For this assignment, we were tasked to recreate the works of Gordon Parks. He was a prominent photojournalist and a lot of Parks’ works captured the lives of black communities in 1970s Harlem and as such, I wanted to emulate those for this assignment. Therefore, I decided to capture black lives in 2020s New York City. While wandering the streets of SoHo on a sunny Sunday, I suddenly was disturbed by a group young predominantly black men, walking around, being loud and rowdy. It was not until I paid closer attention to them that I saw I could see joy and happiness on their faces that I realized that they would make the perfect to capture for my assignment. My goal was to capture the expressions of joy and laughter from these young men because I felt it refreshing to witness these young black men incarnating their Black Boy Joy considering the daily woes faced by black people. Just as I assume was Parks’ intention, I wanted to honor Black lives and the beauty within their happiness.
Other happenings I wanted to capture, was an Asian-American manifestation against the hate crimes they are facing. For this image, I wanted to document the current events that are happening in the country and our communities. This is a further homage to Parks’ photojournalistic craft in which we documented life. Asian- Americans hate crimes are extremely pertinent at the moment and I felt my images could serve as a contribution to providing historical evidence for future uses.
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