Sheilby Macena is a Haitian-American photographer and visual storyteller based in Oakland, California. Rooted in the traditions of her family’s photo albums and the contrast between her upbringing in the United States and her family's life in Haiti, her practice explores themes of memory, identity, and belonging. Through photography—particularly portraiture—she seeks to preserve, reimagine, and reclaim narratives within the Black diaspora.

Sheilby’s work centers tenderness, vulnerability, and authenticity. Her portraits are less about perfection and more about presence—honest, unfiltered, deeply human. By capturing quiet, candid moments, she honors both the personal and the collective, the present and the ancestral. Her visual language merges ethereal softness with compositional precision, reflecting the multiplicity and nuance of Black life.

Deeply informed by her lived experience as a first-generation Haitian-American woman, Sheilby's work is a spiritual archive—an offering of softness, a tender resistance, a celebration of identity and becoming.

Through her photographs, she invites viewers not only to witness the inner worlds of her subjects, but also to reflect on their own stories, silences, and inheritances.