interview by Marcus Waldron

You’re from DC originally, what brought you to New York?
I came out to New York for school. I got accepted on a scholarship to Pratt for photography, so I moved here in the fall of 2016. I went to school for a couple years, and it was just really hard. It was sick, I was super young and running around and skating. After two years and some change, I decided to take some time off to just work and skate. Then COVID hit, and that jammed me up more, so I ended up taking two years off. Then when things kind of mellowed out, I went back. Then I was getting some work, and I got hit up to go on some trips, and I was like – Fuck it, I’m going to take some time off again. I could take a leave of absence while retaining my scholarship, so I wouldn’t have lost that or anything. I worked for a bit, and then things slowed down, and I went back for a year, and then ended up taking another semester off. After that I just had a mental dilemma. I was like, “I got to either finish this out, or just be gone for good.” I had already put so much time into it and had the scholarship. So I finished it all up and finally graduated. Including my years off, it took me eight years to finish school or something. I dragged it out crazy. When I moved here, I was 18, and was super distracted and kind of took it for granted, but going back when I was 23/24, allowed me to really appreciate it. The resources and just the actual material I was learning. 

Schools can offer some really great resources.
Yeah, especially on the back end. I really did take advantage of the darkroom, and all the labs, and printers, and scanners. I was really in there pumping out prints. I was aware, I’d been out of school, I’d taken time off, and realized how hard it is financially, and how expensive that stuff gets. So in the last couple of years that I was there, I was really aware of just the sheer equipment I had at my disposal. So I was making a lot of work. I definitely miss that, being out of school. Just thinking about having a show and stuff like that, it’s obviously possible, but I had everything at my fingertips there. I was able to make huge prints and use the scanners. 

Growing up in DC, did you skate Freedom much?
I grew up in Northwest DC. Honestly, I didn’t really go downtown or to Pulaski until early high school. My homie, Aiden, lived over on that side off 8th Street. He was going down to the Plaza since he was a little kid, but I really can’t even claim the Plaza like that. I met all those dudes when I was in high school, shooting photos and everything. It was super sick but I didn’t really get down there until maybe the end of ninth or tenth grade, and then I moved up here. 

I heard you started shooting in the ninth grade, you and a friend of yours got a camera. Can you elaborate on that?
Growing up in DC was super sick, I was always running around doing shit. When I was in middle school and high school, there was a lot of music going on, and a lot of people making art, and stuff. There was a bunch of underground shows, it’s kind of crazy to look back at it because it was just super active. I got a camera in seventh grade. Me and my homie got a camera at the same time, but he got a fisheye and I was so jealous. I just became super infatuated with that. He was making music videos at the time, so we would go downtown to these shows. I was shooting a lot of music stuff and just documenting what we did on a daily basis. I was obviously skating at the same time, so I feel like naturally I just ended up shooting skate photos, especially with my homie, Aiden, who started bringing me downtown. My homie’s dad had all these Glen Friedman books, I was looking at a lot of hardcore photos of Fugazi, and all that stuff. He gave me this one photo book from this dude Spot (Glenn Lockett), who shot a bunch of skate stuff and hardcore music in L.A. I was just super active in DC, so there’s a lot of opportunity to photograph it. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I feel like that’s kind of where my obsession with it came from.

