Gioncarlo Valentine: Exposures

Gioncarlo Valentine: Exposures is part of In The Making, a documentary shorts series from American Masters and Firelight Media follows emerging cultural icons on their journeys to becoming masters of their artistic disciplines.

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Zeshawn Ali’s director statement

I first met Gio through a computer screen. It was for a virtual screening of my film and after talking about our shared love of black and white cinematography, we quickly realized we lived in the same neighborhood in New York. Soon after that, we met for coffee in our neighborhood in Harlem. We talked for hours, walked through familiar neighborhood blocks, telling stories of our pasts, trying to catch the other up to speed on our lives so far. Gio instinctively took out his camera- “don’t move” he said calmly as he focused his lens. He took an image, and in that moment I felt like time was stopping. Like I was being looked at by a familiar friend I had known for years.

Gioncarlo Valentine’s photography radically transforms intimacy as a tool of documented care.

Images captured in lush black and white, centered on the tenderness of moments between a person and themselves or a person with another. The images continue to reveal their complexities over time, like a photograph from a childhood album you can’t get out of your head. There’s a  lived-in feeling grounded in the way Gio takes a moment and holds it tenderly behind the lens of a camera. Each image is precisely soft, expertly framed, and deeply heartfelt. These are not merely portraits, but they are love letters to old friends and new strangers who feel like someone you’ve known in a past life. Heads leaning on heads, hands touching hands, eyes staring longingly past the lens in deep reflection.

Looking at the scope of Gioncarlo’s work leaves you breathless- archives of photographs of moments of real intimacy. Photographs ranging from notable public figures to friends met in the soft shadows of morning light- deep, genuine smiles and longing stares that make each image feel just as intimate as the next. Images that stay with you long after they first cross your eyes. Over the years, Gioncarlo has continually proven himself as a photographer who can make any person feel authentically seen in front of his lens.

For Gioncarlo, growing up in West Baltimore as someone who is Black and queer was inherently an exercise of feeling the complexities of identity on a daily basis. Chapters of life filled with longing, loss, and the continued search for comforts and care. The memories of this chapter of life fill the stretches of neighborhood blocks with moments that linger in the air. In many ways, tenderness was the act of trying to stay grounded, otherwise getting swept into the turbulence of those years. Masculinity in particular was something that he observed through many different complicated lenses- through deep friendships, losses, and desires. But in the ways in which he depicts queerness, Blackness and masculinity through a lens of softness, we see the ways he has slowly worked to reframe and reclaim those identities through his art.

When setting out to make this film, I hoped to explore the ways documented intimacy is a radical act of self exploration.

For Gioncarlo’s photography and writing, that has been present in the work he’s done to document his life through many lenses- queer love, the journey of self acceptance with his body, and the ways to hold grief and loss that is compounded over time. All of these reframings have forced him to reckon with the idea of tenderness- both in its importance but also its fragility. But more importantly, the goal of this film was always to center Gioncarlo’s personal journey- from his early years in Baltimore to today, and how finding his voice and lens behind the camera has been a way to document intimacy, masculinity, queerness, and BIPOC communities through a softness that feels more important than ever before.

Artistically, I wanted to take the lush visual world of Gioncarlo’s photography and bring it into motion. Tender moments alone in reflection, combing through the archives, laughter shared with family as they are photographed in the quietness of their homes. In between moments with Gioncarlo at work, the film moves through the archives of his work as well as captured composed video closeups bringing his work to life. This tapestry of moments of work, moments of observation, and a reflection of the years of work pull together a visual landscape of how tenderness is a tool, and Gioncarlo’s vision and voice is a throughline.

The film ends as we see Gioncarlo setting up a shoot to take a series of portraits of himself, stepping immediately into his own world that he has crafted for others. To me, ending with this moment is foundationally important because it’s an understanding that Gio’s work feels so personal because it is. So much of his formative years shaped the longing felt in his art. But his ability to see these moments as reflections of parts of himself is an essential way to see his journey. Tenderly, he looks into the mirror and takes himself in through his reflection and clicks the shutter. The same way he and his images invite you to return to them again and again- like a caring hand extended by a familiar friend.

More about Gioncarlo Valentine

Gioncarlo Valentine (b. 1990) is an award-winning American photographer and writer. Valentine hails from Baltimore City and attended Towson University in Maryland. Backed by his seven years of social work experience, his work seeks to examine issues faced by marginalized populations, most often focusing his lens on the experiences of Black/LGBTQIA+ communities. Through writing and photography, Gioncarlo aims to broaden conversations around masculinity, culture, gender, and belonging.Select Publications/Clients include: Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Apple, Vogue, WSJ, TIME, The New York Times, and Propublica.