Sanjay Suchak: There's no better example of democracy in photography than the statue removals happening around Virginia.

I've always liked documenting construction, but more destruction of things, abandoned buildings, tearing down arenas, places filled with such life that you tear down piece by piece.

So the idea of dismantling these statues, which were celebrated at some point, for all the wrong reasons, is very attractive to me as a photographer.

Photography allows you to stop a moment in time and pay very close attention to it.

When I snap a photo, I'm spending a little more time in that millisecond than most people get to.

We, we're sort of bombarded in a world of images, I don't know how many millions, billions a day are uploaded, and your Instagram feed is an infinite scroll of that so you're just trying to, you know, for news or anything, just find a photo that stops people in their tracks to make them think about what's happening.

So that's what I try to do.

And sometimes it's the smallest detail that will stop people in their tracks, and then you can bring them in to see the whole shot.

So with a shoot like monument removal, there's a lot going on.

It's a construction site, there's danger, there's action of the actual work going on, but you're now adding an audience, and there's a very emotionally charged audience.

You're for or against, or, you know, the symbol has been oppressing you for so long.

And there's a lot from every angle to capture.

And also to think through.

So I don't go into these shoots trying to create a specific subset of images to tell a narrative other than the story that the statues are coming down.

But I do have a style and a lot of the style is sometimes very close up tight textures or moments.

I'm absolutely looking for symbolism and narrative in the story, but I don't go in there with that ahead of time.

There's some pretty powerful imagery created with just the contrast of construction methods, and the statues, chains around the necks of Confederates as they hang from a crane or things like that.

And that's just part and parcel to like the different stories that I try to tell.

You work constantly until it's done, because you don't know what you're gonna see, and if you stop looking for shots, you might miss something that's the best shot of day.

Shooting a statue removal is not that much different than shooting live concerts, protests, rallies, tragedies, accidents, happy moments graduation, inauguration of a new president, all sorts of different stuff.

I'm definitely more of an observational shooter, going into a place to take in a situation and see what kind of frames I can capture that other people might not be seeing as they watch the event happen in front of them.

These statues are actually sort of formulaic.

And so after the first one, you sort of learn the different steps that the crew has to take and those different steps will give me cues to figure out where to position myself, you know, they have to put some tension on the statue, cut the pins.

So each of those steps gives me sort of cues, to where to position myself and what kind of shots to get.

And then it frees me up in those off times for looking for other interesting things.

This is, I don't know, maybe the 10th statue, I've worked with them.

And so, you know, after a while they sort of get used to me being here.

But in the beginning, they were sort of not pleased about this man who doesn't have a construction background showing up with a camera.

But after a while if you can you keep your word and you can, you know, prove you're not a complete idiot around heavy machinery, it works out all right.

We've become sort of a team as a camaraderie there.

The people in this group travel from all different parts of the country to help do this work.

So anytime you take on a task, such as dismantling monuments, there's a personal risk that comes to yourself, especially as a black contractor.

Devon is an incredible individual, you know, he runs this contracting company, and they do a lot of really important jobs across the Commonwealth in the country.

It doesn't come without the personal threat to him and his family.

And I think that what he's doing is really an act of service to Virginia at great personal risk to himself.

I just have such admiration for the work that he takes on and the honesty and integrity in which he conducts himself.

The idea for this was planted by a high schooler in Charlottesville, Zyahna Bryant, who pursued this idea doggedly until she succeeded in getting these statues removed.

And so her idea is now being fulfilled and to photograph that there's no better example of photographing democracy in action.

I live in Charlottesville, and I was present August 11, and 12th, 2017.

And that whole mess was largely surrounding the statues.

And so seeing these statues come down for me, feels like a bookend closure to that terrible period in our town's life.

I hope that the images from this past weekend in Charlottesville will tell a different story of this community, I hope that they tell the story of a community that stood up against these symbols that do not speak to our current values.

Of a community that kept losing until we won, and is now moving on towards making more positive change, beyond just the statues.

