2022 Winter collection

since it’s “spring” “break”, I thought i would curate some of my favorite scenes from this year’s Winter in connecticut.

I am absolutely terrible at transitions, and equally as terrified of winters in the northeast. My regular crippling anxious/depressive episodes get compounded by a different feeling/experience/manifestation of seasonal depression, which gets compounded by the business of the end of semester and stress to catch up (rather than rest) during winter breaks.

But, in anticipation of this tumultuous time of the year for me, I recently started seeing a new therapist and in addition to a lot of personal prayer and meditation, I've grown a LOT and with that growth has come excitement as I've begun to lean into the tremendous beauty that Connecticut winters offer (if you layer up).

A Christmas Eve photo drive really helped me feel grounded in the quietness and stillness that winter evokes. I've come to realize that the solitude *can be* great for the introspection necessary to strengthen our roots in defense against the bitter frigid winter weather outside. Winter is great for establishing routines, naming goals, and rekindling relationships. These New England winters make me incredibly grateful for the relationships that root and nourish me with love, even in the *worst* of times, and it's serves as a reminder that we can't survive alone, but with a balance of solitude and support, winter can nurture the growth and life happening below the frozen surfaces as we grow to become better selves.

I picked up a DJI Mini SE a few months ago because i want to use some drone footage in a documentary film I've begun pre-production on called Free the Land: A Revolutionary Prayer Toward Reparatory Justice, and I'm absolutely in love with the blue and green tones you can pull out of these images. Transitioning from a photo centered mentality to cinematography has definitely been a learning curve, but I'm really excited to continue to broaden my craft as an artist, even when it's kind of scary. Sometimes I feel like I grow the most in those moments when I feel like I don't know what I'm doing but I do it anyway.

I think I'll always be a photographer at heart and even though I'm extremely new to #dronephotography, I am really proud of some of the images I've been able to capture over the past few months and look forward to making more art from above.

“In any case, the world changes then, and it changes forever. Because you love one human being, you see everyone differently than you saw them before – perhaps I only mean that you begin to see – and you are both stronger and more vulnerable, both free and bound. Free, paradoxically, because, now, you have a home - your lover’s arms. And bound: to that mystery, precisely, a bondage which liberates you into something of the glory and suffering of the world.”

— James Baldwin, No Name in the Street

"You can't heal under a mask, Angela. Wounds need air." - Will Reeves

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WINTER MAKES ME THINK A LOT ABOUT GROWTH, WHICH OFTEN EVOKES THOUGHTS ABOUT LOVE AS A PRAXIS OF GROWTH AND CARE. Love is the celebration & elevation of freedom in oneself and another or others. It's an existential praxis of care entailing both giving and receiving. And like everything that requires practice and discipline, it's work that doesn't always come easy or naturally. Life comes at us fast, and sometimes we experience trauma faster than we're able to process and heal from. Putting on a mask can make us feel safe, like we're protecting our innermost selves *from* ourselves and the external/outer worlds that brutally violate our dignity. But escapism never made anyone more free. Loving isn't an easy practice; we have to break down the ways we're socialized into unhelpful & harmful habits, practices, routines, and ways of being. It requires us to love our beloveds in ways that they need to be loved and to receive the love as they're able to pour it into us. That sort of balance takes communication, commitment, devotion, and...practice.

It doesn't happen often, but every now and again, we're blessed enough to come across others who see things in us that we hide from ourselves. At their best (and sometimes not) they hold us through our worst, when we need them the most and they encourage/inspire us to take off our masks and give us a breath of fresh air so that our deepest wounds can heal. I pray that you all can find people who commit to healing, growing, and being whole with you.

I almost died taking this one! I slipped on ice and fell/slid like 30 feet down this icy ass hill. at some point i reached out to try to catch a tree and it just flung me around. Whole time I'm like, “mf this is how ot happens huh?” My second camera, literally just got it yesterday, flies out the pocket of my Hoodie and into the water, I try to pull myself together and I'm like fuck it I'm down here now and have no idea how ima climb this ice, so I might ass well take the photo. At some point my headphones turn off, and I realize that I don't have my phone. Go back to the spot, it's in the water, just chillin for like a half hour. I get in the water and pull it out (it's 26° btw) and it's working fine make it back up the hill to my car and drive home, once I get there I realize my pants are stuck to my leg and ripped and I'm all scraped the fuck up

“authentic love—wishing for others what one postulates for oneself, when that postulation unites the permanent values of human reality—entails the mobilization of psychic drives basically freed of unconscious conflicts.”

