I guess a six month break from posting was long enough.

The country I thought to be so great, so hopeful and powerful, has transformed into a gritty wasteland over these past months. The pandemic response from both our country and citizens is something deeper than appalling, and even today, we are still not out of hot water. Now social reform, where do we start…

I’ve learned more about black history in these past three months than in my entire grade-school and college career combined. The disgust and anger I feel - powered from these newly discovered secrets of our country shouldn’t be surprising (when thinking about how the US was first formed), but timelines lined with violence, rape, and torture will always inflict a guttural sting on our communities. 2020 is the year when the bandaid on this wound stopped masking the pain. We need to change, we need to learn. The problems are still current and deep. This will not happen overnight, but we need to start talking to one another. Educating ourselves and those around us is the only way we can better our communities - and our judgment.

On a lighter note…

2020 has been a dry year in photography for me. I’ve lacked the motivation to shoot for myself, so most of my fiddling as an artist has been placed in the form of calligraphy doodles on notecards. Luckily, I was tasked for a portrait shoot by a friend - beginning anew with a fresh startup business. Practiced in spoken word and poetry, Itohan Omolere is an activist and educator who reached out to be photographed on her birthday for the launch of her new website. Check out her store at http://www.freeitohan.com/shop. Shot at Columbus Park, West of Chicagoland, we could not have asked for better weather. Here are some of the resulting images. Stay safe, stay well -

Shot on Nikon D750, 105mm F2 D