Truly Blessed - Slide Show, Book Talk and Closing Reception

The Community Church of Washington, DC, Apr. 20, 2014 © Chris Suspect 2022

This coming weekend will be a busy one. On Saturday, June 29, I will be presenting a slide show and book talk about Truly Blessed at Maryland Meadworks in Hyattsville, Maryland. The event starts at 7pm and I will narrate the photographic process behind the making of the book. After the slide show there will be a conversation with Jason Hamacher of Lost Origins Gallery and Bilal Ali, book contributor and photographic subject. We will discuss, race, sexuality and faith, and the discrimination that faces queer African Americans on all three fronts.

On Sunday, we will celebrate the closing of the exhibit for Truly Blessed at Lost Origins Gallery in Mount Pleasant, DC, with a special live podcast of Stage Craft with legendary DC music producer Don Zientara and Alex Vidales of the band Pilot Waves. Zientara and Vidales will not only discuss the exhibit but also my early music career as a member of The Suspects and owner of Torque Records. Bilal Ali will also speak to the exhibit.

Details

Truly Blessed - Slide Show and Conversation with Bilal Ali and Jason Hamacher

Saturday, June 29th, 7-9 pm
Free

Maryland Meadworks
4700 Rhode Island Ave., Suite Bee
Hyattsville, MD 20781

Truly Blessed - Closing Reception with the Stage Craft Podcast

Sunday, June 30th, 3-6 pm
Free

Lost Origins Gallery
3110 Mt Pleasant St NW, 2nd Floor
Washington, DC 20010

About the book and exhibition

“Truly Blessed” documents a marginalized community’s response to racial and religious discrimination. Working closely with the Community Church of Washington, Suspect uses his camera to contrast the sacred and secular.

“Sometimes it is only through photographs that we can see the sacred in the secular, or the secular in the sacred. This collection, Truly Blessed, uses photography to forge a conversation between the sacred black church and secular sexual/erotic spaces, capturing sites where the body, mind, and spirit converge. Suspect’s attention to the subtlety of the performances of everyday people—engaging in rituals of their own choosing—illustrates the diverse and dynamic realities of being black and queer in America.”

– Jeffery Q. McCune, PhD Frederick Douglass Professor of American-American Literature and Culture, University of Rochester.

For more info visit
https://lostorigins.gallery/exhibitions/truly-blessed/

To see a selection of work from this exhibit visit
https://www.chrissuspect.com/truly-blessed

Day of the Dead Photography Exhibition in Oaxaca at Central del Arte

Oaxaca 2022 © Chris Suspect

Les esperamos este jueves 3 de noviembre en el Central del Arte ubicado en Murguía 102, Ruta Independencia, Centro Oaxaca. de 7.00 PM a 8.30 PM para la exposición fotográfica con el trabajo producido por mis alumnos durante el taller de este año enfocado en el dia de muertos en Oaxaca. La entrada al evento es gratis y se expondrá fotografía y video, también habra tragos coquetos y estará Sonido San Francisco como nuestro DJ set.

Chris Suspect es un fotógrafo callejero y documental de Washington, DC. Se especializa en capturar momentos absurdos y profundos de la vida cotidiana. Su trabajo de fotografía callejera ha sido reconocido internacionalmente, y se ha exhibido en Miami, Bélgica, Alemania, Italia, Rumania, Georgia, Emiratos Árabes Unidos y Reino Unido.

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Join us on Thursday, Nov 3 at Central del Arte, Murguía 102, Ruta Independencia, Centro, in Oaxaca City, Mexico, from 7 -8:30 p.m. for a photography exhibition featuring the work produced by my students during this year's Day of the Dead workshop in Oaxaca. It’s free and there will be photography, a video projection, drinks, and a DJ set by Sonido San Francisco.

Chris Suspect is a street and documentary photographer from Washington, DC. He specializes in capturing absurd and profound moments of everyday life. His street photography work has been recognized internationally, and has been exhibited in Miami, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Romania, Georgia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.

