See, What Had Happened Was: Exposed

So my last trip to NYC was to be the trip that I completed my NYC Analog Portraits series with my Mamiya camera. This trip, I expected to get some GREAT street looks since I would be near Lincoln Center for Fashion Week.

Well, long story short is that I got some AMAZING shots & one shot that I was especially proud of was one of Kelly Rowland who actually stopped & posed for me after I ran to catch up with here. It was a paparazzi moment that I did not intend on happening. You should have seen me. Me running, trying not to fall all to get a snapshot.

Fast forward to the end of the trip & nearly the end of my roll of film  & I discover that my ISO was reset to 100. The problem is that my film was 400 ISO. This means that my exposures were not exposed long enough to be properly developed.

When I noticed this I died a quick death in my head. I was done. At least 20+ photos potentially ruined.

I wanted to cry.

BLAH!!!!! Such a Rookie mistake. I was too caught up into my environment & moving to quick to pay attention to this little detail.

Lesson learned: Check my damn settings between shots!

So I had a few exposures left & spent them in Detroit at a recent event (TEDxDetroit if you must know). This time around, my ISO was set correctly. And… to wrap up the roll, was my girl & super-mutha-fucking-poet Jessica Care Moore.

Jessica, thank you for being a vision of beauty and the hottest shot on my roll!

Wild Irish Rose by Jessica Care Moore
(A poem/song from The Missing Project: Pieces of the D)

“Stay away from women
With stems extended far away
From their flower

Stay away from women
With stems extended far away
From their flower

Women with Sudanese amber hiding behind
Their ears healing with peppermint and dollar
Store candles masquerading in the trenches of a city
With no intention on leaving
Traveling beyond the perimeters of expressways and dirty
Rivers melting into the colors of graffiti
Painting the urban landscape with music
Waiting for the butterflies early morning commute
Praying to be landed on like the old woodward hoes
Wishing for winter clothes

Stay Away from women
With stems extended far away
From their flower

I am Wild Irish Rose

& There are eighty proof reasons
Why I’ve always loved hard
Why my saliva got u drunk
The night u promised to promise
My spirit slid down your throat
Making conversation with all the
Things you meant to say
I see why you always got choked up
When It came to talking to me

My thorns, your rhymes
My poems, your paint
My rhymes, your thorns

I was a field flower
Bleeding purple nectar
Moving the night to make
Your days seems longer
My roots grasping for air
A mouthful of  breath while
Pulling your hair
Anything to make this ghetto turn into

A garden.
My petals harden, hoping to blend with dandelions
We remain friends
Associate with the one who get stepped on
Fighting to keep my weeds remembered
Snow-covered girls forgotten in December.

Stay away from women
With stems extended far away
From their flower
Feet familiar with the soil of many cities
Camouflaged inside the gritty

A Wild Irish Rose says
Come and get me baby
Pick me.

If I leave a seed on every corner
Maybe my people won’t forget me

I know God sent me
Or the wind might of  dreamt me
So many spirits sitting on top of motor cities
But I gotta do something with the power my
Ancestors leant me.

Maybe a farmer or a hustler will
Make me calm
I read from Psalms
Another garden gone
Another black girl song paused.
Daddy and the greenhouse
Disappeared at Dawn
I’mma give birth on the damn front lawn

I want to be a rose
But all I see are flaws
It’s hard being young gifted and black
And fucking with y a’ll

Stay away from women
With stems extended far away
From their flower

I am a Wild Irish Rose.

Come and get me baby.

Pick me.”