BAREFACED:

THE FACES

OF BLACK LIVES MATTER PROTESTS

IN NEW YORK CITY

Barefaced is a story of opening your soul in the times of mandatory mask wearing, and coming together to fight injustice in the age of social distancing.

George Floyd was killed on May 22, 2020. After a week of protests, the Mayor of New York City imposed a curfew on the city where I live, the first city-wide curfew in the last 50 years. The government was scared of looters and vandals, so were my friends and family from overseas.

I knew that they were protesters, not looters. But who were they individually? Why did they feel the urge to go out in the middle of the once in a century pandemic to protest?

There are plenty of photographs of crowds, but I felt a lack of stories focusing on personalities, and how they puzzle together in a collective portrait of a protester. So I shot it myself. They wanted to be heard, and this was my way of giving them voices.

I travelled around New York City with just one assistant and a black v-flat. I shot the protestors as individual portraits to help people engage with the protests on a personal level. I stripped away the city and the crowd so that the subject’s humanity is the singular focus of the work.

I met so many amazing, brave, diverse people. Every one of them was barefaced. Barefaced not only because they weren't scared to open their faces for me, but also because they were boldly open and ready to fight.

Black lives matter.