This evening I worked an event for the Woodward Avenue Action Association where they celebrated a new Tribute light feature on Woodward Ave in Pontiac.

This newest Tribute light feature is the 2nd on Woodward Ave with the 1st being in Ferndale.  If planning goes well, we will see a 3rd in Detroit next spring.

If you’re not from the Detroit area, Woodward is a significant stretch of roadway because it is thriving as the premier business, creative, cultural, recreational destination in metro-Detroit. Woodward has been recognized as a Michigan Heritage Route and National Scenic Byway & it’s considered as Michigan’s “main street” as it travels along 27 miles through 11 communities.

The timing of the event was perfect because there is TONS of traffic up & down Woodward Ave as people gear up for the Woodward Dream Cruise. Classic cars were all over the place.

Even at the Tribute event, there were several classic Pontiac cars that were built in the city.

So after the event was over, I decided to head to Sonic for a slush & fries & got caught up in all of the madness along Woodward. The traffic was basically bumper-to-bumper for miles on end. People were our looking at the cars, the cars were creeping along slowly as the drivers were flossing the muscle cars, candy coated paint jobs, fat tires & white wall.

It was really a stimulating spectacle.

At one point, I noticed a banana yellow car parked in a light & I basically broke my neck to get over to it.

It was a 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air & it was PERFECT & so bright. The interior was even more impressive as it was totally new.

After I finished taking snapshots, I jumped on the road & wondered why cars have no imagination anymore.

Will anything we’re driving now be exciting to see in 50 years? I don’t thinks so but then again, I’m no car enthusiast.

See-line woman. Dressed in green. Wears silk stockings. With golden seams. See-line woman. See-line woman. Dressed in red. Make a man lose his head. See-line woman. See-line woman. Black dress on. For a thousand dollars. She wail and she moan. See-line woman. Wiggle wiggle. Turn like a cat. Wink at a man. And he wink back. Now child. See-line woman.

The photo above is of one or my long time & dearest friends Yvette Tamaika combined with my new favorite typeface Afrobeat, which was created by Spanish designer Giuseppe Salerno.

I stumbled across Afrobeat on the Kiss My Black Ads blog & fell in love immediately. You see, I’m a font whore! A font whore who has been know to drop a few hundred dollars on face types only to regret it later. Well regret it until it appears in a project where it looks totally awesome.

Inspiration:

“The pounding tribal rhythms of Afrobeat music is expressed through this psychedelic brand new font, Afrobeat. Every letter becomes art as every letter is elegantly placed side by side, like music notes, creating music for the eyes.

Afrobeat is a musical style performed by many African artists such as Fela Kuti, Femi Kuti, Antibalas and many more, which is a fusion of jazz,funk, and psychedelic rock, originating from the 60s and was based on the political movements of Nigeria.”

It takes a lot for me to splurge on a typeface & it’s been a while so I’m in a good space.

Are you a typeface whore of junky? What your favorite & what’s the most that you have paid for a font. Don’t be afraid to speak, you’re amongst friends here.

Last Sunday while in NYC, I spent a little time at the Bastille Day Street Festival on 60th.

The event was quite lively with musical performances, face painting, clowns & of course French foods. Of all the culinary delights available, the pastries, crepes & macarons (not to be confused with macaroons) seemed to be the hottest items.

As I strolled down 60th, I noticed one food tent that had people about to raid it. The crowd was so thick that I didn’t see what the big fuss was over.  Being the nosey person that I am, I waited until I had my chance to get to merchandise at this tent.

Minutes later, once I was at the vendor’s table & saw that the fuss was over these little cookies, macarons. Brightly colored little macarons that were $2.75 each.

I was like these things can’t be that good, especially for $2.75 each but I decided to see for myself.  I ordered two, one for me & one for Suite Suzy. I had the cassis (black currant) & Suite Suzy had the coconut flavor.

The bottom line after our 1st bite was that these macarons were worth $2.75. They were AWESOME! The cassis flavor was out of this earth! The cookie was slightly crisp & chewy, unlike anything that I’ve tried in the past.

I decided to go back to the tent to find out how I could get more to take home. Luckily, the vendor had a café nearby, the MacarOn Café

I’m not even gonna lie to you, that night I had a dream about stuffing my mouth with many cassis macarons. Yes, they were that damn good!

