Author: Yvan Zoniaba

For this series, I aimed to create/capture a sense of time by depicting how it will affect a subject, the tree. As the day went by and reached nighttime, the images present how a beautiful, varied light setting and contrast are being created each time and consequently creates different layers and facette to the tree. It is important to note that the viewers attention should not be concentrated on the tree but instead on the sky in the background where all the magic happens.

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.