Em White: I became interested in historic photographic processes in response to trying to find a process in which I could be self reliant.

So with these processes, you can make your own film essentially, you can make your own emulsions, you know, you're starting from like the basic elements and create an image from scratch.

There's something very powerful about seeing this image in front of you.

It's the world reflected.

Unknown: I think a lot of times when we think about environmental stewardship, or we think about conservation work, we focus on these spaces of wilderness.

And I think in that conversation, you leave out these urban spaces that have so much potential to enrich communities and enrich our lives.

And so I want to kind of recontextualize these urban environments to highlight their inherent beauty.

I want to create an image of a public space here in Richmond, a space that people enjoy a space that as a community if we invest in everybody benefits.

And I also want to document a space that is in need of protection and need of care.

The environment in which I grew up greatly influenced my relationship with photography.

I grew up in rural Virginia, in a small town called Bremo Bluff, it's on the banks of the James River upstream from here in Richmond, Virginia.

I feel like I have a deep connection to the river.

It's where I learned to swim.

That's where I spent every summer with my brothers and the dogs.

That's been the backdrop for so many moments of joy.

And it's a space that reminds me of home.

This is a large format camera, it's 8x10 dimensions, specifically.

It's a field camera.

I use it mostly for ambrotypes, tin types, and large format film, it's from 18- I don't know when that's about as much as I know about the year of it.

I really love using these cameras because they're fully mechanical.

And so I'm able to kind of manipulate every element in the creation of it, which is incredible.

Because like for me, when I'm creating an image, I want people's eyes to go where my eye's going.

An ambrotype is a direct positive onto a sheet of glass that has been coated with light sensitive chemistry and the image is created in the exposure.

I'm photographing contemporary subjects with these historic processes, but I'm not interested in doing any type of historical recreation imagery.

The imagery, I'm really drawn towards, photographs that are very atmospheric.

Atmospheric imagery, where it kind of forces you to question exactly what you're looking at.

I like imagery that you have to look at closely to really experience rather than something that maybe typically just reads right off the bat very easily.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to coat a piece of glass, and then I put it in there and then I close it, and then I set the rest of my chemistry.

And then I put my head in here, load it and we go take a picture.

I'm using this process that's called wet plate collodion.

It's a historic process dating back to the 1850s.

This process requires a mobile darkroom for me to be able to go anywhere outside of the studio.

So I constructed a little rig in the back of my car that works as a functional space where I can use my darkroom.

Democracy to me means that people have the power.

And ultimately, I think if we can like step back and see ourselves as part of this greater whole, as one of many, neither above, nor below, but equal, that leads us to also share responsibility.

And if you see yourself as part of this whole, if you share the responsibility with everyone, you can acknowledge that we're part of the solution as well as the problem.

And so in terms of my work, I think that is part of the democracy angle, because it represents an area of the city that is a space of community, a space that everybody is responsible for, a space that everybody benefits from, a space that to me represents kind of this collective role that we all share.

This is my fixer.

It's just sodium thiosulfate crystals, also known as typo, but it's what fixes it, it's what makes the image no longer light sensitive, it's the final step of the process.

In the act of seeing the image realize itself in the trays and seeing kind of the image appear in front of your eyes, to put it simply, it's magic.

Not too shabby.

This is a process that never grows old for me, even though it's really old.

The way that I produce work is it's a rejection of immediacy.

I would say on a good day, I make one good image.

It's a very slow process.

It's very intentional.

I'm not just showing up at a place and taking a ton of photographs and hoping that one of them looks good, I'm taking a lot of time to really consider what I'm photographing, why I'm photographing it, how I want to represent it.

And in a way that's, you know, flexing these democratic muscles, you know, where you're slowing down, you're ruminating, you're reasoning a little bit.

Rather than being reactionary and immediate with our reactions, it's actually considering things.

And I think that's also part of the idea of democracy is if we can engage in the world around us this way, if we can slow down, if we can consider things, if we can take a moment to pause before acting, I think it leaves room for better understanding and hopefully greater communication.