— Frantz Fanon

"BUT YOU CAN GROW UNDER THE FROST" - ME

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WINTER ALSO MAKES ME THINK A LOT ABOUT DEATH AND PERSPECTIVE. IF TREES THINK, DO YOU THINK THAT TREES LAMENT THE ONSET OF WINTER? I OFTEN THINK ABOUT WINTER OPPOSITIONALLY; I JOKE THAT “RACE” IS SOCIOGENIC (BORN OF SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS AND NOT BIOLOGY), BUT IN MY MENTAL HEALTH EPISODES COMPOUNDED BY THE COLDNESS AND DARKNESS OF NEW ENGLAND WINTERS, I OFTEN JOKE THAT “THE CARIBBEAN IS IN MY BLOOD.” BUT LATELY, AS I’VE TRIED TO ENJOY THE BEAUTIFUL OF WINTER, I’VE FOUND A GROWING FONDNESS OF THE STILLNESS OF WINTER, SNOW FORCES US TO SLOW DOWN AND ONCE ITS OVER, THERE IS A SENSE OF STILLNESS AND PEACE THAT I CAN’T EXPRESS THROUGH WORDS. I CATCH MYSELF WONDERING, IF TREES THINK, DO THEY JUST APPROACH WINTER LIKE HIBERNATION? WELL, I THINK TO MYSELF, OBVIOUSLY, DOES A BEAR SHIT IN THE WOODS AND WIPE ITS ASS WITH A squirrel? I DON’T TYPICALLY THINK ABOUT SLEEP AT NIGHT AS A FORM OF DEATH THAT I OUGHT TO FEAR, BUT A compulsory FUNCTION OF LIVING AND SURVIVING THE MODE OF BEING WE ARE BORN INTO. SOMETIMES I REALLY LOOK FORWARD TO A GREAT NIGHT OF SLEEP, SO MAYBE TREES LOOK FORWARD TO GETTING NAKED AND RESTING FOR A LITTLE BIT.

“The word “love” is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb.... love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth”

— bell hooks

I am absolutely enamored by the contrast between the red new england siding and fluffy white snow.

i love the memories engrained in every photo. i took a long drive to UConn for class one morning after a snowstorm. I pulled over to take some photos of this barn from the road, and as I was pulling off, a white woman waved me down. like all rural locales, rural new england isn’t the most welcoming for black folk, so i was nervous as fuck as i rolled down the window. to my joy, she just wanted to introduce herself and ask if I could send her a couple of the photos. her name was phyllis and when I asked her where to email the photos, she said, “do you need the whole thing, like with the @ and everything?” I pulled in the driveway chuckling as she went inside to get it from her husband. when she came out, I was taking some photos of her husband’s sick ass limited edition land rover defender p400 and she asked me if i wanted to see her daughters chickens. i had no idea they were some of the most beautiful birds I’ve ever seen.

“actual love is a form of elation in the freedom of another or others”

— Lewis Gordon

january was half a year long, and february was about 30 seconds. homesick and trying to dance a routine to the same exhausted blue note and demands of normalcy, I'm coming into this month feeling really hazy. as some 37°f rainy weather created steamy, snowy landscapes last week, I took some time on a drive to reflect a bit on the long winter and impacts of global climate and health catastrophes. the trees spoke to me and I had to spend some time with them at the other end of the telephoto lens.