Monday morning, before we hit the road home, I made a quick trip to MacarOn Café to get my goods. Unfortunately, they were already out of the cassis flavor. Oh my!  With so many other flavors to choose from, I got over it.

I picked up a lavender honey, espresso, rose, pistachio, double chocolate, passion fruit, coconut & a few others.

Over the past few days, I’ve been sampling & loving them all. And yes, they are all that as well.

On the drive home Monday, I did some quick Googling & discovered that there are only 2 local options to get these French treats from & both have very limited flavors. So you know that this means that I will be learning how to make these at the crib very soon!

French Macaron History:

The Macaron cookie was born in Italy, introduced by the chef of Catherine de Medicis in 1533 at the time of her marriage to the Duc d’Orleans who became king of France in 1547 as Henry II. The term “macaron” has the same origin as that the word “macaroni” — both mean “fine dough”.

The first Macarons were simple cookies, made of almond powder, sugar and egg whites. Many towns throughout France have their own prized tale surrounding this delicacy. In Nancy, the granddaughter of Catherine de Medici was supposedly saved from starvation by eating Macarons. In Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the macaron of Chef Adam regaled Louis XIV and Marie-Therese at their wedding celebration in 1660.

Only at the beginning of the 20th century did the Macaron become a “double-decker” affair. Pierre Desfontaines, the grandson of Louis Ernest Laduree (Laduree pastry and salon de the, rue Royale in Paris) had the idea to fill them with a “chocolate panache” and to stick them together. (Source | MadMac)

Detroit/Ann Arbor French Macaron Options:

Pinwheel Bakery (Ferndale) – They have about 5 flavors & they are $1.25 each.

Cecilia’s Pastries (Ann Arbor) – Sold on Wednesdays at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market. Cecelia has 9 flavors & they are $1.50 each.  Lastly, if you’re feeling adventurous, Cecelia also teaches a macaron class. You can get more information here.

So, I’m walking down Broadway in SoHo minding my own business when I happened to look up to see this beautiful cocoa brown woman walking my way.

I basically jumped in front of her & asked to photograph her.

Her hair was great, her skin was great, her make up was like totally perfect; almost too perfect considering how hot it was on this day.

While I was photographing her, she explained to me that she had JUST finished a photo shoot with a clothing designer.  I mean, talk about timing!

This image happens to be one of my favorite from the street portraits that I captured on this trip.

What I love about this photo are her eyes & glossy cassis lips.  The effect over her eyes actually occurred in the camera & was not part of my digital processing workflow.

The same thing occurred in another photo that I took in a portrait composition. I think I may avoid doing portrait comps with this camera although I got lucky a few times with interesting & random results.

You can see more of the beginning of my new NYC Analog Portraits project series here. Be sure to click the “show info link once the slide show starts to get the back story to see my captions.

Remember little Kellen? Well, he recently turned one.

In Korean culture, the one year birthday or “Tol” is historically very significant.

Way back when, due to Korea’s climate, and many childhood illnesses, childhood mortality was extremely high. Many children unfortunately died within their first year of birth.

After the age of one, the survival rate improved, which made this a significant moment for the child & their family.

Tol has two meanings in Korean. The most common meaning is a child’s first birthday. It can also be used as a generic description for birthdays: Chut-tol (first birthday), Du-tol (second birthday), Seo-tol (third birthday), etc.

According to my favorite online source; Wikipedia, A boy would traditionally wear: pink or striped jogori (jacket) with puple or gray paji (pants), striped durumagi (long jacket), a blue vest printed with a gold or silver pattern or a striped magoja (jacket), a jonbok (long blue vest) with a gold or silver pattern, bokgun (black hat with a long tail), and a tarae-busun (traditional socks).

And as you can see, Kellen was a #1 Stunna!

Thanks Brandon & Kathleen for trusting me helping you to preserve Kellen’s special moments!

You can see a few more images from my session with Kellen here.

Today is Earth Day & I’m being very bad by having a large carbon contribution with my airplane, train & automobile ride to DC for my mini vacation.

Too bad I can’t teleport or have Scotty beam me up.  Hopefully your activities will help balance me out a bit today.

Anyway, the semester is over & I’m about to party while forgetting all about the last 4 grueling academic months. Time to get my mind right!!!

So if you’re around DC or NYC this weekend, perhaps I will run into you. I’ll be the husky guy with the nice long locks in tight jeans with a camera around his neck.