What did you start out shooting and has it changed over the years?
I’ve always been super active. I grew up an only child so I felt like I got really restless being at the house. I was always trying to kick it with my friends, and we’d just find ourselves doing teenager shit, going to shows, going downtown, kicking it, going to post up somewhere or whatever. I was always taking photos with my phone or something. I think my homie’s dad gave me a film camera and I didn’t really know anything about it. I shot a couple rolls and it was sick because I didn’t have to think about it. I was kind of just pressing the button. Whatever we were doing, I would bring my camera to parties, or going skating, or even just hanging out with the homies at the house or something. Once I started getting more comfortable with the camera, it obviously became more intentional. I feel like I would take photos just hanging out, and I would send it to people and they’d be super psyched and be like, “Oh, we should go shoot here…” or “I know this abandoned hospital downtown off U Street. We should go in there and look around and whatever, go take photos and shit.” And I’m like, “Okay, sounds sick.” I was posting stuff on Instagram and whatever. It was all pretty new at the time. It transpired naturally where I was hanging out with kids who were making music, and they’re like, “I’m filming a music video. You should take some photos while we shoot this video.” And then I’d take them and they’d be like, “Oh, I have a show. Actually, you should come shoot the show.” I met people through that. I never really knew how to describe my work. I definitely wouldn’t call it documentary photography, but I thought I found myself doing cool shit and I was like –I want to remember this. So at its purest basis, that’s kind of where it came from. I wanted to remember what I was doing, so I started shooting photos. Then it just naturally snowballs into something more real, and I’m like, “Oh, I actually really like doing this. Maybe I’ll try to make it a real thing.” There was a pretty solid community of people growing up when I was in DC who were putting on shows at DIY spots. I had a friend named Aton who was shooting a bunch of photos and doing Tumblr stuff. I feel like I was super inspired by that and followed in his footsteps, like, oh this is how he puts his work out there. And you meet people and they’re like, “Oh, I actually have this rental space.” There was a spot called Basecamp on 18th Street, and it was basically just a FedEx Kinko’s print shop, but you could go make prints for five bucks. My homie, Kevin Wilson, put me onto it. Mind you, these shows, I’m taping stuff on the wall with masking tape and shit. It wasn’t super official or anything, but at the time it was cool to just see my work in a physical space. And then you’re part of these shows and people are like, “Oh, you’re a photographer” And I’m like “I guess so, I don’t know. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I am. Fuck it.” And then it just kind of becomes tangible and more real, like damn, people are kind of psyched on the photos that I’m taking. 

You have some sick group photos. Would you say a lot of your photography are mostly candid or how do you feel about asking people to pose…
That’s honestly something I’m still trying to get better at. I feel like when I started shooting photos, because I was so comfortable with the people I was photographing, I never felt like I had to ask them. I started taking photos in this way where I didn’t want them to even notice that I was taking a photo. I never wanted to pull my camera out and have someone change how they’re acting or what they were doing for the camera. If I missed the moment, I’m like, “Fuck it. I missed it. It’s gone.” Which is something I’m trying to work on because I don’t think there’s any problem with being like, “Yo, you mind just standing right there for a second? This would be a sick photo.” But I’ve always just… I don’t want you to even notice that I’m there. I want the moment to be as pure and candid as possible, as natural as possible. And don’t get me wrong, my homie Kei who does Homies Network, he’s really good about being like, “Yo, I have this idea we should go set up this group photo or whatever” And it’s sick when someone puts a plan together, and we go do it. Basically, I’m just trying to get out of the habit of not everything needs to be purely of that moment. It’s totally okay to be like, “Yo, I think this would look sick right here,” and really take the time to stage something and set it up so it’s perfect. Event photography and stuff, I really haven’t done that much of it, but I had to do a job a couple years ago for some off-white event or something, and they’re like, “Yo, pull up and take photos of the people there.” And I remember struggling with it so much. I was voicing my anxiety before the job or whatever, and my homies are like, “Dude, literally this is your profession. Nobody cares. It’s all good. No one’s going to be bugged out by you asking to take their photo, you’re there for work.” I went and did it, and it was all good. It was fine, but I was just like, “Fuck, I don’t want to be a bother.” I’d much rather be in the shadows, take a photo organically of a moment and just let it be that. 

