Commission

Fujifilm

X-H2 camera launch

I grew up in Louis H Pink Houses projects in the 90s. Home of dilapidated buildings, street fights, elevators carpeted with urine, dreams deferred, and people who look like me beaten down by their environment; 29 years later and not much has changed. I see those same people hanging around project hallways, the subjects of RIP posters, in jail or simply surviving their circumstance. This is the ghetto and you dare not fight what is already predetermined: you will be here for the rest of your life for the ghetto in New York City does not foster growth.

Everyone loves the ghetto aesthetic but who cares about the ghetto community?

Coming from an environment like this where you understand that you will receive no help, you feel helpless. You feel as though where you are is where you will remain. There is no light at the end of the tunnel because your tunnel is the ghetto. I am a product of this community and an advocate for its experience.

Trendsetters is a photo series encapsulating the quintessence of the African American ghetto experience through portraiture.

This project is an expression of appreciation and my declaration of care. Through my art, I hope to humanize and highlight an otherwise forgotten community while changing the narrative of what it means to be "ghetto."