After centuries of the black male body being usurped and exposed as others liked, it's time for us to repossess it, and show our nudity on our own terms.
Often people seek company simply to escape the truth about themselves.
I often explore different aspects of a relationship in my work, especially estrangement between lovers.
Many act as if a long lasting marriage is worthy of celebration, but the truth is many stay together because they don't know how to be alone.
No matter what you present some will not get past the color of your skin, and the legends they've attached to it.
when I visited Elmina Castle In Ghana where enslaved Africans were held before being shipped to the Americas, I was emotionally confused. I was sorry I went, then this image came.
If you make your self a slave, are you still a slave?
Colonization may be a practice of the past but its effects are still quite felt today.
For a black man in america being nationalistic is often conflicting. At times it seems that one has to let go of nationalism in order to feel that one is okay, that one is worthy of celebration.
Elevating the black, man's body from smut to art.
To go against any societal rule is a challenge only champions
can surmount.
My grand parents left their homeland for a better life and were never able to go back. Their memory was kept alive in their country by a picture they took right before leaving. I realized that this story isn't unique for the poor, thus you have this image of a man about to travel who goes to be photographed. He's attire is global because he could be from anywhere in the world where poverty forces an exodus.
when I was a child there was almost never a black leading man on film, so I made them up in my head.
In St Kitts a jumbi is a ghost.
I am fascinated by what happens to a face when it is sexually aroused.
The question of heritage in Latin America is always a controversial one. While European ancestry is almost always revered, the other ancestors are rarely acknowledged without trepidation.
we don't really hear what happens to those boys who return from wars abroad. How do they fit back into society?
we are what we believe we are, and many homosexuals see themselves as physically impotent because that is how our society depicts us. When attacked we scream and cannot pose any serious threat to the hetero male. Well what if we begin to tell other stories?
when I went to Ghana I expected to meet with male fashion models to photograph. I had made my contact in that arena prior to my departure but once there destiny had other plans. I never met up with my contact and instead I found that i was actually surrounded by men I could've photographed. unfortunately I realized that at the end of my stay and therefor I feel like my work there had only just begun. Much to my surprise after perusing my photos I discovered that i had a few worth while portraits, which represented the beauty I found there. Ghanaian men blew me away. I found every other man beautiful, the ones included here under the title of Men Of Accra are but a few examples of those I appreciated, and of the ones I was able to capture.
There's always a voice within us telling us what will work for us. When we learn to listen to it, things flow. This image is a double self-portrait where I am resisting the voice within me which tells me loud and clear what I need to do, to find happiness.
A seies of photos whose concept was triggered by the myriad photos I’ve seen over decades of black people posing with leopard or jaguar prints, either on their bodies or strategically placed as background or foreground. it seemed to me the image makers were always aiming at placing us in the animal kingdom, or implying that we were overtly sexual since the only whites consistently portrayed with such prints were Hollywood sex goddess such as Jean Harlow.
This series celebrates the idea of the fallen angel. Are fallen angels just revolutionaries?
If a rule exists concerning gender then I want to challenge it…