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I had the incredible honor to take some photos of a sacred process for a comrade in Plymouth, so afterward I decided I would go and have a meditation upon what Plymouth means symbolicly. It felt haunted. Chillingly haunted. But i saw a place called "Great Marshes" wasn't too far out of the way of my drive back to CT so i pulled off to spend some time to process anxieties about the upcoming semester and this course I'm experimenting with called The Crisis of Modernity: Coloniality, Liberalism, and Ecological Catastrophe. The weather has been treacherous for my southern joints and back. The below zero windchill and gale force gusts need to calm tf down, tbh. They take their toll on my body (and beat the hell out of the poor little drone in the air), but earth and water look absolutely incredible from above so even with the winds that cut through you, the frigid cold offers a sort of stillness that you can't experience at any other time of year and entirely worth sitting through for a little bit. I'm from the coast and I've been enamored by the beauty in the relationship between coastal lands and waters, and I'm fascinated with the ways that they continue to shape eachother as an ever evolving process. I can't wait to revisit this location in another season to document the fullness of life that flourishes there

lorum ipsum

transitions are always really stressful as fuck for me. As a grad student and precarious adjunct faculty worker, I'm accustomed to adjusting to a transient and somewhat unmoored lifestyle planning my life semester to semester. New schedules make me really anxious, and I'm always feeling behind, starting "spring" semesters neither caught up on work nor rested, but beating the shit out of myself for both. At the same time, the seasonal rupture also pushes me to be gentle with myself as i try to let go and ease into new ways of being. Aquarius season always gets me looking forward to a new revolution around the sun. An annual revolutionary ritual reflecting on birth and what it means to be re-born. Looking backward and taking account of life experiences, and dreaming and planning toward the promise and blessings that another year around the sun may bring. Late January forces me to question and make meaning of who I am in this historical moment, who I want to become as frozen waters give way to new life in the spring, and what needs to die in me along the process. It is ritual fracture.

sooooo many thanks to everyone who threw me some money for my birthday! I wanted a little point & shoot for everyday carry and shooting more everyday content i don’t feel like packing a bunch of camera, lenses, and gear, or discreet moments that I don't feel like pulling out a big camera and lens to put in someone’s face, so I picked up a used Sony ZV-1 on ebay. It took forever to get here, but finally got it on Friday. I'm really excited for our journey together.

also, really excited to announce that I also upgraded my main camera system. I came up shooting on canon camera systems and I absolutely loved my first full frame camera, the EOS 6dMkii. I learned so much with that camera. after i accidentally drowned it in a tidal pool while packing up my camera bag after a late night shoot at the bass harbor on a milky way chasing trip to acadia national park, i used the insurance money to transition into the world or mirrorless cameras and got a canon eor rp, i endearingly call ‘Rosie perez’. I originally got into the Canon system because of the incredible glass that you can get used at a relatively affordable cost (relative to the photography market). Nowadays, though, the 3rd party lens market doesn't really exist for the canon mirrorless RF universe, which is outrageously expensive, albeit soooo nice, to get into. i was mostly using an adapter with Canon ef glass that i bought used off of ebay over the years, and Rosie Perez was a great entry into mirrorless, but it had limitations, particularly around video production, that I need from tools that I’m hoping to shoot more long-form documentary interviews and footage on.

soOOO, LONG STORY SHORT… i sold rosie perez, used some tax money and backpay from three uconn checks I didn’t get paid because of an adminiSTRATIVE FUCK UP, AND INVESTED IN THIS BEAUTIFUL SONY A7IV.

IT WAS DEFINITELY AN EXPENSIVE ASS “INVESTMENT” IN MYSELF, BUT THE A7IV OFFERS THE video tools I NEED to start getting into the documentary film I'm hoping to make surrounding landback as reparatory justice for Black and Indigenous folk in the US. THE A7IV offerS A HYBRID suite of PHOTO AND VIDEO features that I NEED to SHOOT SOME SELF-SHOT footage for A TRAILER TO USE AS a fundraising piece I’VE BEEN PUTTING TOGETHER and EVENTUALLY a great “B-camera” to a SONY A1, FX3, or A7sIII DOWN the road, MAKING IT EASY to FUNCTIONALLY grade/match footage, so it made sense. ADDITIONALLY, THE SONY E-MOUNT SYSTEM OFFERS SO MANY 3RD PARTY AND/OR INCREDIBLE LENSES THAT THE ENTIRE CAMERA LANDSCAPE HAS KIND OF BEEN TURNED ON ITS HEAD FOR ME. NOT TO MENTION, the camera shop hooked up an ef - mount adapter so I'll be using my beloved 70-200mm (and 2x extender) until I can save/fundraise for the Tamron 35-150mm (and later, ideally a 100-400, 200-600, or 400 prime for wildlife).

