OLAJUMOKE ORISAGUNA from STREET to STARDOM

I do not know the full meaning of ORISAGUNA, but I know ORI means head in Yoruba. This lady's head did not disgrace her.




Its often said when life gives you a Lemon (bitter experience in Life), you should turn it around to favour and benefit you by making a lemonade(a sweet refreshing drink, a good Life) for yourself.
To me that applies to those who have the opportunity to be given a lemon, something that one can converts to benefit the person.
In the case of OLAJUMOKE ORISAGUNA,  she had no lemon. Even if she had, she may not know how to use it for her benefit but she had something else, a date with DESTINY.




As the Story goes, Olajumoke as usual was hawking her agege bread on the street that fateful day. She walked into the set where TY Bello was photographing a UK pop star, Tinie Tempah on the street of Lagos. I read also that Jumoke went and asked if anybody wanted to buy bread. They said no and asked her to walk away as she was blocking the view of the photographer. If she had walked away, the story would have been different but she stood and her story changed for the best forever.


 Olajumoke - The Super Model

 
 Olajumoke  - The Agege Bread Seller on the Street

TY Bello said that when she walked into the shoot, “She seemed a little confused.”  She went further to say “Some people were asking her to walk past really quickly, others were asking her to stay, and she was just in limbo. I said ‘is it okay to take your photograph?’ And she nodded ok.”

A few days later however, l sat with my Filmmaker friend Emma, and as we combed through go-pro footage's to see if we captured the very moment… I noticed Jumoke, the bread hawker from the Sabo market bakery, who walked entirely by coincidence unto the set of our style shoot for Tinnie Tempah.

.

My subject of interest was the Okada driver that had slowed down just before she arrived. Okada riders have that cool Lagos vibe and always happen to add a bit of swag to street portraits. I was wrong to have paid her such little attention because I noticed every frame with her in it was perfect. I had found a second subject in the Tinnie Tempah story, a young beautiful hawker

When the edition of THISDAY Style came out last week and the images hit social media, I was proven right as this girl split the limelight with the main subject effortlessly. Questions and comments started to fly: Was she a model? How did we convince the model to balance all that bread on her head?

The buzz about her multiplied when I clarified that she  indeed wasn’t a model at all but simply a bread-seller who stumbled on our set. I immediately began my search for her, if these many people felt she was beautiful enough to be a model, then maybe she was meant to be one! I was going to find a way to make it happen.

I had assistants leave word we were  searching for her with mechanics in the area where we photographed her and to my delight, the very next day she showed up at my studio “Aso kan na ni mo wo kiri lati ana" meaning I have been wearing the same outfit since yesterday. Jumoke the model the Internet has been searching for weeks speaks almost no English.

She explained how someone showed her her own photograph in this same outfit on his phone from Facebook. A mallam then led her to my studio that morning. She narrated her journey to Lagos. She was a hair stylist from lre in Osun state but was not making enough profit between she and her husband, a sliding door installer from the same village, to care for their two young children.

At the invitation of a distant relative who knew someone operating a bakery, she relocated to Lagos with her 14 month old daughter to give bread hawking a try, leaving her husband and older 5 year old behind. As I listened to her, I wondered if the beauty I had seen on my screen as I edited my image was a fluke.. well until she smiled, I realized that I was wrong! I had in fact, underestimated the beauty of this 27 year old woman.

That is how 2 weeks ago, Jumoke Orisaguna transformed from semi-Literate agege bread seller to an international super model with endorsements from multinationals and banks.

This can only be GOD. When HE opens the door, no man can shut. This is truly divine intervention.
There are many tall handsome men  and beautiful women who have been going from one Modeling Agency to the other for jobs who had not gotten. And here is someone who was not dreaming of it not to talk of searching for it and behold the job just dropped on her lap.
This can only be GOD.

Some people think she is going to be bewildered by a lot of things, especially in the fashion and modeling world in Nigeria.
Some even say the industry that she has been thrust into, confuses even the 'experienced’ talents. But I know TY Bello is a Christian and a good woman. She will help and nurture her.
I know with her, no one will take advantage of her lack of education, lack of experience and naivety to ruin her life.

Olajumoke Orisaguna has been featured on CNN!
In an Interview with CNN’s Stephanie Busari, Olajumoke and TY Bello shared the story of how photo bombing a shoot with International star, Tinie Tempah, has changed her life in ways no one thought was possible. From a bread seller to a model and is now on her way to gaining International fame and prominence.

As GOD did it for Olajumoke, He will do it for us all in Jesus Name.