A Vigil for Bilal Abdullah

On Thursday, Juneteenth, the family of arraber Bilal Abdullah held a vigil in West Baltimore.

Bilal, also known as BJ for “Bilal Junior”, was killed by the Baltimore Police on Tuesday. The Baltimore Beat has been extensively covering the story.

I went out and took pictures.

A memorial was set up with photos of Bilal and lots of candles. Hundreds came and signed posterboards in memorial.

Many who were his friends and family came to celebrate him. The mixture of attempts to bring joy in remembering his life and the deep pain of losing him was thick in the air.

Bilal had been well known as an arabber in Baltimore, and had been credited as one of the people who were bringing a resurgence of the practice back to Baltimore. Many of the current arabbers are much older.

A heavy storm had delayed the vigil by several hours, which meant that a lot of the heavy police presence from earlier in the day dissipated. The police helicopter continued to circle the people lighting candles for hours though.

Jeff Abell from Fox News kept trying to get close to Bilal’s mother, who made it very clear she did not want to be photographed, videoed, or interviewed. She had been injured by the police trying to get to her son when he had been shot, and sat in a chair near the memorial. People kept telling Jeff that he was not welcome, and blocked his camera. He finally gave up and left.

Though the breeze was heavy and kept blowing the candles out, a steady rotation of people came back and kept relighting them each and every time.

As it was setting, the sun broke through the storm clouds, casting a golden glow over the entire scene. “That’s Bilal,” his mother said, “He’s come to thank us for being here.”

Aaron Maybin, a community activist and board member of the Civilian Review Board, came with his kids to console Bilal’s mother and provide updates to Baynard Woods, the Baltimore Beat’s journalist. “They keep pushing back the release of the body camera footage,” he said.

Realizing I was there for them, Bilals family began asking me to take photos of them gathered. “It’s sad that this is what brought us all together” one of them said.

Catalina Byrd, Tawanda Jones, and Baynard Woods stayed near Bilal’s mother, letting her talk through her pain. “I hate this,” said Tawanda, “I hate that she’s now part of this club,” referring to the group of people in Baltimore who have had loved ones killed by the Baltimore Police. Tawanda’s brother, Tyrone West, was beaten to death by the police in 2013. Every Wednesday since then, Tawanda has led a protest in his honour.

For many people attending the vigil, there were echoes everywhere. “This feels like Freddie Gray,” one young man said, lighting a candle. Freddie Gray was killed by the Baltimore Police in 2015. Directly across from the vigil, a mural of Trayvon Martin had been painted on the side of a garage. “There’s just so much pain here.”

On the outskirts, police vehicles sat, lights blinking into the crowd. There was nowhere anyone could go to mourn without being able to see the police on the fringes.

As it got darker, people began to filter home, and a soft rain began to fall. Family members picked up the photos of Bilal to take with them. “Bilal was my rock. My foundation,” one woman said, holding up a photo of Bilal standing in front of a red, black, and green wall.

The sky rumbled with thunder softly as people walked home. Tonight was about peace.

Looking Back. Moving Forward — A Special West Wednesday at Red Emma’s

On Wednesday night, I had the honor of photographing a very special edition of West Wednesday—its 611th gathering—hosted by Baltimore Beat at Red Emma’s.

The panel was titled “Looking Back. Moving Forward”, and it marked 10 years since the death of Freddie Gray and the 2015 Uprising that followed. The evening served as both reflection and rallying cry—a chance to grieve, to remember, and to imagine what justice can still look like in our city.

The Panelists

The conversation was led by some of Baltimore’s most powerful voices:

  • Tawanda Jones – Activist, sister of Tyrone West (killed by Baltimore Police in 2013), and the driving force behind West Wednesdays
  • Devin Allen – Award-winning photographer whose images from 2015 made national headlines
  • Lisa Snowden – Editor-in-chief of Baltimore Beat
  • Lawrence Grandpre – Author and Director of Research at Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle
  • Eze Jackson – Musician, moderator, and one of the city’s strongest community voices

Each of them brought truth, vulnerability, and a fierce clarity to the conversation.

A Vigil for Barry Lee

On the tail end of the original Baltimore Ceasefire weekend, a man is killed in West Baltimore

During the reading of the names at the end of the Baltimore Ceasefire weekend, Barry Lee’s name was the last to be read. His mother requested we attend his vigil in West Baltimore.

We later discovered he had been out to Cease Fire events.

We gather, slowly, a combination of family and Baltimore Ceasefire members to remember Barry Lee.
We gather, slowly, a combination of family and Baltimore Ceasefire members to remember Barry Lee.