Took the a7iv out to see if I could snap a few bald eagles at the Shepaug dam, and although the eagles didn’t show up, the ct Audubon society had a show and educational presentation of a few of the incredibly beautiful birds that they care for:

lorum ipsum

winter is brutal as fuck. entirely over being cold and the darkness and loneliness new england winters I've become accustomed to as a grad student up here for the past 5 years. winters are great for homebodies like me who want a reason to not leave the house. it's full of cozy shit like sweats, fuzzy socks & house loafers, hot cocoa and marshmallows, and hit toddies. as the days are getting longer, I'm trying to use the stillness of this long pandemic winter to focus on myself and my main crafts of photography, writing, and teaching. I hope y'all are staying warm and taking care of yourselves and eachother.

life comes at you fast af, here are a handful of updates:

I am exhausted af and super ready for "spring" "break". Ima be working on this #EarthOfTheWretched prospectus and finishing up some incompletes so I can go on head and be ABD. This time of year is always stressful for me, because as a laborer expected to work 12 months a year but only gets paid for 9, summer money stressors are debilitating, especially so because neither of the departments I'm affiliated with could give me a summer teaching assignment.

I originally took these photos to announce my plans to move back to Wilmington this summer and working on the dissertation from home. when i took them, my partner and I had been making plans to move in together, but since then, we have decided that we weren't in a place to support eachother in the ways we both needed to be healthy individually and together. In a recent, (now archived) public post, I reflected that love "requires us to love our beloveds in ways that that they need to be loved and to receive the love as they're able to pour it into us. That sort of balance takes communication, commitment, devotion, and..practice." She and I were unwilling and/or unable to support eachother in the ways we neeeded one another in order to heal and grow together so we mutually decided to sever our relationship. I'm not sure if I'll ever feel safe to be public outspoken about my personal relationships in the future, and I struggled to decide whether or not to share this, but ultimately thought that since I was public about my adoration for her, I should also express the whole breadth of our situation. I'm disappointed, but not sorry. She's brilliant and I'm so glad to have so many incredible memories with her at the center. I'm outrageously grateful for all of the love she poured into me and thankful for all of the growth that our relationship fostered in my life; I'm a better person now than i was before shaping eachother. I still love her and wish her the best as we both move on into new chapters of our lives.

Community-wise, I've also struggled to build in Southeastern NC and try to offer my talents. A decolonial, anti-capitalist organizing framework in Wilmington is, bleak at best, non-existent at worst. Struggling to find time and funding for my nonprofit, ANUBIS, and in the greater organizing landscape, i been feeling extremely alienated from organizations I helped build & despite my efforts to facilitate a reading group on racial capitalism and abilition, the most active participation in the group and the expressed general disinterest in reading about abolition & racial capitalism so we shut that down too. The Port City will always have a piece of my soul, but as I continue to think about what "home" means to me as I tip toe through the experience of life, the universe just keeps pushing me away for all of the reasons.

It feels like a breakup with her and Wilmington, which has been heavy, but I'm feeling pretty solid in myself and my greatness. Grief comes in waves and I'm trying to be gentle with myself and give myself space to feel and process all of the things while facing down the tsunami of deadlines i see fast approaching. I'm a little scattered, wounded, confused, and to some extent, a little bit scared, or at least uncertain. I have no idea what the future holds for me, but I'm mostly feeling grounded - alone and wandering rather than lonely and lost.

I'm *really* excited about a bunch of projects I'm cooking on; I got a new camera that is going to enable me to film some preliminary interviews for the documentary, working on some photo projects and thinking about what money might look like in the crypto space, and always wrestling through thoughts around a couple of buckets/constellations of conceptual spaces (really excited to develop a new concept I'm thinking through that I'm calling novoliberalism), and immediately, focusing on finishing this prospectus and being excited to keep making my art, talking my shit, and for all of the possilities of the unknown.

thank you so much for checking out my latest winter collection. i really hope that you enjoyed it and were able to breathe a little bit while you scrolled.

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2022 Winter collection

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