Earthquakes shake mountains wish to be birds at the moment.

The ground so low, undescribable prepared for when disaster strikes Sinking into the mud, I find myself becoming grounded.

Like a true Taurus bull, stable, secure, and safe, and to the core.

Just becoming a three-story custom-made house with three cars in the drive-through, with gardens and skylights and crisp patios.

I'm just hardheaded with a big heart.

I put my blood, sweat, and tears in the mud.

My earth becomes wherever I make it to be.

Do I consider Anacostia a home?

Absolutely.

I consider Anacostia a home.

My name is Luis Del Valle I'm a painter muralist based in southeast DC.

I love working in my community and painting murals that reflect the community and also paint the soul and the spirit of the people.

Anacostia is the home that I hope not to leave.

Okay, so these two are of Vera.

I love this one.

Aw.

Look at her Had her photo taken by me for years.

It's what moms do, but also as a photographer too but I've never used these processes, so she was just like, what?

This wasn't what she was expecting.

My name is Elena Volkova and I'm a photographer.

Anacostia is a historically native American and African American area in Washington, DC The project aims to document people of Anacostia in wet plate collodion portraits a historic photographic process and represent people in this day and time.

Back in 19th century when this process was practiced, people used to sit sometimes between two and 15, 30 seconds for a portrait That's why nobody smiled in pictures, because you just had to, you know, you couldn't hold a smile without it turning into a grin For 30 seconds.

So as we take this portrait of Baba you can just notice how bright the flashes are It's something that we compensate for seconds of sitting under bright sun without blinking The darker the skin tone, like the richer these images are It's like these undertones of like gold or something.

I don't know.

It just and and to take it back to just how old this process is, I don't know.

It gives people who are getting their photos taken today a feeling of what it, what they would have looked like, you know, back in the day in these types of photos.

And it's that, I don't know.

I like that connection I started Anacostia Portraits in 2021 It was in the middle It was in the middle So I started thinking about a community project that um, I would like to pursue And with the help of a grant from Corcoran Women's Committee I was able to connect with Anacostia Art Center and people who ran it and propose this community center project to them Historians or grad students would come to me, particularly when I served as a curator at the Anacostia Art Center or Honfleur Gallery with a project involving the interests of people in Anacostia.

I'm already defensive because this is where I'm from.

When the photography project came, I went through my normal motions like, Well, let me see where these people coming from.

It gets back to that idea of is it a communal approach?

Is it a colonial approach?

Is it a fishbowl?

Is are we gonna be looked at like people in a fishbowl or what Experience of being seen through the eyes of others for me is a really interesting topic, maybe because I'm an immigrant here.

And as I started to have conversations with the artist, the photographer, I started getting a sense of the place that this was coming from.

And I felt like it's important to document and celebrate the citizenry of Anacostia.

People love to be represented in portraits and sitting for a portrait done using a historic process really creates that bridge between past and present.

And we hear people say things like, oh my God, I look like my grandfather.

And in an Anacostia, people are connected to their past.

It allows people to learn history and to see themself represented in historic photographs.

When daguerreotypes were invented in 1830s, only the wealthy people could afford sitting for a portrait.

And the representation that exists of people in daguerreotypes focuses on people with means.

When collodion was invented in 1850s, we have much wider representation of people of all walks of life, and it was a much more democratized process.

I believe the Anacostia portrait project really brought the community even closer because we got to see each other on the wall and really got to see our personalities even more so.

I think that actually is something that we get to cherish for the rest of our lives and also our children because even my family got their portraits taken, so they get to share this with their kids.

I was born in southeast DC and this is an area that I grew up in, so I always want to come back because when I do, I come to the different events, I just get a feeling of wellbeing I thought that the idea of using that type of process from back in the 1800s, I just thought that would be so interesting to do.

It was like you could see your spirit.

I felt like I could feel like my spirit in the pictures.

It was more than just a photo.

It's so important that people see themselves on these larger scale to be celebrated.

'cause it doesn't happen enough in your own communities to know that, like you're valued and cherished.

And I think that's just the most important thing.

That's what it did for me.

I hope that whoever had their photos taken felt a sense of pride in themselves and felt valued.

It is like, I look uneasy and I came a long way This winter, they are going to build a 11th Street Bridge.

It's kind of, you know, bittersweet because instead of just being a small community, this whole street is gonna turn into Georgetown.

When I was growing up, there's bands playing outside all the time.

There's music blasting, all people having a backyard parties with live music, basement parties with live music It was just a part of the culture.

It doesn't take away the harsh culture too.

Like there still was people gett addicted to drugs, people getting strung out on drugs.

So it's like, I don't want to paint this picture.

Like, oh, it was, it was just beautiful growing.

It was like, nah.

But with it all art was included in developmental years growing up here, it was just a part of it.

