Photographer's Statement
We are all complicit in the inequalities and injustices in this world. Complicit because we're either ill-informed or because it's willful or because we'd rather just check out and not engage.
But that's what the camera is for. It's to make us recognize that we're responsible and have a social contract with each other to help each other. By covering these often under-reported and sometimes dangerous actions, my hope is that people will witness what they otherwise may not know is happening and then, hopefully, it will inspire them to consider creating a more fair and just world.
I use the image as a megaphone for people who have witnessed the news of their lives being dismissed or ignored, who are putting their bodies on the line and shouting their frustration into what is, far too often, the closed portal that is the "elite media." It is their energy and passion that compels me to stand on the frontlines of resistance with them and attempt to capture their courage, their fear, their frustration, their tenacity, and their story.
My goal is not to compete with the 24-hour news cycle but rather to create images that can inspire conversation, invigorate activism and, perhaps, instigate real change.