AGE: 27
BASED IN: New York
NOMINATED BY: Elle Pérez

When I started, I wanted to imitate what my favorite photographers were doing. Only recently, within the past few years, have I started coming into my own voice—mostly through my self-portraiture. Photography has become very therapeutic for me as a means to unravel myself and discover more of my identity and how other people perceive me and themselves.

I recently did a photo shoot with my friend Jo and I named it "I Am America," after a Langston Hughes poem. While I was at Parsons, I realized that photography is a great way to communicate ideas that are hard to put into words. For that shoot, I wanted to push the limits of what it means to be nonbinary or trans. A lot of people find masc-for-masc relationships taboo, so I thought it was important to show the full range of queer identities.

Many people are using photography in a very liberating way, especially given its history as a mainly white-dominated medium. That shift, and what’s to come in the future as more people grapple with the idea of being an artist, is most exciting to me.