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

DCSPC and Chris Suspect presents Jim Saah's In My Eyes and Matt Cabani's Anthem at Slash Run, 11.10.23

Fugazi - Photo for the cover of Repeater album on Dischord Records ©Jim Saah

Join the DC Street Photography Collective and Chris Suspect in presenting the work of Jim Saah’s In My Eyes - Photographs 1982-1997 and Matt Cabani’s Anthem at Slash Run in Washington, DC, on Friday, November 10 at 9:00 pm.

Jim Saah’s career in photography started when he documented the punk scene in Washington, DC in the early 1980’s. His photographs have been featured on many books and records, including Our Band Could Be Your Life and the cover of Fugazi’s Repeater album.

Cover for In My Eyes Photographs 1982-1997 by Jim Saah

Jim will be presenting In My Eyes - Photographs 1982-1997, a massive hard cover art book of his early music photography featuring hundreds of never before seen photos of Fugazi, Minor Threat, Void, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys, Jawbox, Government Issue, The Faith, Iron Cross and more.  

Jim’s work has been featured in the Washington Post and Rolling Stone, and he has been the principle photographer for two feature films, Salad Days: A Decade of Punk In Washington, D.C. and CREEM: America’s Only Rock & Roll Magazine.

Cover for Anthem by Matt Cabani, courtesy of King Koala Press

Jacopo Buranelli from King Koala Press in Milan, Italy, will be presenting Anthem by photographer Matt Cabani and published by King Koala Press. From Milan, Italy, Cabani is the founder of Hellfire Booking Agency. He has shot his way through every corner of the music world over the past three decades. His work can be spotted on album covers, international fanzines, books, music videos, and even hardcore fans’ bedroom walls.

Call for Entries

In celebration of Jim Saah and King Koala’s Anthem by Matt Cabani, we have a call for entries for your best music photography shots. We are looking for anything associated with music, whether it’s the ultimate stage dive image, a candid of audience members, a band setting their drums on fire, or a contemplative portrait of a band or artist. All music forms are welcome.

Please send no more than 5 photos 2000px on the long edge at 72dpi to gratuityincluded1@gmail.com by Midnight EST on November 3rd. Please label your files in this manner. First Name-Last Name_Band/Artist_Name-Date_Shot-Number.jpg.

E.g. Chris-Suspect_Taylor-Swift_021423_1.jpg

About the Event

On Friday, November 10 selected photos will be shown live in front of an audience to a jury of artists and professional photographers. Jury members include Cynthia Connollly (curator, photographer, and one of the authors/publisher of Banned in DC), Lisa Walker (House photographer for Anthem, 9:30 Club and Merriweather Post Pavilion), Jim Saah, and Jacopo Buranelli from King Koala. Each judge will briefly comment on the image and give it a rating from 1-5. The winner, who must be present in person, will receive a copy of In My Eyes - Photographs 1982-1997. Second place will receive Anthem.

Following the photo slam, Jaco from King Koala will give a presentation on Matt Cabani’s Anthem and Jim Saah will discuss In My Eyes - Photographs 1982-1997.

To top off the evening, we will have a special performance from one of DC’s most currently beloved hardcore bands. For now, it’s a secret. The band will be announced the day before the show.

Also, books will be available for purchase from Jim Saah, King Koala Press, Cynthia Connolly, and Chris Suspect.

Schedule

9:00 - 10:00 pm Music Photography Judging

10:10 -10:40 pm Jacopo Buranelli presents Anthem

10:45 - 11:30 pm Jim Saah presents In My Eyes - Photographs 1982-1997

Tickets are $20. All ages. Arrive early as there is limited seating.

Location

Slash Run is located at 201 Upshur St NW, Washington, DC 20011

 

Did you know?

Slash Run has some of the best burgers in DC (including vegan options). It’s true - just ask Washingtonian Magazine. It also has an ample supply of micro brews and top shelf quality booze.

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.

From the Streets of Washington - Panel Discussion at Gallery O on H

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Audience at Gallery O on H, January 26, 2019 | © 2019 Chris Suspect

Yesterday I had the great honor of being on a panel discussion entitled “From the Streets of Washington” at Gallery O on H in Washington, DC, that was in conjunction with artist Michael Horsley’s exhibit "House of Champions" that depicts Horsley's vintage images of Washington DC primarily taken during the 1980s.

The panel was moderated Michael Horsley and consisted of me, Cynthia Connolly and Carolyn Toye. We talked about many things, including gentrification, the DC punk scene, the photographic process, how to get your work out there, Carolyn Toye’s new book The DC I See: Art of a Vanishing City, and much more. As you can see from the image above it was a packed house.

I was able to record the discussion and you can listen to it below. It is quite long (1 hour and 50 min) so I recommend using the download link to put it on your mobile device and listen at your leisure.