Holla at your boy!

My mother & I discussed the census the other day along with the racial categories listed this time around.

During the conversation, I asked what she preferred to be called; Black, Negro, AA etc. She answered with Colored, which was somewhat of a surprise. Her preference is because Colored was listed on her birth certificate (born 1953). Overall she’s cool with either Colored or Black.

She also discussed  her memories of becoming Black in the 60/70s, Black liberation, & how James Brown & the Black Panthers ignited a firestorm of Black awareness through music & action respectively.

Really interesting how since the 1950s we moved from Colored > Negro > Black > African American. What will we be next?

Side Notes:

- In Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, he used the terms Negro 15 times and black 4 times. Perhaps this was the beginning to the racial classification shift in terms.

- My birth certificate states that my race is Black.

- Both of my daughter’s birth certificates state no race at all.

- My grandfather named my mother (Stella) after after a 1953 Detroit boxing match titled “Stella’s Main Attraction.” My grandmother went into labor with her the night of the fight.

Finding organic subjects is not always a easy thing to do during the cold Midwestern winters. I can’t wait until spring is here because I need to see colors other than white, gray, & brown.

I’m longing to see red, purple, blue & yellow. I’m ready to see leaves, bees, grass & flowers. LIFE!

This evening, I met with photographer Loti Walker who also happens to be the Assistant Director of Programs at the Ann Arbor Art Center to discuss their ArtMakers Teens program. ArtMakers Teens is geared toward at risk youth between the ages of 14-18 and it exposes them to art education. The current session will be led by Loti & will be centered on photography.

During our meeting, Loti shared her vision for this session & the flow of what she wanted the students to experience through digital photography. This is where I come in. Loti extended an invitation for me to come in & give a talk to the students regarding my creative process & photography work. She also invited to me critique some of the student’s work at the end of program before their photography exhibit.

Needless to say, Loti didn’t have to twist my arm at all to get me on board. So Feb 20, 2010 I will give a talk to some young fresh minds, which I find very exciting.

The great thing about this opportunity is that it will allow me to educate & provide community service locally, which is a personal goal every year.

After Loti & I were done talking shop & exchanging fun life stories, I immediately called my Aunt Phyllis to share my news. I knew Aunt Phyllis would be excited because she’s an artist herself & teaches art in the Detroit Public School system. She was so excited for me & asked if she could join me at the talk. I so appreciate her undying support.

Now, I have to focus on my talk outline & prepare a visual presentation for the students to feast on.

On a side note: Loti introduced me to a new word; filthy. When something is filthy, its hot/bad ass/off the chain. When she first said it, I was like what did you just say? She laughed then explained. From there I challenged myself to say it throughout the week. See the Urban Dictionary’s 1. definition (I love the Urban Dictionary).

I’m happy to announce that I am one of five featured photographers exhibiting next Saturday evening at the EXPOSURE.Detroit Photography Exhibit Opening. It will be warm, artsy & lots of great coffee from the Bean & Leaf Cafe.

Date: Saturday, February 6, 2010
Time: 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Location: Bean & Leaf Cafe | 106 S. Main St | Cafe Royal Oak, MI

I hope that you can make it out to spend some time with some of the most creative photographers in Detroit!

You can get more info here:

Also, if you have not done so already, please join me at my Facebook Fan Page here. I promise to not disappoint!

Peace,
Tafari

Back in November 09, I was finally able to see the movie “Precious” (Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire). I had not read the book prior to seeing the film, but friends who had “warned” me about what to expect.

To put things mildly, what I was told really didn’t prepare me for what I saw. I mean I left the theater without being able to close my mouth from shock.

There were several scenes that had me about to break down in major tears but somehow I was able to keep from going there. The emotional/sexual/physical abuse, overt colorism, etc were almost too much. But… the story of a young woman fighting to survive for her sake & the sake of her children helped me make it through the movie. I was hoping that this girl who had everything against her finally won.

Once I got home, I sat down to figure out how I was going to talk about the movie & was stuck. I guess I was stuck because I felt like I was missing something. What did the movie not cover from the book. And I also wanted to know more about Precious’ friends from the “alternative.” So, at this point, I logged onto Amazon & purchased “Push.”

Flash forward>>>>>>>>>>>>

I’ve read the book & it filled in all of the holes that I knew were missing and I was satisfied knowing the complicated back-stories of Precious’ friends.