What was the first photography gig you got? 
There was this company called Durkl in DC in early 2010s. I want to say it started probably 2007. It was a streetwear brand that was skate adjacent. They had a shop at one point. I think when I started really getting into photography, I would just hit up companies and be like, “I think you’re sick. If you ever want me to shoot photos of your stuff or whatever…” And some companies would hit me back and be like, “Yeah, we’ll send you a box and just go out with your homies and take photos.” To my credit, I was pretty outgoing when it came to trying to find companies that I saw on the internet or that I thought were kind of sick and just put myself out there. This dude, Will Sharp, ran Durkl, and I forgot how it really came about, but I remember it was Halloween one year, he drove over to my crib and dropped off a shit ton of clothes. I was probably 14 or 15 or something. I was psyched. I liked the company and I shot a bunch of it and he was psyched on it and we kind of worked closer together from that. And then that kind of had a trickle effect. There were a couple other brands, smaller, more local stuff that would reach out to me when I was in high school, and same shit, just go run around with your homies, or put it on a kid when he’s performing at a show or something, just casual shit like that. I really had no idea what I was doing. I remember telling my mom “Yo, this dude’s going to pull up and drop off a bunch of clothes that I’m going to shoot.” And she’s like, “What fuck? What does that mean?” My mom knew I liked shooting photos and stuff, but it was just a hobby. That was kind of the first time she was like, “Oh damn, this dude’s going to pay you or give you free clothes and stuff to go do this.” It’s kind of one of those moments where I was like, “Maybe I could do this for real.”

What do you shoot more of, black and white, or color? And how do you choose? Do you carry both?
I feel like I go through phases. Black and white is my ride or die forever. I feel like I end up shooting a lot of color stuff because I’ll do jobs for a magazine or a company or whatever, and end up with a bunch of leftover film and then just have that on deck. When I shoot skate photos or ads for homies, there’s usually a product involved or something like a board or a t-shirt someone made, and they want to see that in color. So I feel like naturally, I end up with a lot of color film, but black and white is definitely just the one. That’s what I started shooting. I remember the first roll of film I ever shot was a color roll, but that book I was telling you about by that dude Spot, it was called The Sounds of Two Eyes Opening, and it was all black and white, it’s just timeless. That’s just what I was introduced to, that was just the sickest documentation of it. I think there are pluses to both of them, stuff that kind of tells time with color, the color of a Coke can or something, or things that age well, color is really beneficial too. I just got a bunch of black and white rolls for myself, so I’ll probably just revert back to that for a while. 

And digital, you don’t really do digital at all?
I shot digitally for a long time, when I was learning how to shoot skate photos and stuff.  Shooting film skate photos, I used to bring my digital camera out, shoot the skate photo, and compare the settings, when I was just trying to get the hang of it. But that would require me to put multiple cameras, multiple lenses in my bag. And I was running around with a Jansport essentially. And it was just heavy and clunking around. I scratched a couple fisheyes like that, just throwing it in a sock and putting it in my bag. I’m skating around the city, and if my bag could be a little lighter, it would help out. So once I got the hang of just shooting fisheye film, I put the digital to the side. I’m not the guy who’s 35mm or nothing. I think digital photography is fucking sick. I get really stuck in my own ways. I’m stubborn. I got a digital camera a couple years ago just to be like, “Yo, I need to have this on deck just in case, or as a backup for commercial work and stuff like that.” I love shooting film. I just keep that on me. But there’s a ton of people who shoot digital stuff that’s fucking awesome. I’m definitely not the kind of guy who looks down upon digital photography in any shape.

Do you ever print or develop your own stuff still? It sounds like you did a little in school.
I was doing it in school and since then I haven’t gotten around to it. A bunch of my homies print stuff, like Emilio Chavez recently started color printing, and my homie Nolan Zangas is super sick at printing color. And my homie Chris Currens he rips at prints. I was fucking around with cyanotypes and stuff for a second, and that’s pretty cool because it’s super DIY and I can do that shit at my house but it’s not the same. It gets to the point where you’re like, “All right, not everything needs to be blue.” I’ve always been a physical guy. I remember six or seven years ago, my homie, AJ had a label maker and I started printing photos on that because it just had this cool texture. Then I’d scan them and reprint them on something else. Or I’d go to Blick and buy drawing paper and different textured papers and just see what it looks like, stuff that was easy and accessible, like go get a $5 notebook pad and print photos on it. I really want to get back into the darkroom once I clear my mind and get this book out. 

