MA Documentary Photography, University of Westminster

Exhibitions

Every Sodomite, Every Sodomite

The Blood of Jesus (2019)

841 x 1189 mm (Giclee print)

Every Sodomite, Every Sodomite (2019)
Running Time 5 min 55 sec

Sunday church service at 11 was the backbone of my upbringing. Still is. Rain or shine, we were there. As I got older, the presence of homo-negativity coming out of the pulpit from many black churches began to mitigate some of those effects in the institution of church itself, not in my beliefs. Religious leaders cherry pick sins based on their own bias. This photograph is from St Francis of Xavier Catholic Church, where I grew up and the audio comes from a church in my neighbourhood in Harlem which pours this rhetoric onto the nearby streets. Between the two, I examine the role of the church in the lives of LGBTQ+ men to understand how we reconcile our religious beliefs and our sexual identities. 

Dear Shirley

Shirley Diptych (2019)

1485 x 840 mm (inkjet print)

Beginning in the mid-1940s, a Shirley Card was used by photo labs to calibrate skin tones, shadows, and lighting during the print process which used all white models as a standard for normality. The range of film emulsions was generally calibrated for white skin and had limited sensitivity to brown skin tones. This photograph was taken of my grandmother in Houston, Texas in 1959.