More family arrive for the vigil, spelling out Barry Lee’s name in candles.
More family arrive for the vigil, spelling out Barry Lee’s name in candles.

Continue reading “A Vigil for Barry Lee”

Alexandria, Moodboards, and ATMs.

Took the day to drive down to Alexandria, to work on the Bloomery branding project. Erik asked me to help out with building them a new look for a product line from a distillery out in West Virginia.

Of course, this was the day that it had to pour icy rain, so the roads were just clogged. I managed to skirt a lot of it with Waze, but I was still about a half an hour late. Everyone was happy to see me, though I felt out of touch. Work was buzzing, but I am completely out of it save for this solitary project. I’m glad Zerflin has been doing well, because otherwise we’d really be struggling. The work that we’ve had come in from A2L, Bainbridge, and The History Factory have kept us busy while Brightline works on landing more projects.

I settled in at Kristen’s old desk, she was a developer that moved on to another job.
The work was fairly simple; just reviewing Moodboards with Kuntz (Moodboards are essentially collages of images that we use for inspiration for the branding and logo), and then editing them. My laptop was mind-numbingly slow, though. The files were small, the operations quick, but

Image representing Dropbox as depicted in Crun...
Dropbox is still pretty awesome, though. If you’re not using it, you ought to be… Image via CrunchBase

Dropbox chose that moment to sync with everything in the world, and so my work ground to a halt. What was only supposed to be a couple hours ended up being the entire day; I didn’t finish up the last round of edits until around 5pm.

Erik was positive, and even asked me about how the family was doing and inquired if I was receiving checks ok, which was really nice. Not all of our clients pay us in a very timely fashion, which is really difficult, but Erik has really been helping.

While I’d been waiting for the computer to kick in, I had been doing art venue research in Alexandria. I’ve already identified at least 25 different coffeehouses and galleries in Baltimore that I might be able to show art at. I hadn’t eaten all day, so I decided to swing by Firehook Bakery to get a chai and a croissant, and see if I could talk to the owner. I met with a Tunisian barista who was very friendly, and told me to call in the morning, because he and the manager would be working together then. He was really nice. I jabbered away with him in French; happy to be able to exercise my rusty language skills.

The ride home was even worse than the ride down, compounding my frustration. I had hoped to be in and our quickly so that I could get more Zerflin work done. Several of the Bainbridge sites were so close to being done… But it only got worse. I had a cheque to deposit into our Zerflin account, but even after trying 6 ATMs and consulting with a friendly Spanish furniture worker who was able to deposit his cheque, I wasn’t able to. Finally, with the help of the furniture worker I found a Capital One branch that was still open, and I stormed in two minutes before they locked their doors.

My Nemesis, the ATM.
My Nemesis, the ATM.

USAA
Yup. Definitely not Capitol One. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The man behind the counter patiently explained to me that no, I was not able to deposit money into my Capital One account with my USAA card… I had switched them in my wallet and had been using the wrong card in vain the entire time… Mortified as I was, the teller was very kind and helped me get my check deposit.

Having burned through no less than 8 podcasts on the trip, I picked up Chinese food at the Double Dragon and made it home.

Tamika was exhausted. She’d been working on a new coding project that she had taken on, and was worn out. We chilled for a bit and watched Key & Peele before diving back into work.  I managed to get everything done I needed to, but I’m exhausted. And guess what time it is… 2AM…

How I furnished my basement

Click on the image, then give it a minute to load. It’s worth it.

Building-the-Office

I set my camera (a Canon 20D) to the Delay setting (you know, the one you use when you want to do a family photo with you in it), and placed it on a tripod.

Then, every time I walked by it, I hit the shutter.

I saved all the images, opened them as frames Adobe ImageReady, and exported it as a gif.

Pretty cool, huh?

Eleven

Eleven

100/100

It was as if they beckoned me, those windows.
We were in the far end of Union Station, across from where the rest of the staff from the National Fatherhood Initiative’s Golden Dads crew sat in the Thunder Grill. They wanted to sit and chat, and I was restless.

And the windows, they called to me.

There was something about the design, the pattern of the glass. It reminded me of the Frank Lloyd Wright wing at the Philadelphia Art Museum. I would spend hours at a time there, just sitting and looking at everything.

And that’s what I did here. Oddly enough, some sort of art exhibition was being shown on the floor. It was empty. Not a single person in the hustle of catching their train or towing a family out into the Capital that was interested in admiring a few paintings.
I lay down on the marbled floors of the chamber and aimed my lens at the ceiling.