Punk Rock Photography - In Conversation with Alec MacKaye

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The Make*Up at The Black Cat in Washington, DC, May 19, 2019 © Chris Suspect 2022

This coming Thursday, Oct. 6 at 6:30 pm I am excited to announce I will be in conversation with writer and musician Alec MacKaye at the Mt Pleasant Public Library at 3160 16th St., NW, Washington, D.C. The topics of discussion are my work around punk rock photography and our experiences in the DC/punk and hardcore scene. A looping slide show will feature 100 of my images of 70 different bands from the last 12 years.

Alec wrote the intro to my first book Suspect Device that was published in 2014 so we have 8 years of catching up to do!

Below are all the bands that will be featured and a large portion of these images have never been published before.

The event is free. Starts at 6:30 and goes for 1 hour, so please arrive early. Afterwards we can all go to a neighborhood bar in Mt. Pleasant for some food and drink. Details to be posted on the Facebook Event page..

This event is brought to you by the DC Public Library and the DC Punk Archive

Bands (in alphabetical order)

.nobody

Aertex

Airmen of Note

Apocalypse Dudes

BBQT

Black on Black Crime

Bless

Bloodshot Bill

Bust Off

Catharsis

Chain And The Gang

coke bust

Copstabber

CumGirl8

Daddy Long Legs

Daikaiju

Damages

Death Valley Girls

Electric Grandmother

Ethan Spalding and the 422 Band

Gasmask Terror

Gogol Bordelloo

Government Issue

GWAR

HIRS

Homosuperior

I Against Eye

Iron Chic

Korean Gut

Lecherous Gaze

Los Gatos Negros

Loud Boyz

Marginal Man

MellowHype

Misled Youth

Modest Proposal

Neo-Cons

Nervous Impulse

No Man

Priests

PsyOp

Ritchie Ramone

The Scotch Bonnets

Scream

Shark Week

Shawnis and the Shimmers

SHEER MAG

Sissy Spacek

Speedy Ortiz

The Steady 45s

Stout

Striking Distance

Suzi Moon

Teen Cobra

The Crocodiles

The Kickback

The Make*Up

The Nuclears

The Screws

Thelma and the Sleaze

Tim Capello

Total Maniac

Tragedy

Trash Talk

Trunk

Vorlust

War On Women

Wild Anacostias

Zealot R.I.P.

First Place Winner in Focus on the Story presents Photoworks at Glen Echo's Annual Photo Slam

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First place winning image. Espadin © 2022 Chris Suspect.

This past Sunday at MetroBarDC in Washington, DC, I took first place in the annual Focus on Story’s presents Photoworks at Glen Echo’s Annual Photo Slam Competition. This is an open call event in which participants are asked to submit 5 photos and 1 best photo for a total of 6 photos. The first 5 photos for each submitter are then presented in 4 rounds, with the judges selecting the top 3 in each round. If you make it through that, then the best photos from the top 12 go on to the final round with the judges presenting the top 3 winners.

This year the judges were Noe Todorovich, Executive Director for Exposed DC, Farrah Skeiky, Focus on the Story Board Member, Lou Jacobson, Photography Critic for the Washington City Paper, and Sharon Farmer, former White House Photographer.

When asked what my winning strategy was I told them that I approached the first 5 images as a cohesive series and that my best shot was a single that could stand on its own. At the top of this post is my best shot. It’s a conceptual work about climate change anxiety from a much bigger project that I am working on. The other five photos (below) come from my Mexican silhouette series that I have been working on for a number of years.

All 3 winners and an audience favorite will get to be exhibited at PhotoWorks in 2023.

PhotoWorks 2022 Annual Fundraiser, Thursday, May 19, 2022

I have donated two framed color prints from my recent solo exhibit in Hamburg, Germany, to PhotoWorks in Glen Echo, Maryland, for their annual fundraiser in support of their educational efforts, gallery, and community programs. This event occurs on Thursday, May 19th, from 7-10pm in Glen Echo Park. The evening's festivities will include a photo raffle, silent auction, live music by fellow photographer Robb Hill, a portrait station, carousel rides, and food, beer and wine. You can learn more at https://www.glenechophotoworks.org/fundraiser-2022.