Photo from Robert Frank’s The Americans
- Photo Plan
- Currently named “The Yalies”
- In spring of last year, I released an artist statement for my now ongoing project, “ADS FOR SALE”:
- After two years of sharing Google Drive links and running from gig to gig with seemingly a new camera every week, I am finally ready to take my finger off the shutter for a little while.
- "[ADS FOR SALE]" celebrates the traditions of labor I have consumed my Yale life with so far and forces me to reckon with the aesthetics I adopt as a photographer serving the institutions, groups, and individuals that hire me.
- What gazes do I have to grapple with or morph alongside my own when I create art solely for someone else?
- Can I chop and splice these works and make something truly of my own afterwards? Or do these pieces hold unsevered ties?
- In the next few weeks, I will be posting several parts of this series as I try to become more comfortable sharing my work and as I close this era.
- I cannot describe how excited I am to venture into my own projects soon where my aesthetics and messaging can live and prosper, unabashed and unlatched from anyone else's.
- At the same time, this work has allowed me to find new homes and people that I now cannot live without. I will forever be grateful for that.
- My photo professor from last spring Tommy Kha said something once that has really stuck with me – use these jobs and gigs as opportunities; take something for yourself. I have committed to re-entering to Yale scene of photography again but want to try my hand at capturing spaces that are much more foreign and uncomfortable for me. After reading the Combahee River Collective Statement at the beginning of this class, my eyes kept glossing over one line; “we believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.” (2) Adopting this idea into the context of perspective and framing within photography and artwork, I think rather than trying to make an overtly political piece that promotes some grandiose message, I should simply embrace that my identity as a Black man on this campus alters my gaze and my access to certain spaces. What does it look like to be out of my comfort zone and taking a photo that says something interesting about this experience? I am excited to try something with a bit more social risk attached and am excited to think about the logistics of a photo series like this more.
- In terms of certain photos or people I have been thinking of capturing, I have had the following ideas:
- (1) Beinecke Plaza professional photoshoots – a representation of how Yale has become a vocational institution in many’s eyes. I see the Beinecke Plaza as a place of birth but also death – we fully embrace our future lives within corporate America abiding by the rules and standards of American professionalism and work culture at such a young age.
- (2) Yale’s Zionism – Thinking about the perpetual presence of a Yale police car at the Slifka Center. What messages are being sent within an institution advertising their commitement to ‘institutional neutrality’? What is becoming the default? What is assumed to be true? What do we not question?
- (3) People waiting outside of Commons – It is always a fascinating photo I have had in my mind that I desperately want to take. I think the tradition of ‘grabbing meals’ as a means of connecting ourselves to people is a testament to many things we see as natural in the life of a Yale student.
- (4) The Tory Party – this one is a bit crazy I cannot lie. I have always wanted to do something resembling perfromance art where I enter a space I would never reasonably enter willingly such as a right-wing student group. What does it look like to enter that space for the first time and with a camera?