These are self-portraits taken of yours truly taken over the years, with different cameras in different places at different times in my life. The first three capture a black eye I acquired from a concussion playing Team Handball in college.

Today is no longer yesterday’s tomorrow. It is not the regimented, scheduled, organized day promised to the Sun before it slipped out of sight last night. 2020 has removed all trust in assumption and now the only given is something unexpected. This sense of instability, unpredictability and stress is now ubiquitous in the United States. Since March 16^th, there has been a lot of time alone with my thoughts, alone with myself. Quarantine will do that, and more. Interestingly, I spent more genuine time alone with my thoughts before I was in a relationship that matters. To be in love is to see yourself reflected said someone famous, and now, the time I spend in a corner booth with my mind is reflected and refracted through two perspectives. It is Malcolm in Context. It is better. During quarantine and the protests, I began developing a garden. I spent time in the morning and night tending and talking to my little plants, encouraging them to thrive, trying to bring new life into this pandemic which has ended so much. I also begun trying to break free of the prison of outdated defense mechanisms developed to protect a younger version of myself. I have tried to spend more time legitimately paying attention when I look in the mirror, holding my own gaze and working on allowing myself to be okay with what I see. Out on my stoop, I have watched so much change and reflected on how I am changing and what more I can do. In my room, I feel the greatest weight surrounding me, staring out into the skyline, wondering what lies in store for my future, my time here on Earth, and a lot of time has been spent sitting in my room, sweating in the gathering blanket of heat and humidity in Philly. In my room, I have heard the jovial bustle of bars on the brink of summer sink into a processional silence. The birdsong and trash trucks dominated until stir-crazy citizens broke out into the first perfect day of spring, the sound of their caution being thrown to the wind unheard as the streets murmured anew with the slap of feet and the whir of bike pedals. Philadelphia was taken over by the people, an echo of a time more than a century ago, where the life of the city was visibly represented by people, peddlers, and pedals, not cars and traffic jams. It was this lively but subdued din that allowed the cries of the oppressed and mistreated to ring distinct. Helicopters, fireworks, plastic bullets, tear gas and the fires of outrage burned unforgettable into the beginning of summer. The slap of feet became stomps, marching forward toward change, the murmur of citizens became a roar, demanding dramatic and permanent departure from a corrupt and dishonest system. The tenor of society has collectively shifted to a new key, and within this harmony of anguish, anger, sadness and disruption, I have found myself inspecting the integrity of my own tune, and these photographs embody the transition I am still experiencing in tone, composition and emotion. These images carry the style of all my photographs, but I refrained from overcomplicating them, getting carried away with my cleverness. It is an earnest attempt at betterment, and they are shot in the places where the greatest strides have been made, and the greatest challenges have crawled and wormed their way into that corner booth.