Rakeem's Portfolio: Walk A Mile In My Shoes

Artist Statement: Rakeem Jackson

My goal from the beginning of the course had always been the same, do my best, focus on passing, but make sure my grades stay high. My ignoramus for photography was always amusing; especially do to the fact being that I’m a very all inclusive person, but still a control freak. Whether or not I have experience in what I’m doing, I give my all, and always keep in mind my skills in editing is really where I excel.

During these two half months of this photography course; I’ve taken many photos and majority focused on portraiture in different emotions. Trying to be creative and take a photo within a photo seemed relatively easy, but to mix it with a frame within a frame seemed to be no easy task. Then even with everything positioned right, my photos always seemed to come out blurry, unfocused, or plain and simple didn’t capture the image or feelings I was aiming for. That being said my course leader always told me to continue taking photos and remember you can edit what you don’t like.

There is so much beauty to be seen in the things people call ugly or seen as worn down, or worn out. And still that was exactly what I seen in all my photos when doing my edits. An experienced photographer told me the real magic is in what happens after the photo is taken. So, that’s where I truly focused all my attention. In this last assignment I was told to take twenty photos of what I want: focusing on what I want, framing them how I want, and positioning them how I want.

That being said I thought back to a conversation my mother and I had about shoes, and she told me; “The first thing you see when you look at a person is their face, but the thing that stands out about the person is their shoes. It will tell you the persons struggle, how far the person walked, where that person is coming from, if that person is real, and what the person steps to portray them self as.”

Having that in mind I chose to take twenty photos of shoes; as a challenge to try and see if I am capable of capturing all the different walks and aspects of “how a person steps” in the different daily walks of shoes, because nobody can walk a mile in my 

shoes.