Meet Imani Cummings | CEO and Creative Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Imani Cummings and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Imani, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
Big Muvas House has had a huge impact on the world. This brands main goal is to encourage self love and body positivity through creative photography and one thing I have realized throughout the growth of this brand is that both self love and building confidence doesn’t have a weight limit. There are tons of women who are a smaller weight and have no confidence in themselves and there are tons of women who are 400 lbs and have the most confidence in themselves. I don’t want people to think our main focus is just plus size women because it’s not. We want to help all women of all shapes and sizes practice self love. We decided to choose photography as our way to portray our message because it gives us the opportunity to be creative. There are tons of women all of sizes who have reached out to us via email and Instagram DM sharing their personal stories with us daily on how we have changed their lives. It’s crazy to me how some of these women we have never even met before, but just from them seeing us enjoy ourselves and being confident in our bodies makes them realize that they can too whether its during a photoshoot or being hundreds of miles away. To me that’s what matters.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
We base our brand on creative photography. We don’t like to do anything basic. We like to step out of the box and go the extra mile. To get to this point wasn’t easy. I started off by modeling myself back in 2017 and then in October 2019 ‘Big Muvas House” was created. When I was started the brand, the thought process behind it was a group of plus size women coming together and going on trips yearly. As I started planning the first trip, the ladies that were coming asked me if we were going to be doing any photoshoots. I didn’t plan at the time to do any, but that’s what they asked for so I decided to add it in. I found a photographer and we went from there. The first event was a trip in Atlanta for 3 days and lets just say that we got through the trip but the trip was awful. I didn’t know anything about planning or not much about Atlanta at the time. I was way over my head and didn’t even realize it. The trip it self was awful but it was an eye opener because I ended up finding out my assistant at the time was doing some grimey things behind my back and I ended up finding out the girls on the trip didn’t have my best interest at heart. The great thing that came out of that event was I found a photographer who taught me so much about the modeling and photography world. At the time of the Atlanta event, I was living in Charlotte, NC with my best friend at the times mom and was working at the Amazon warehouse. After the trip I was traveling back and forth from Charlotte to Atlanta to shoot with the photographer. When it was time for me to pay my rent for December I had asked my friends mom if I could pay late so i could get the things I needed for my shoot and she agreed. So I paid a portion, but I still owed her around $75. December 2019, while I was shooting my Christmas photos, I received a text from my best friends mom telling me she felt it was best for me to move out and focus on modeling. I literally drove back to Charlotte and lived in my car for a month right outside in the parking lot go my job until my mom found out. January 28th, 2020 I woke up in a pool of blood, I had a miscarried. Fast forward to February 2020, I tried to have another trip in Miami and it was worse then the Atlanta trip. After that trip, I was extremely discouraged and canceled my brand. I took a whole year to being close and working with the photographer I met during the Atlanta event. He taught me the ends and out of some of the smallest things when it comes to photography like contracts, release forms, lighting etc. I even took the time to pay close attention to him editing and building photography sets for his clients. He allowed me to sit in during some of his sessions as well where I assisted him. Throughout this time I ended up moving to Atlanta and really wanted to start my brand back up but when I presented the idea to him, he didn’t seem to ok with it. Regardless I still tried to bring it back. September 2020, me and him got into a disagreement and on top of other things I had going on at the time with my finances, social life etc I lost my mind and tried to commit suicide. I ended up swallowing 47 tylenol 500mgs each and ended up in the hospital for three days. When I finally got home, I was still in the process of revamping and planning my comeback for my brand which was suppose to be November 2020. Literally a week before the event he told me he didn’t want to do the photography anymore which forced me to cancel the event. I had at that time been living in Atlanta for five months and didn’t know any other photographers to even try to find someone else to do the event. I was literally crushed. This was the third time I failed and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to tell the girls but I did. I ended up having to refund everyone out of my pocket because I wasn’t able to receive a refund for anything because it was such a short notice. It took me some time to refund everyone. I literally drove door dash from sun up to sun down to make sure everyone received a refund. Throughout all of those hours in my car driving I realized that the bond and relationship I had grew with that photographer needed to come to an end. He was literally a blessing and a curse. He taught me so many things that still til this day I am able to use, but he was holding me back from the vision God had for me. As long as I worked under him I wasn’t able to spread my wings. I was scared to speak up because I knew any thing I said he would shut down. I lost myself with him and soon as I got away from him I grew. Now we are here. 2021 was such a success for us. From beginning to end. We found a brand new photographer who encourages every concept and vision I throw his way. I found my niche. I found my team that is genuine and wants what’s best for the brand. We are currently working on opening our own studio space and we are expanding to Houston and Miami this year as well. I couldn’t be more thankful for every step of the process it took to for me to get here. Throughout these years, the one thing I am proud about is I never lost my faith in God. God is the reason for all of this. Without him, I wouldn’t have the vision to do the things that we do with this brand. Every time I’ve wanted to give up or even when I tried to cancel the brand he has brought me right back to it and reminded me to stay focus and keep him first and that everything is going to work out successfully. What sets this brand apart from others is that we have built a community of sisterhood. We have built a safe place. My babes know they can come and talk to me about anything because we are a family. We go out and do things together as a family.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Ah man, for food, drinks and hangout, I would take them to Cirque. You literally get the restaurant and hangout experience for one price. We would definitely go to the silver spots cinema for a chill spot for food and drinks. We would go to the Illuminarian. I have never been so this would be something new for both of us. Its a new restaurant called “Fade and Facet” that I been wanting to try, so we would go there to for a nice meal and drinks. You know every restaurant in Atlanta is like a lounge so I’m pretty sure its a vibe. Then I would take her to the trap museum, selfie museum and book us a fun little shoot at girlz in the hood.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Shoutout to God for blessing with the vision to be able to run this brand. I wouldn’t be able to do it without him constantly reminding me daily on why he gave this vision to me. Shoutout to my team Tiyonna, Arnisha and China for being at every photoshoot with me and making sure things behind the scenes run smoothly. Shoutout to my photographer Brandon for believing in all the concepts I come to him with and not questioning them or making me feel like I couldn’t do them. Lastly, shoutout to my HouseBabes. Theres way to many of you guys to name, but I do this for you guys, If you guys run a business, then you know you need your customers to stay in business, and even though there are 100 other options to choose from, you guys are loyal and always choose me and for that I couldn’t be more thankful for.

Website: www.bigmuvashouse.com

Instagram: @bigmuvashouse

Twitter: @bigmuvashouse

Youtube: youtube.com/imanidannielle

Image Credits
Photographer: @urban360ent Models: @bigmuvashouse Edits: @bigmuvashouse