Do you have any photography goals? Any aspirations?
I’m still working on putting out this book, but ideally the life I’d love to live would be to put out books and have shows, and then do commercial work to help fund that. Just do that cycle, work on a project, put together a book, a show, or both at the same time, and then take those around wherever I can and show the work.  Balancing that commercial versus personal stuff. I think I could see myself getting older and having some more intentional projects and maybe trying new stuff. I feel like my work is always going to be a reflection of who I’m around, what I’m doing, my day-to-day. I’ve always had a pretty big friend group and it always felt like this documentation of growth, and us just going through life together. And I feel like I end up photographing people for a long time. The book that I’m working on is probably from the last nine to ten years. You see photos of Coles Bailey and Sully, Quinn. Coles and Sully were 16 when I met them, and now they’re all 23-25. Over time, you just see how people change. I mean, when you get older, life naturally slows down and stuff. Maybe you’re not out running around downtown partying and doing all that stuff, but that’s not the whole world.

How long ago did you first start on this book, and what was the original spark or motivation?
I think being introduced to photography through books, that was always the goal. It always has been. That’s where I saw the end result, or the final resting place for the photos that I was taking. That was always what I wanted to do with them more than anything. That’s always been in the back of my mind. This book though, I’ve severely dragged it out. It was never meant to be this really long thing. I’m definitely at a point now where I just want it to be done. And I’m the only thing that’s in my way. I’m just trying to figure out printing and how to pay for all that. The funny part is having the photos for the book has never been the issue. If anything, I’ve been in my way because I just keep shooting photos and then being like, “Oh, well, I haven’t made the book yet, so I might as well just throw that in there too.” It’s just a never ending cycle of when to put the period on the sentence. I’ve had this InDesign file on my computer for at least five or six years now. I want to put this book out, and then just be putting out smaller zines and freeing myself of this catalog of photos. At this point, it’s honestly just some therapeutic shit that I need to flush out of my system. 

How often do you carry a camera with you? You seem like one of those people who always has a camera with them.
I for sure will always have a camera with me. This kind of goes back to what we were talking about before. I have this inner conflict with myself where I feel like if I’m kicking it and I’m out with people, I might be in a sick conversation, or at a dinner, or just hanging out and… I have this insecurity where pulling out a camera kind of fabricates the moment or something, and I get in my head about it. Sometimes it’ll be the opposite, I’ll be shooting a ton of photos right where I’m at and I have no problem with it. When I’m out hanging with friends or on a skate session or something, I try to have my camera in my hand all the time. Sometimes I’ll be so in the moment that I don’t even have my camera out at all, but once it’s in my hand, I’m shooting photos left and right. I just refrain from taking it out sometimes, like “Damn, why didn’t I shoot any photos of that?”

Is there anything you want people to know about this book coming out?
I’ve always been weird about doing an interview because I feel like I haven’t even done anything yet, but I’m psyched that you wanted to hear from me. I know I was like, “I want to put this book out and that’ll give me something to really talk about.” But at the same time, I’ve just been dragging it out. I actually have a fucking random, rough draft that I have here. This is just a sample that I got, and there’s a bunch of stuff that was wrong with it. It’s all beat up now. The binding is off and everything. I kind of just want the photos to speak for themselves. I feel like for people that I kick it around, I’ve been talking about this shit forever, so I just want to put it out and go from there. Have a show for it and then just keep making more stuff, see what comes from it. I feel like I’ve got to show people that I’m taking photos. I’ve never stopped taking photos. I just haven’t been posting on the internet. 

I think most photographers really hate to see their work just die on the internet/IG.
That’s exactly my whole feeling about Instagram. When I post, I feel like those photos die there. And I really care about the photos I’m taking, so I wouldn’t just want that to be the only place they exist. It creates insecurity for me where I’m like, “Fuck, it’s a lot more than a fucking Instagram account.” My true only objective in life right now is just putting stuff out into the world physically, and that’s just kind of what I’m focused on this year, and obviously making work and doing commercial stuff, and just kind of seeing what opportunities snowball from there.