Guest Speaker

Born and raised in Philly, Sami Aziz has been a passionate photographer for over 17 years. From his school days photographing classmates for the yearbook to capturing NCAA & professional sports during his time as a student at Columbia University, Sami has always been drawn to working with people. 

To date, he has photographed nearly 100,000 people between his travels and time living in Philadelphia, NYC, Los Angeles, Casablanca, London, and Istanbul. Ultimately returning to settle in his hometown, a little over 9 months ago he started the Instagram page @southstreetsam. 

The page is a portrait series dedicated to just one iconic commercial corridor, South Street, in Philadelphia. Sami has gone out every single day since its start to photograph the eclectic energy of the area, and his page has experienced viral growth in the process. 

With 30 million reel views, 2-3 million unique visitors to his page a month, and features on every Philly local news channel, South Street Sam is quickly becoming a household name in his home city. And he couldn’t be happier to give back to where he’s from. Check out his work on Instagram if you haven’t already!