Jessica Kobeissi photographing BMG Chicago’s signed model Miranda Cerny.

DEARBORN – Photography is an art form that has been around since the 1800s and it continues to grow in the 21st century.

It is a career that has become more accessible for everyone, but it remains a competitive field.

Jessica Kobeissi is just one of the female Arab Americans with a photography business. She also noticed the trend of more Arabs joining creative fields. 

The community has recently become more progressive with more Arab Americans— especially women— going into more creative fields. Photographers, make-up artists, jewelry makers and designers and hair stylists are just a few careers that have become popular with Arab American women.

“Art has always been a part of my life, so it’s nice to see that more Arab Americans are starting to see the beauty in it,” Kobeissi said.

Photography wasn’t something Kobeissi saw as her career from the beginning, even though it was always around her. 

“It’s funny because throughout high school and college I never really thought twice about photography,” she said. “It was only until my last two years of college as I was studying graphic design that it crossed my mind.”

For some, starting a new business can be a scary leap, especially if they lack a lot of experience. 

“With no prior knowledge or experience, the only crutch I had was my Photoshop editing skills,” Kobeissi said. “After buying my first SLR, I spent countless hours every day reading articles, watching tutorials and teaching myself everything about photography I could.”

Kobeissi was lucky to have support from friends and family when starting her photography business. From there, she had to broaden her audience.

“The hard part was getting complete strangers to photograph,” she said. “Since I was just starting out, I asked some seniors if I could do their photos— just to get my name out there. The emails about seniors sessions slowly turned into inquiries about events, and from there I took on fashion photography.” 

What started off as photographs of senior has grown into shooting editorial pictures for magazines and engagements for celebrities.

Kobeissi recently shot a fashion editorial for Styleline Magazine and the engagement photos for singer and actress Melissa Molinaro, which she sees as her biggest accomplishments so far.

Social media has helped Kobeissi develop her business further because she can share her work with a larger audience. 

“I am able to connect with fans of my photos and share every part of my journey in photography,” she said. “Social media made it possible for me to showcase my work to the world.” 

From connecting with the world to connecting with the community, the creative field helps bring people together. However, it may take the community more time to adjust to the increase in women interested in photography.

“I don’t think a lot of people really considered it,” Kobeissi said. “In the beginning there wasn’t a very large market with Arab American female photographers (or art in general), simply because we weren’t accustomed to seeing females in that role.”

However, the future looks very bright for women pursuing creative careers, according to Kobeissi.

“Now I think the tides in the creative fields are changing and more people, namely females, are starting to see that it is possible to make a worthwhile career out of it.”