Julia: I know instantly, when I've made a picture, that's gonna work.

It's hard to describe, but I just know, it feels satisfying to me in the moment that I've put something truthful in a little box.

So I've been coming to the Place of Miracles for about four years.

And this is just a place that serves the community, the same community that I do a lot of storytelling in which are people who are living in hotels and motels along the Jeff Davis corridor.

So many of the people they serve, don't have vehicles.

They don't, there's not good public transportation here.

And so what they'll do is load up these bags full of food and deliver them to people who live in hotels along Jeff Davis highway.

Jeff Davis highway is a place that was like really booming in the 50s.

And there were all these little hotels built up.

Eventually people stopped coming to that area.

And now for a host of reasons.

The hotels have become sort of long term housing for people.

They're serving as the stopgap or the solution for the affordable housing crisis.

Jenny will tell you herself, I mean, she's very open about her story, which is no reason we connected.

I'm a journalist and she's an open book.

I actually met her in jail when I was doing a story about recovery in the jail system because she did suffer from addiction.

But as soon as she got out of jail, she overcame that, she got a bunch of jobs.

She got an apartment.

She was living in the hotel on Jeff Davis highway.

And now like, with every spare moment she has she volunteers at Place of Miracles.

Jenny: My family has been in this hotel room for probably since 2018.

Yeah.

So when I got released from jail and was so homeless, I had to come back to Snow White.

And so for me to come back here and live here for four months with sobriety.

Yeah, I had to go, I had to go.

My sobriety was more important.

Julia: She's so amazing.

She's able to connect with people, because she's lived that way and can just approach people with like a real big heart and knowledge of what they're going through.

It's awesome.

Democracy is just simply like the government that people elect.

But then if you want to talk about American democracy, ideally, we are guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And so I think if your bellie's not full, and you don't have a place to sleep at night, like, how far are you really going to get with those American ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Like, really, you're not going to be able to focus on those until your basic human needs are met.

And so that's why I chose to focus on housing insecurity.

When Jenny and I go to deliver food, it runs the gamut.

A lot of people move in and out of different hotel rooms.

So we'll knock where there was a family last week.

And this week, it's someone who doesn't want to talk to us.

So they'll slam the door in our face.

But then other times, it'll be people who remember us or knew us from months ago, and will invite us in and want to show us something new in their room or brag about their kids report card.

Here.

Yeah, it looks awesome.

Lisa: You can take a pictuer if you want.

Julia: Yeah.

Lisa: Look, I'm doing NA and everything.

Julia: Oh, howmany months do you have?

I just ran into Lisa who I had known kind of when she was having tougher times.

She's in recovery.

She showed me her na badges.

I think she said she had four months clean.

She has a job.

She's about to start at Burger King.

So it's really, really nice and cool to run into someone you met when they were kind of hazy and maybe didn't know who you were.

And actually, she recognized me and invited me in and we got to take a nice portrait.

Congratulations on your new job.

Lisa: Thank you.

Julia: I hope that I approach my work with empathy and care.

My goal is always to show people with dignity and respect.

I mean, it's such an honor for people to tell me their story.

Like that's why this is the greatest job in the world.

Because people will trust you.

And also, I think a lot of people have a story they want to tell, you know, they want to share their life and what makes it interesting or important or what's dear to them.

And like I'm all yours.

Jenny actually met Nikki and Brian.

She knows I'm always looking for people who are willing to be photographed.

And she talks to them a little bit about me and the work I do.

Hi, I'm Julia.

Nikki: I'm Nikki Julia: Nikki, I'm the photographer she told you about Nikki: Nice to meet you.

Julia: How are you?

Nikki: I'm alright Julia: Nikki works full time.

He stays home with their daughter and they're trying really, really hard for themselves.

How long have you guys been staying here?

Nikki: What is this month three?

We've been here for a little while now.

We've got to been moving from hotel to hotel.

Julia: How long have you been doing that?

Nikki: A year now.

So now I'm kind of just working and trying to save up just to get out of here hopefully.

