Since it is the end of the year I am going to do a first for myself and in list form tell you 20 awesome things that happened for me in 2019. Then at the end, you will learn about some cool things I have cooking for the next decade.
1. I was the first place winner for the Brussels Street Photography Festival’s Eyewitness in Brussels contest that was exhibited at The Jewish Museum of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium. And this image was also presented in a show during the actual Brussels Street Photography Festival in October.
2. I participated in a panel discussion at Gallery O on H about street photography in Washington, D.C., alongside Cynthia Connolly, Michael Horsley and Carolyn Toye.
3. I was the winner of Exposed DC’s annual contest with a family photo and part of the group show at Touchstone Gallery.
4. I was part of Community Collective Pop Up Series Vol. 4 - Light, at CreativeHandsdc Studio, Washington, DC
5. I was interviewed on DC Public Library’s podcast about my DC street photography and my project Faith.
6. I gave a lecture at Street Photo Milano - SPM entitled “Suspect Device, Faith & Gratuity Included,” at BASE, in Milan, Italy.
7. I had a few photographic works on display at Crystal City Underground for Exposed DC’s Color Study exhibit.
8. I was selected for Stop Motion’s 6th, 7th and 8th editions, and included in their year end printed zine, Stop Motion 2019.
9. I had an image printed in the World-street.photography 5 hardcover book published by Gudberg Nerger in Germany.
10. I made a guest appearance on the infamous and highly entertaining Outerfocus photography podcast out of the UK run by Ian Weldon.
11. I was an invited speaker for StreetFoto San Francisco where I gave a lecture at the Harvey Milk Center for Photography.
12. I was an invited guest at Festivalul de Arte Vizuale - VSLO in Romania where I gave a street photography workshop and presented a lecture entitled, “Project Minded.”
13. I had the honor of being an ambassador for The Miami Street Photography Festival (MSPF) and presented all of 2018’s MSPF Finalist Images at Xposure International Photography Festival in the UAE. I also had my own exhibition there of my work around the Trump Inauguration. In addition, Juan Jose Reyes, Essdras M Suarez and I gave a panel discussion on street photography.
14. I had a few photographic works on display at Crystal City Underground for Exposed DC’s “Road Trip” exhibit.
15. It was then off to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where I host an annual Day of the Dead Workshop on behalf of MSPF - this time bringing my family.
16. I had a photo series published in Dodho Magazine out of Spain.
17. I had some select work from my Gratuity Included exhibit from 2017 presented at The Cheshire in Washington, DC for the Low Brow Invitational run by the awesome Mike O'Brien.
18. I was a finalist in 1st International Biennale of Street Photography "Moment," in Częstochowa, Poland with my work exhibited at The Centre for the Promotion of Culture “Gaude Mater.”
19. I was the Director’s Choice Winner for Praxis Gallery & Photographic Arts Center’s, “After Dark” group show in Minneapolis, MN.
20. And finally, I went to the Miami Street Photography Festival during Art Basel Week in Miami for the 8th year in a row. This time the collective I am part of DCSPC got to participate in the street battle contest against members of the infamous Burn My Eye collective. We won!
So for 2020 I will see where it leads me, but I do have some concrete plans starting off with publishing 4 limited edition zines, one for each quarter in 2020. The first will be a compendium of my Gratuity Included work (it’s already designed with 40 images (most never published) spanning 60 pages!), the second will be called Leather Boyz, the third and forth I am still thinking about but will likely involve Romania and some form of music related photography. These will all be self-published in first editions of 100.
The other thing that is concrete will be my annual workshop in San Miguel de Allende Mexico - Day of the Dead 2020, with the tentative dates ofOct 27 - Nov 3.
And of course you will see me at MSPF 2020 for the 9th edition.
Thank you to everyone who helped make my 2019 an amazing year and I look forward to even more in 2020.