One thing that stuck with me through the book was this passage from chapter 1:

“I big, I talk, I eats, I cooks, I laugh, watch TV, do what my muver say. But I can see when the picture come back I don’t exist. Don’t nobody want me. Don’t nobody need me. I know who I am. I know who they say I am-vampire sucking the system’s blood. Ugly black grease to be wipe away, punish, kilt, changed, finded a job for.”
~ Precious

Is the book hard to read? Yes! The vernacular is written phonetically & some may struggle with that as I’ve heard.

Is the book graphic? Hell yes! The book makes the movie look like a PG rated after school special.

My favorite laughable take aways from the book not fully played out in the movie? “Cunt Bucket.” & “Hasta la vista, baby.”

“She look at me like I said I wanna suck a dog’s dick or some shit. What’s with this cunt bucket? (That’s what my muver call women she don’t like, cunt buckets. I kinda get it and I kinda don’t get it, but I like the way it sounds so I say it too.)” ~ Precious

——–

“My muver say, “Eighty –six that bitch.” I says into the intercom. “Hasta la vista, baby.” That’s Spanish for good-bye but when niggers say it, it’s like, kiss my ass.” ~ Precious

Without a doubt, “Push” is a MUST read, if you’ve seen or want to see the movie “Precious! The short novel fills in the missing links & believe me there are many. This is surprising because the book is a quick 192 pages compared to the 110 minute movie.

Flash forward one mo’ gin’ (Negro Dialect)>>>>>>>>>>>>

This past Monday I attended a MLK symposium talk sponsored by the University of Michigan titled “Push, Literacy, Women, and African American Literature” given by poet & novelist Sapphire.

Sapphire coming to town was too much like right! While at the talk, I planned on getting my book autographed & asking some of the pressing questions on my mind regarding the movie & book.

After the very exciting session was said & done, I wasn’t able to get my book signed but I did get the chance to ask two of my three questions which are addressed in the audio link here.

I wish I could have asked my 3rd question regarding the content on 111 para 4. I just wanted to be sure that what I read was what I read & not what I was thinking it was.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

A few of my Tweets from the Talk:

• I’m at the Sapphire lecture & the hall is almost at standing room only. Wow! http://twitpic.com/yoj1t http://twitpic.com/yoj1h
• Sapphire is reading from “Push.” I’m loving this!
• White people are leaving the Sapphire’s talk. I guess they cannot handle her reading from “Push.” Interesting!
• Standing in line to ask Sapphire a question. http://twitpic.com/yow8y
• I actually talked with Sapphire. Posting audio later. I’m excited!!!!
• Sapphire just read this woman who tried to read her. Shit!!!
• Male rape victim now at the mic talking to Sapphire. Wow!
• The line was way too long to get my book signed by Sapphire but I was able to get a photo. Yes! http://twitpic.com/yp4kx

Did you see the movie, read the book or both? What are your thoughts?

Yesterday, I covered the Fashion In Detroit event for the Detroit Fashion Pages. I had no real expectations on the greatness of the show but I was excited nonetheless.

Local fashion events don’t seem all that great to me in general but that has now changed because FID reinvented the game in Detroit. All others (I will not name names) take note.

The production of the event was super & I’m already looking forward to seeing the fall & winter collections, which will be presented March 2010.

Kudos to Joe Faris & his team for kicking ass!

After the runway shows were over, I headed to the “Afterglow” event, which had several Detroit personalities, big wigs, tastemakers, wannabees & even a couple celebrealities. All made for an interesting night.

Well, although I wish I attended the party to mix & mingle, I did not. I was there to work that bitch with my girl/PR rep Asia Willis for DFP. Our assignment for the night was to document the best & worst dressed.

Photographing the best dressed is always easy but capturing those who are fashion challenged is difficult because I never want to hurt anyone’s feelings (to their face). Once the piece runs, I’ll post a link.

BTW, if you follow me on Twitter, you can cath me in the middle of most of my adventures good & bad as they happen. I’m just saying. So many things tripped me out last night that were detailed on Twitter!

Above: This is one of my shots taken during the Femilia Couture runway show. I’m very proud of my friends Fotoula Lambros and Emily Thornhill. I met the design duo & photographed some of their 1st pieces when they hit the scene about 3 years ago. Seeing their continued progress is really exciting!