Arts was definitely a part of the culture.

Unconsciously.

I will always consider Anacostia home.

Growing up in Anacostia made me more resilient in life in general.

I was living in Anacostia when I was going to art school, and some things that would make of my classmates really just crumble, just never even struck me as stressful.

Used to come here, when I was a teenager, but I didn't really know everything that was here.

But then I started coming out here more often and I really fell in love lookingfor properties to purchase.

And then when I saw that the Frederick Douglas House was right around the corner from where we at today, that just made it an easy move.

When I started photographing people in Anacostia, it became clear how they see each other as a community and how they see themselves within this community and this specific geographic location.

One example is how much people associate themselves with Frederick Douglass, whose primary residence is located in Anacostia, Frederick Douglas.

And him being an abolitionist and a significant role that he played in history is very significant that he's here in a black community.

And, you know, I kind of look at it like, you know, he's looking over everyone and he is, he is up at the, the top of the hill.

He's looking down and saying, ok so I see you've been making progress since, since I passed away.

He was mindful of his legacy, who he was and who he was connected to.

He knew I would be here.

He knew I would grow up across the street from him.

He knew he's leaving a legacy.

I call Anacostia home because it never changes and buildings are being built up and old things that I once knew and that once was, is no longer But the soil and the foundation that was built here from my upbringing to now being 24 years old that never changes.

That's still the same.

We have lived in many different parts of DC over the last, well, I guess 15 or 20 years at this point, is truly the first place that has felt like home.

We've gotten to know all of our neighbors.

People say hello, everyone hangs out on porches.

We're invited over for dinner.

People watch pets.

Um, it truly does feel like home I'm hoping for as more folks discover and moved into Anacostia, that those who have been here for decades and made Anacostia what it is today that we can collectively work together to shape and make it the neighborhood that we collectively want.

Tell me your name.

My name's Todd.

Ewing, Ewing.

So on the count of three, we're Todd, let's watch 1, 2, 3.

Todd, let's watch It was the land of the Nakashtan And then of course when Europeans came here, they switched up and then it became Anacostin and Anacostia.

Um, I recognized its sacredness.

You know what I mean?

That is a ancient place and you feel it.

And we're right by the water, which is also very special in the, you know, Anacostia Park And the people also reflected like in... This show that we had, a lot of people from the community And when they share stories, we all recognize that we're grounded by our actual, like, geographical location.

You see, I'm the heart that lives in the amazing woman.

I'm blessed to be in a community And when I mean aspirational, I don't mean from that aspect of material things, but just striving to better yourself.

It's a community that's filled with people that are aspiring for bigger and better things while still staying in the community where they are from, The process starts with a tin plate that's coated in black paint and we pour collodion.

Collodion is like a liquid bandaid.

It allows silver stick to the surface.

So after we pour collodion, we put the plate into a silver nitrite bath and silver particles get stuck to the surface of the plate.

And after that, the plate needs to be exposed to light instantly while the plate is still wet.

So we put it in the camera and we expose it to large amounts of light and where the plate is exposed to light, the silver hardens.

So that's how we get highlights and shadow areas.

That's where the silver didn't get hardened.

So it washes off in the development process.

Now we are ready to put the plate into fixer, and in fixer it transforms from a negative image to a positive image.

So I came to the Anacostia Portrait studio We met at Art all night.

I actually curated the art all night this year at Anacostia.

So it was basically accumulation of artists, local artists who participate in poetry, comedy.

I believe in the arts, I support the arts.

And I basically invited the artist to take a part of the programming at the center because it's important to participate, to kind of show the importance of if it's participation, then more people will show up and show out and include the actual community in it.

Then it kind of binds and breaks that bridge.

I mean, besides school pictures, we rarely get our pictures taken though.

So I mean, you know, this is a joy like, you know, beside our cell phones When I looked at the first tintype of me, I was like, "Man, you not too hard on the eyes, buddy."

I was like, uh, you know, I felt pretty handsome.

I was like, this is putting me, like, if I was a time traveler or something, you know, This experience is like, is is extremely rewarding.

It's all, very nice and exciting.

It's a rewarding process and teaches you a lot, Definitely like a one in a lifetime experience for me.

I have a great appreciation for photography and especially like older forms of photography.

And so just to be a part of such a, a vintage process in this time is really, um, is really amazing to experience.

You know, it's, it has more components to it.

Like I, you can't see everything that's going on behind you here, but it's, it's so intricate you know, everything has to be timed right with the plates, has to be heated.

This is so amazing as opposed Thto digital, you know, it's like a new age technology.

You don't really get to see the intricacies because everything is being done inside the, the digital process.

I feel like I'm like traveling through space and time with the whole process.

And it, I think that's the like, most exciting part about it.

to actually feel like a piece of history or like the way they did things historically.

It's just amazing.