with a photo she had taken as a fan at a show with a message “Put me in the pit!” (she got a call about photographing a show in NYC the next day and found herself heading out on the 2008 Beyoncé and Jay-Z “On the Run II Tour” as one of the official photographers the next week), or when she told Fader magazine in an interview that her dream assignment would be photographing Beyoncé. Now, many stunning photographs of Queen Bey can be seen in Raven’s vibrant portfolio of stop-you-in-your tracks portraits as she continues long-term creative partnerships with many of her subjects, from Future to Adele, whom she worked alongside for every moment of the singer’s Las Vegas residency. “I love sharing my ideas and hopes for the kinds of projects I want to do because I think a big part of making things happen is putting yourself out there,” she says. “Then, when you share, everyone feels a part of your story.” 

Since the Bronx native went full-time into photography eight years ago after leaving New York University, she has had a front-row seat to some of pop culture’s biggest moments, an honor she takes seriously, seeing herself as a historian of these intimate, close-up captures with important figures in the zeitgeist. “Being in front of the camera is vulnerable. You are under big lights. It’s up close. The biggest thing for me is human connection. I want people on my set to feel comfortable, to feel good, and to feel seen,” she says. “I love people and watching how they experience the world, especially in moments of joy.” 

The slogan for her work is “I know your best side.” It’s also the namesake for her nonprofit, the Best Side Foundation, which she started at the beginning of this year after taking school pictures at a Brooklyn school that couldn’t afford it. That inspiring experience for Raven turned into more school-picture-day takeovers at Title I schools and developing other opportunities to bring creative programming and hands-on experience to low-income youth. 

The Bronx, the neighborhood where Raven lived until she moved to Los Angeles at the age of 29, is a constant inspiration in her work and became the focus of a gallery exhibition she put on called “And The B Is For,” which features colorful, stylized portraits of her family, friends, and neighborhood figures, like her manicurist and the owner of her favorite bodega. It came to life in a stunning virtual exhibit. “All of my friends to this day still live in a one-block radius of me. We were like the Hey Arnold! stoop kids playing outside every day, all day,” she says. “One block was all Bengali people; one was Puerto Ricans; one was Dominicans. It was eclectic and diverse. I was exposed to so much culture. It was a melting pot of class, race, and ethnicity. I was exposed everything, and it made me empathetic because of who I grew up around. It really shaped me.”

Raven’s late mother gave her just the letter B, without a name, as her middle name. It’s become a bit of a guiding light. “It feels like my everlasting personal brand. Now I am wondering what the volume two of the B is? First, it’s felt like Bronx. Is it the Bronx again? Is it being Black? My mom literally just gave me a middle initial, so it feels like I can constantly redefine what it means.”

Everything always comes back to my love of the Bronx, my upbringing, my relationship with my mom.

What is your approach to taking portraits, and what do you hope your subjects feel during your creative process and about the final results of your art?

When I first started out, I spent a lot of time thinking, What’s my niche? What do I want to be known for? It hindered me in a way. I had all these introspective conversations with myself, and the one thing that kept coming up for me was, I just want people to feel comfortable. I want my photos to feel personal and intimate. When someone sees a photo I took, I want them to feel like I must have known the subject really well. 

I spend a lot of time just watching people — the way they move, how they show emotions — and making them feel like they are in a safe space. I really value privacy and intimacy, so making sure they feel safe in my space and that they feel like they can be themselves is key. I always come to my set as my authentic self. I give some direction, but for the most part, I just let them be themselves. One of the first questions I ask before we start shooting is, How do you want to see yourself? Photography is collaborative. You are bringing 50 percent, and I am bringing 50 percent. That’s when the best work is created. I hope people look back at photos I have taken years later and feel like I captured their essence. 

Owning and sharing our stories and putting them out into the world is an important tenet of our work. It seems like you put your story out into the world so generously and wholeheartedly. Why is sharing your story important to you?

I feel like I’m on a very good run of manifestation. So it’s like, why not? I like to share stories because I think that’s the only way you can learn. We’re complex, we’re flawed, and we make mistakes, and I think if you lead with vulnerability, it helps people. I feel like everything in life is shared energy. Social media and living your life on a highlight reel is not healthy because life is hard. You have to know you are not alone in your journey, a journey that is very unique to you. No one else will ever have my same blueprint, and I don’t want anyone to follow my blueprint, but I do feel like sharing my vulnerabilities and expressing myself can be an education for others. 

I know representation is such an important value for you, and you’ve talked about showing up to the camera pit to shoot a music show early in your career and being surrounded by all white guys in cargo shorts. Has the industry changed at all since you started? 

From when I started, it’s night and day. Now, there are so many Black photographers, so many Black women photographers, and so many more people of color in the industry. There is so much more inclusivity. People would ask me early in my career who my mentors and inspirations were. I didn’t have anyone that looked like me. I hope that when I see up-and-coming photographers, they will ask me questions. If I have the time, I will give it to them because I didn’t have that. 

The Best Side Foundation’s mission is to inspire, expose, and foster the development of low-income youth in the field of photography through creative programming and hands-on experiences. What have you learned or what has surprised you on set with the students?

Best Side is probably the most important thing for myself right now, and for other people. In the pandemic, I was struggling with figuring out what my purpose was in life. I turned 30 during that time and felt like I had spent the last decade of my life building a brand, working with celebrities, and getting my work out there to build a name for myself. But then I started thinking about who I want to be in the next decade. 

I realized that everything always comes back to my love of the Bronx, my upbringing, my relationship with my mom, growing up poor, and just missing representation I didn’t have. I love kids and feel like they are the foundation of our society and feel like they and their education aren’t being prioritized. So I started thinking about how I could help these kids who don’t have the luxury of exploring creativity to be creative. I was working when I was 14. I couldn’t just buy a camera or take the time to learn Photoshop. 

Last year, a friend asked me to take school photos for a school in Brooklyn where the families couldn’t afford school pictures. We went in and did the shoot and I immediately knew this was the perfect first initiative for what I have been thinking about doing. I wanted to be in education, to help low-income kids and to introduce them to photography.

We are going into about five Title 1 schools (40 percent of the school qualifies for free lunch) and doing a big photoshoot for picture day. We have partnered with Canon, and they print photos for all the families. 

We are raising money now and hope that Best Side grows into other initiatives, like mentoring and teaching kids how to do photography. Being around these kids is so inspiring and heart-filling. They are so pure and innocent. Those school years are so formative. We are all still those kids at that age inside. 

I’m sure this changes all the time, but what are you feeling currently inspired by?

I’m feeling inspired by continuing to work and find peace. I lost my mom in November. We lived together in the same one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx for 27 years. It was just us. It really shook up my world, and it changed me in a way that I don’t think anything else could have. But I also have this newfound purpose and sense of being on the pursuit of happiness. In my 20s, I always wanted to work more, hoping I could buy my mom a house and move her out of the Bronx. Now, my new inspiration is, How do I live out her legacy? What would she want me to do? Life is short. How can I do everything that I want to do?

Now, I am directing. I want to make a movie. I want to write a movie. I want bigger and more because I’ve realized how short life is.

What’s also motivating me is taking the time to be around people and experience life because I feel like in the pandemic, we were in a bubble. We’ve been moving out of it for three years, but I feel like I am in the first year of normalcy in a way. We’re really back in the swing of life moving fast again, and I just want to keep going and experience all the different people that I can. You have to stay genuine and tell your story. Comparison diminishes your work. I am always going to be my biggest supporter but also my biggest critic. I am the only thing stopping myself.

I hope people look back at photos I have taken years later and feel like I captured their essence.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.