I truly love New York. And one of my favorite things to do there, is to walk the streets, day and night, with my camera capturing the pure energy of the city and its surroundings from downtown to midtown to Harlem and more. I can walk for miles and not realize how far I've gone, and with no fatigue.  So many images around the city truly touch my soul and allows me to bring what I see in the city right into my art.

The New York experience stirs my imagination and allows me to create compelling works of art.

On Monday, April 27, 2015, while driving past Mondawmin Mall in Baltimore, traffic froze up as I watched riot-clad police officers disembark from a bus on the Mall parking lot. The parking lot began to fill up with students, mostly from the famous Frederick Douglass High School, my alma mater. I found out later that one of the reasons that students were gathering on the lot was because they were not allowed to get on the subway, as they typically did, every school day. It is no coincidence that the violence that began on the parking lot and the mall, coincided on the same day of the funeral of Mr. Freddie Gray, a Black American that died while in police custody.
I sat there for about 20 minutes, very nervous in my car, while waiting for police to allow traffic to flow again, watching heavily armed police face off angry students that seemed MUCH more interested in getting home than starting any trouble. Watching the news coverage showing the escalation of the situation, my heart was broken by the poor coverage and misrepresentation of how this whole tragic situation began.
As things settled in Baltimore, I began looking for those things I love about Baltimore and rediscovered Druid Hill Park with my camera, a beautiful and serene place of my childhood that is within walking distance of all the violence that happened on that day for the entire world to see.
This project is my effort to show the world how much Beauty Lies in the Shadow of the Baltimore Riot!

I have always been totally fascinated by Jazz. I continue to marvel at those incredible musicians that have mastered the skill of improvisation. And the Jazz musicians captured in this project are VERY skilled at their craft. They enter another world by exploiting the right â??Keysâ? when they take their solos. And, if you, as the observer, are really listening, you will make the unpredictable trip to that other world with them enveloped in their blanket of FREEDOM with limited rules.
My connection to Jazz is very deep and very personal. I saw jazz as a child as a more subdued smoky, blue light and learned very early that Jazz was something very special, yet truly, a confusing enigma. Jazz records were always in a special pile, and it was simply understood that there would be hell to pay if the surface of one of these treasured records got damaged or scratched.
Jazz really stirred something in my parents that allowed them to freely reveal their pain as African American adults in the 50â??s and 60â??s. Jazz was part of their ritual that transitioned them to brief periods of relaxation. My mother or father (usually my mother) would carefully remove the jazz records from the album covers and sleeves and gently stack them on the shiny metal rod in the center of the turntable. And by the time that the first record hit the turntable platter and reached the full speed of 33 1/3 revolutions per minute, my parents, either individually, or together, were sitting on the couch, heads back, with a lit cigarette holstered in their monogrammed ashtrays waiting for the soothing sound of Coleman Hawkinsâ??s breath latent tenor sax, or the unpredictable harmonic brass blowout of a Count Basie opening.
Jazz listening was sometimes accompanied with alcohol â?? usually Cutty Sark scotch or a beer, but always with a full supply of Kent filtered cigarettes. This seemed appropriate since many of the musicians on the album covers looked as if they were doing the same. I especially remember a Coleman Hawkins album and noted how much more relaxed he looked than Nat King Cole or other more mainstream musicians on their albums. The blue tint effect of the black and white picture along with Colemanâ??s casual and somewhat disheveled look just said â??Cool.â?
Another favorite was their â??Big Beat on the Organâ? album by Jimmy Smith. I must have been about 6 or 7 at the time and my brother had to explain the metaphor from the picture of a huge red beet lying on the keyboard of an organ. Now that was REALLY cool.
Jazz was one of the bright joys in my parentâ??s lives that helped them decompress from the dull, dim darkness of oppression and racism that they faced everyday while they struggled to carve out a good life for their family. Jazz served as a protest or a position of non-conformity that my parents could flick back on the â??white manâ? and say, â??I donâ??t care what you do to me, cause Iâ??ve Got JAZZ and you will NEVER be this COOL!â? So, it should be no surprise that I have been walking into the light of jazz some part of my entire life through listening, performing and capturing the images of Jazz. To me, â??Everything Jazzâ? clearly represents those joyful moments of freedom that I watched my parents cherish so much to help them deal with the â??dark sideâ? of being â??Black in America.â? Jazz is
My photographs convey only a mere portion of what I felt when the image was captured. What is missing is the music produced by the subject, in that space, in that moment in time, never to be heard again the same way. I want to make people feel the music through that one instant from the musicianâ??s expression and body language. I want people to experience the joy and freedom that these musicians feel through their expression of music, and, really feel some part of those â??Stolen Momentsâ? of freedom felt by my parents during a very difficult and complex time in America.
Jazz is Freedom, Freedom is Jazz!