The Storm Within, (2022)
This project came to light within the first four months of 2022, centered around what the pandemic has done to my spirit and how I’ve adapted to not being able to see my friends creating emotional turmoil for the past two years.
This project has been featured in galleries in Los Angeles, NYC, and Italy.
Image title: Home is Where The Heart Is
photo description: garage at my complex in Miami, FL.
words written on image: It took me all this time inside to realize how lucky I am to have a home to go to.
Image title: Samson
photo description: self portraits taken years apart. My hair in the first photo is starting to grow out after chemo, where the stark contrast is shown by the image to the right which is what my hair looked like before falling ill.
words written on image: growing up, my hair was a sense of pride and femininity in my household. Losing my hair due to chemo and watching it slowly grow back still is one of the most difficult things i’ve gone through. For me, my hair was about my culture and without it, I lost myself for a bit.
Image title: Memorial Hospital
photo description: self portrait standing in front of one of the hospitals I had been taken to while feeling like absolute shit.
words written on image: Two years ago, i was fighting cancer and the thing that kept me going were all the well wishes and support i had around me. Two years later, I’m still fighting for a better version of me. “Get Well Soon!”
Image title: My Best Friend
photo description: Danny Perez has been in my life since 2018. We met in a traumatic way in Miami, but within the past couple of years, we’ve learned how to cope and grow from each others strengths and cover each other weaknesses. While shooting this project, Danny accompanied me for a portion of it while we were shooting in Los Angeles.
Image title: My Best Friend, Part II
words written on image: Danny and I met in 2018. We’ve lived through traumatic moments that we never really talk about. Losing a friend is never easy, especially when you did everything you could to save them. Throughout the past two years, we’ve become really close friends, he’s someone I trust with all my being and i’m thankful for the storm we’ve lived through.
Image title: City of Angels
photo description: taken near DTLA , this was taken with the intentions of capturing what I miss about Los Angeles. A perfect storm of graffiti, the city and the sunset, I related to this image as a perfect encapsulation of the way I feel towards Los Angeles. Graffiti relate to my life being a beautiful mess that some people take as art, but others see as vandalism. the city represents the hustle and bustle of how i want to grow tall and be able to stand the test of time and the sunset being a reminder that the day has ended, but not without a beautiful goodbye and reminder that it’ll be back tomorrow.
Image title: Brian
photo description: I met Brian at an art exhibition in 2019 where he was one of the actors within the art piece. The show, titled SKATERS' SCORE brought together 5 Deaf skateboarders from across the U.S. with 4 L.A. based musicians for a performance directed by Alison O'Daniel. During the show, I took photos as a viewer and later showed him. We followed each other on instagram and throughout the years we would communicate about interesting things happening in our life. We ended up meeting up at a skate park in Los Angeles to reconnect and spend time together.
Image title: Brian, Part II
words written on image: Brian and I met right before the pandemic on set. He was one of the actors playing a deaf skater. He genuinely is Deaf so communicating through sign language we were able to get to know each other. As time went by, we followed and would have inspiring convos through insta DM. I was happy to reconnect in the physical world.
Image title: Cliff
photo description: Cliff and I met in 2018 at an event for a brand titled Jovem. We connected through a mutual friend and would later go on to become close friends, We have a lot of similar interests and Cliff has no issues being in front of the camera. I remember on this day we were looking for cool spots to take photos and we ended up behind a grocery store. The light was beautifully breaking through the trees and we hopped out the car to get this image.
Image title: Cliff, Part II
photo description: Cliff and I met in 2018 at an event for a brand titled Jovem. We connected through a mutual friend and would later go on to become close friends, We have a lot of similar interests and Cliff has no issues being in front of the camera. I remember on this day we were looking for cool spots to take photos and we ended up behind a grocery store. The light was beautifully breaking through the trees and we hopped out the car to get this image.
Image title: Growing Up
photo description: Lau was one of my sister's students in her poetry program that she would help student find their voice to read poetry and compete. Lau ended up moving to Los Angeles in 2020 to go to school at USC and study film. For his 19th birthday, I took photos to commerate another year of growth for him. When he found out I was coming to Los Angeles to work on this commission, he reached out and asked if I would take photos for his 21st birthday.
words written on image: after not seeing lau for two years during the pandemic, when i got the opportunity to take his 21st bday photo I was honored, I asked him what he would do to COVID if it were a person, immediately he put his fist up.
Image title: Kind
photo description: While in Venice beach, i noticed that Vicblends, who is a famous tiktoker, was working on a video project for his tiktok. Vic goes around giving free haircuts to people in exchange for inspiring conversation. I watched from the crowd as he was giving a random stranger a haircut, and when he was finished he noticed me in the crowd with my giant film camera and said “ that’s a piece of history right there, i’d love to get a photo” so i took the opportunity to snap images on the RZ of him and this was the final product of that interaction.
Image title: SK8
photo description: As I walked around Venice beach looking for inspiration, I saw this stranger sitting in the skate park. What attracted me to taking this photo was that she was separated from the crowd around her and was just focused on watching the other skaters who were performing tricks for the crowd that was forming.
Image title: Give Your Friends Flowers While They're Still Here
photo description: I met Sebas a couple years ago through mutual friends in the fashion industry. He is a designer and an artist who is very involved in the local miami scene. He had recently shaved his head and put a design in it, so when I saw that I immediately reached out and asked if we could shoot. I related to the impulsiveness that is designing something just because COVID has stifled our creativity and ability to leave the house for the past two years.
Image title: Touch
photo description: Chris is a model who has modeled for major companies such as Nike. We met this year while I was working on this commission and through a mutual friend. He has such amazing energy that I wanted to capture his essence in some photos, so we had a photo shoot immediately after I landed in Los Angeles
Here are some BTS images of this commission taken by Danny Perez
