Before The Street Lights Come On
During this quarantine era, I’ve learned how much growth hurts. Being stuck inside means I can’t run away from myself or my problems. Around fall and the beginning of winter, you would find me traveling across the world to south East Asia, my second home running away from what I’ve hid inside. I’ve buried secrets so far underneath the epidermal layer of my skin, I can’t even find them myself. Ruminating on scenarios that haven’t occurred in my mind over and over like a never ending merry go round. Constantly in fear of the next day filled with another roller coaster of emotions.
Realizing that you’re losing control is probably the hardest part of the journey. Hoping that your actions will somehow make you feel something or better yet, make the lows dissolve like the honey I stir into my hot cup of tea. Is this hoping enough? Will that make me feel better? When will it stop coming back like a nightmare you can’t quite slip away from. Waking up with the blurred lines of what’s just a dream and reality. Buying an excessive amount of plants just so I can feel as if I am taking care of anything besides myself. Small projects. One by one, they give me something to love on each day. Somehow it’s never enough.
When all I “thought” I needed was a PRN from my psychiatrist, I walked away with 3 prescriptions. It was devastating. I’ve worked so hard and yet that made me feel like I fell off the cliff again, struggling to pull myself back up to safety. Sleeping used to be my coping mechanism but honestly I’m not even safe in my own dreams. The fears that I’ve created in my mind come to life once my eyes flutter shut. One eyelid at a time. I took this self-portrait as a reminder of where I started on this journey and that everything else will go up from here.
This body of work pulls back the layers of who I am. I turned the lens toward my family and broke through the invisible barriers to intimacy that have kept us from seeing who we really are.
A continuation of Before The Street Lights Come On…
Four years ago in February of 2022, my grandmother was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a rare form of brain cancer. The routine of road tripping to Nashville from Atlanta every weekend to visit became our norm. Hospital rooms turned into hospice, the never ending silence became suffocating which led my sister and me to pick up my grandmother’s favorite book to read aloud as she used to do for us. This was my second major family loss that I was old enough to comprehend. The resilience we have as humans continues to amaze me. Despite the tremendous loss of my grandmother six months after her diagnosis, we continued to rise above it and take care of each other. A little over a year later, grief struck our family again when my Uncle (my grandparent’s son and my mother’s brother) passed in the fall of 2023.
As I continue to document my family, it realized how much photography helped me work through a challenging time. Through my discovery, I gained a whole new perspective on how unique the Black family has developed throughout history. Looking through old photographs and hearing family stories about the civil rights movement and even the process of how my great great great grandfather bought the farm he worked on. The stories shared became a distraction during this devastating time. I believe that it’s crucial to shine a light on how the Black family should be viewed in society. This includes the mundane, the joy and even grief. I have the responsibility to challenge the way Black people are shown through the medium of photography. In order to do that, I must show all of the aspects of growing up Black in America to dispel the prejudice and racial stereotypes that have been forced upon us by society.
My body of work, Before The Street Lights Come On, pulls back the layers to show an honest, empathetic portrait of my family. With this work, I want to challenge not only myself but also others to see the importance of documenting your home that’s right in front of you.
