When my father and I won the bid on eBay for a 35mm Minolta camera, I had no idea that photography would deepen my engagement with my own history and help empower me to change the world.

No one was surprised when I picked up film photography. Like baking, slime making and jewelry design, photography fed my desire for creating things that arrested and delighted the senses. My first models were my family members and unsuspecting friends. I captured pensive looks, wide smiles and TikTok perfect pouts. My camera was a constant companion as I roamed the streets of my New York City hometown, traversed the globe to see family or took my daily steps on the grounds of my school. Shooting on film forced me to be present, to give myself over fully to the experience of capturing intricate patterns of shadows and weaving them into images that inspired, provoked and opened the mind. When I added a digital camera to my toolkit, my passion intensified and now, through my lens, I tell stories of life on this planet, our challenges and triumphs, joys and disappointments, realities and dreams.

When I was asked to talk about my passion for photography in celebration of Black HistoryMonth, I sought inspiration in the works of pioneering Black photographers. James Pressley Ball’s daguerreotypes which captured the violent, ugly reality of the lives of the enslaved—bodies brutalized by beatings and rape, lynchings at which white people and their children, celebrated the torture and death of Black men.  Don Hogan Charles, the first Black photographer at the NY Times, who chronicled the salient moments and leading figures of the Civil Rights Movement, including the very places where those brave heroes of every color created their winning strategies. James van Der Zee who captured the unparalleled power of the scholarship, literature, art and music of the Harlem Renaissance. Gordon Parks whose photographs told the story of the Tuskegee Airmen,  Mary McLeod Bethune, Stokely Carmichael and scores of others whose intelligence, drive and determination educated and elevated Black people everywhere.

Even as I appreciated the fineness of their craft, their incredible perception and depth, it was the stories woven through their photographs that brought me to tears. How, I asked myself, could we for so long, deny the humanity, the dignity, the brilliance and the contributions of others, simply because of the color of their skin? How could we live with the lies that were made up about them to excuse avarice and exploitation? And how could we, in 2025, after so much blood and death, sweat and tears,  so many knees on necks and bullets in breasts, ban the books that tell these stories? Attempt to overturn the laws enacted to right the injustices?

Those photographers indeed chronicle Black history but more significantly, they tell the story of the resilience, the wisdom, and the strength of Black people. Their stubborn refusal to be dehumanized or to accept the systems and structures designed to destroy them made my very existence possible. And those qualities are my heritage—the enduring gift of ancestors. I know without a doubt that their gift will allow me to use my camera, along with my talents and propensities to make my own positive, enduring mark on the world. No matter the odds, I am ready!

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