Zayira Ray

Frequently commissioned for a wide scope of photography work by various companies for portraiture, fashion and editorial photography, album artwork, event coverage, clothing and jewelry campaigns, and agency test shoots.

- Designed and implemented a dynamic photography curriculum tailored for middle and high school girls in the NYC area, fostering creativity and technical skills. - Led engaging biweekly in-person classes, combining classroom management, mentorship, and hands-on learning experiences. - Organized and facilitated field trips to enhance students' career and artistic development, connecting them to real-world applications of photography. - Provided personalized mentorship, empowering students to grow artistically and professionally while building confidence in their creative abilities.

Contributing photographer and creative director for both print and digital editorials: Architectural Digest India: Featured Contributor (July 2023) Vogue India "Youthquake" (March 2022) Vogue India "Zameen" (February 2022)

-TeamGalaxy photographer and director frequently assigned to create a wide range of digital photography assets on the Galaxy S10+, Note 10+, Z-FLip and S20 phone cameras, primarily used in-feed on Samsung’s Instagram channels. -Directed, produced, and photographed Samsung's “How-To” campaign for the Note 10+ phone's “Pro Mode” manual camera features. -Created product photographs of the Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G phone. -Covered Samsung’s 2020 “Unpacked” event in San Francisco for Instagram. -Creative directed and photographed a series of Samsung advertisements for the Tinder app.

- Created and instructed a 3-day photography course for 20 young girls from Rajasthan in partnership with the NGO Veerni. - Fundraised camera donations from the US for the students to use and keep. - Guided students in telling their own stories through photography; from learning technical settings to using their creativity as a tool for narrative storytelling.

- Volunteered 3x/week at GO Project, an educational non-profit that provides additional schooling to students from low-income NYC public schools. - Assistant teacher to two 7th-grade English classes. Led class discussions and worked with each student according to their individual needs.

-Led a week-long photography workshop for Sadbhavana Trust, an NGO that serves low-income Muslim women in Uttar Pradesh. -Created a curriculum where students learned to how to use photography both practically and creatively, from the history of photography, to nurturing their own visual voices, to utilizing transferable career skills. - Set up a digital lab where students learned editing software on the Adobe Suite. - Curated a cumulative digital exhibition, including a discussion and reflection of the students' final work for their peers and administration.