Current Projects and publications

My current work builds on over fifteen years of visual storytelling, exploring how communities create meaning, preserve memory, and sustain cultural practices. Anchored in photography and writing, I integrate community archiving, memory work and design research to examine the rituals, spaces, and interactions that shape collective experience. These projects are not only about documenting life—they are acts of inquiry, preservation, and participation, reflecting a belief that understanding and celebrating community requires both observation and engagement.

black men of measure: stories of skilled labor, creativity and community

A work-in-progress that examines my father’s life and career as a skilled train mechanic for the Chicago Transit Authority, situating his experiences within the broader history of Black labor, union organizing, and the rise of Chicago’s Black middle class. Through photography, archival research, and storytelling, this project explores the intersections of labor, creativity, and community, preserving the narratives, rituals, and environments that shaped both individual and collective identity. By documenting these stories, the work functions as a visual and archival inquiry into how Black men’s labor and expertise have contributed to community formation, social mobility, and cultural legacy.

ARCHIVING THE PHILADELPHIA JUNETEENTH FESTIVAL IN GERMANTOWN

In collaboration with the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Joseph E. Coleman Regional Library, I am preserving a selection of Festival photographs curated for the 2023 exhibit Documenting the Philadelphia Juneteenth Festival: A Visual Chronicle of Community, Resilience and Freedom. This project ensures that collective memory is documented, contextualized, and accessible, reinforcing cultural continuity while supporting future research and storytelling.

Chasing Light and Shadow on Substack

A space where I share musings, reflections, and glimpses into my life and work as a Philadelphia-based photographer since 2011. The newsletter functions as both a space for ongoing storytelling and a form of personal and communal archiving, capturing the rhythms, rituals, and moments that shape everyday life. Through writing, photography, and reflection, it documents creative practice, memory, and community, offering insight into how place, identity, and social dynamics intersect.

#10YearsofRacismIsASickness

A decade after creating #RacismIsASickness as an act of protest, reflection, and refusal, this project returns to the original work with renewed urgency. The project examines how systemic racism continues to shape American life, connecting past narratives with present realities. Through photography, storytelling, and public engagement, it functions as both an archival and research-driven inquiry into the evolving impacts of racial injustice. By revisiting the stories and portraits of original participants, the work illuminates the personal, political, and emotional legacies of a decade marked by trauma, resistance, and transformation. Designed to foster dialogue, reflection, and collective reckoning, #10YearsofRacismIsASickness bridges memory, community engagement, and research, offering both commemoration and a call to action.

Compositions of Black Joy: A Visual Chronicle of the Philadelphia Juneteenth Festival (2015–2022)

A seven-year study of the Philadelphia Juneteenth Festival in Germantown, this photography book documents the Festival’s growth, evolution, and traditions while celebrating moments of Black joy, resilience, and community. Through vivid images, the project explores how rituals, spaces, and social interactions shape communal experiences and cultural continuity. Serving as both a visual archive and a design-informed inquiry, it preserves and amplifies the heritage, activism, and pride of Black families and communities, creating a resource for reflection, scholarship, and ongoing cultural memory.

Work in Progress

Unscripted Moments: Diary of a Restless Lightchaser

Slated for release in Spring 2026, this creative non-fiction project pairs street and documentary photography with original micro-vignettes to encourage readers to slow down, re-see, and rethink how they engage with images. It examines the relationships between composition, observation, and attention, highlighting what we notice—and what we overlook—in everyday life. Through storytelling and visual inquiry, the work amplifies the voices and experiences of those often unseen in the frame, offering both a reflective archive and a research-informed exploration of perception, memory, and human experience.

Work in Progress: Racism Is A Sickness: Revisiting Image, Memory and Message (monograph)

This commemorative monograph revisits the 2015 Philadelphia-based art and community engagement project Racism Is a Sickness, sparked by the viral video of Dajerria Becton’s brutalization in McKinney, Texas. At its heart are the original color portraits of 14 individuals who courageously allowed themselves to be seen and heard during a moment of national and local unrest. The 2016 installations at The Art Church of West Philadelphia, the Community College of Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Ethical Society each engaged audiences uniquely, through wall text, ephemera, and participatory elements.

This monograph is not a traditional retrospective; it is a return. Through high-resolution reproductions, installation documentation, and a re-engagement with the original visual language, it functions as an archival resource that preserves and contextualizes a pivotal moment of collective witnessing. Anchored in memory work, visual storytelling, and community-centered documentation, this publication honors what was seen, said, and felt, emphasizing the truths and insights that remain vital today.