Julia: So in that situation, I mean, I think like the photography is almost like muscle memory.

And it's just like, adjacent to trying to just be a human in that moment.

And to be honest, I'm like nervous, hoping I'm coming across the way I want to.

And really, the photo is secondary to just trying to get to know them.

It's super cliche, right that you know, a picture's worth 1000 words, but sometimes it really is because it can just draw you to the place in the thing that you you know nothing about, you know, so maybe if you've never seen people living day to day in a hotel room because there are no other options for them you know maybe if you see it then then you can understand it more and realize the need for affordable housing.

You guys are so cute.

Nate: Richmond has a huge underground skate scene.

Huge.

Some of the best spots some of the best skaters.

But if you're not hip, you wouldn't know.

Cats want to get documented.

They want to see it.

Because style matters is more hey, mind if I capture this?

Yeah, for sure.

You mind if I take this photo.

Yeah, for sure.

Just let me get warmed up and go ahead.

There's so much freedom in skateboarding.

You could honestly be who you are.

You can see a bunch of cats in this kind of like different worlds.

You throw a skateboard in the midst of that.

It's so much freedom in a piece of wood.

So much freedom.

That's why to me skateboarding is democracy.

I always had this thought of like showing the world through my eyes.

I can't afford a camera.

So I got an iPhone.

And then I got into street photography.

And then I was like yo, this is lit just capturing a moment as it come.

And then naturally as a creative, you get one tool, and you want another tool.

So then I just start buying cameras, and then I just started learning about other types of photography, long exposures and things like that.

I just really navigated towards straight black and white photography.

It just tells a story to me.

I get a lot of inspiration of like clothing, like fashion, like street, like you know what I mean?

So like just seeing how an outfit is put together.

I'm like, yo, I like that is more of what just stands out to me.

Whenever I see movement, colors, shapes, and shadows, the shadows help tell the story.

And that's what I'm all about telling a story.

I'm sensitive of my creativity, photography, it's a real battle for me.

But I just have to push myself, okay, that's just your anxiety.

Just be creative, just create something.

I have to feel it.

If I don't feel it, I just I won't capture.

I have friends like Nate, you should capture that that's a dope photo.

I always say, you seen it.

You capture.

That's not my photo.

That's your photo.

Take a photo of that.

You know what I mean?

Here's my camera, capture it.

We just live in a fake society.

Oh, we're so brainwashed.

We're so conditioned.

Especially in America culture is kind of conditioned to white experience, black experience, poor experience, rich experience, you know what I mean?

I think for me, skateboarding breaks down that social condition.

And adjusting.

This is who I am.

And then you start to see, outside of social conditioning, we all got a lot in common.

Remove race, sex, whatever.

Remove the character that we project.

Remove this, you know what I mean?

For present that child that's still inside of us.

And we are trying to figure it out.

But for me, the skate community gives me the chance to figure out what this is what I did.

Oh snap.

This is this person helped me do this.

Oh snap.

I went through this.

And this is what I could learn from other people's journeys.

So for me, it's like no matter what's going on in the world, you get your feet on that board and you're free.

If you don't skate, you get your hands on the drumsticks.

You get your hands on the DJ booth.

You know what I mean?

Or the turntables.

We get your hands on a spray paint.

And no matter what's going on, it's democracy in all of that because you're going to have a group of like minded individuals who's only attention is to express Style matters in skateboarding, white or black, green, yellow.

If your style is trash like dang, he needs to go work on such and such and such.

But if you're just coming in open minded Hey, I skate I'm trying to learn.

Come on.

I enjoy Carter Jones cause Carter Jones, to me, it's like the training grounds everybody's there is good.

Everybody was there is willing to teach.

Yo but you just did a 50/50 on that rail.

I'm having a hard time doing that.

How did you do that?

Now I got a friend.

It's a community.

It's an pen minded diverse, come as you re, you're protected commu If you go to whatever skate park, you're not going to see one race.

You're going to see multiple.

When Martin Luther King talks about the characte and getting to know the char cter before race- th t's skateboar