Jamel Shabazz

Jamel Shabazz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. At 15, he picked up his first camera and started to document his peers. In 1980, he embarked on a mission to extensively document New York City, from youth culture to a wide range of social conditions.

Shabazz says his goal is to contribute to the preservation of world history and culture. He has worked with a wide range of organizations centered on inspiring young people in the field of photography and social responsibility. He has been a teaching artist with the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, the Bronx Museum’s Teen Council youth program, the International Center of Photography, Friends of the Island Academy, and the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Expanding the Walls Project.

Shabazz is the author of 5 monographs. He is presently working on a new book, The Book of Life.

Joseph Rodriguez

Joseph Rodríguez is a documentary photographer born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He studied photography at the School of Visual Arts and in the Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Program at the International Center of Photography.

His work has been published by National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, Newsweek, New York Magazine, Esquire, Stern, BBC News, and New America Media. He has received awards and grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, USC Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and others. He has authored eight books of photography, including East Side Stories: Gang Life in East Los Angeles, Juvenile, and Taxi: Journey Through My Windows 1977–1987, all published by powerHouse Books.

Joseph is represented by Galerie Bene Taschen, Cologne, Germany. His work has been exhibited at Aperture Gallery; Reva and David Logan Gallery for Documentary Photography at the Graduate School of Journalism, Berkeley, CA; and the Bronx Documentary Center.

He has been a visiting artist at many universities in the Americas and Europe and taught at New York University Tisch School of the Arts and The International Center of Photography.

Khary Mason

Khary Mason was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. He is a former Detroit Police homicide detective. In 2020 Khary retired after serving 22 years. Looking back on his experiences, Khary often remarks on how altitude and the passage of time have given him a greater understanding of the world he seeks to change.

When Khary’s wife gave him his first camera in 2002, many years would pass before Khary realized that his emerging art practice was beginning to lay the foundation in examining the visual and written language of self defense through the art of storytelling. By studying his own lived experience, Khary was able to identify a causal link between stories being created/told by the individuals depicted in them, and their ability to inform the storyteller’s, and audience’s, belief in what is possible.

Khary, and Romain Blanquart launched Capturing Belief (CB) in 2016, a Detroit-based non profit that uses visual literacy and creative writing as instruments allowing students to better understand themselves and the world around them. In 2020 CB partnered with Inside Southwest Detroit to create “The Remote Ally Project”, an international initiative that allowed art lovers to experience the pandemic through the eyes of young people around the globe.

Khary is a Documenting Detroit Fellow (2019), studying the effects of incarceration on individuals and their families, as well as a Salzburg Global Fellow (2021), working with peers around the world on international issues of youth violence, safety, and justice. In 2022, Khary became a member of the faculty at The Kalish picture editing workshop held at Rochester Institute of Technology.

“No one should be able to tell your story better than you” KM

Photoville

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