Kaliah Blackman: The Streets Are Made For Walking

ARTIST STATEMENT: Kaliah Blackman

At the beginning of this photography class, my taste in the type of photos I took was very limited. I only really took photos of nature, objects like street signs etc, and portraiture but only of my family and friends. I limited myself to this type of photography mostly because I had a shy personality. But after being in this photography course, where is was pushed to expand on my taste in photography, I’ve learned that I like street photography. Like the idea of taking pictures of people that I’ve never meet, and trying to tell a story based on the pictures I take. If you you  told me at the beginning of this course that I would be going out on the downtown streets to take pictures of strangers, I probably would have laughed, and wouldn’t be up for it. This course has really helped grow as a photographer and a person, and I’m grateful for that.

The photos that I took for this assignment are of people that stood out to me on the streets (fashion wise). I was inspired by late photographer Bill Cunningham. I was mesmerized by how he could capture the uniqueness of people’s fashion in a society where almost everyone looks the same. I did the same thing, I went around the city and just  looked for people that looked unique. At first it was as kind of difficult to find people that were different in a society where it looks like everyone looks the same. But after walking around the city I was able to find people that stood out to me in a sea of people try to wherever they were going.