In early April, as coronavirus cases and deaths in New York City climbed, OPEN DOORS Co-Director Jennilie Brewster and Reality Poet Andres “Jay” Molina spoke with NY based photographer Elias Williams about his art practice over Zoom. Williams, whose work honors underrepresented people in the United States, bonded with the Reality Poets when he photographed the group for Photoville in 2019. The exhibition in Brooklyn Bridge Park converted shipping containers into gallery space and attracted more than 100,000 attendees. Elias and Jay share what the event meant to each of them and how they’re continuing to make art in these hard times.

Elias: I'm always excited to work with underrepresented people and especially when it's communities of people that look like me. So, that was the first part of it. Then you guys had a really great and unique story and one that I've never heard of. And, Laura had mentioned that she didn't want to get an older guy; she wanted to try to fit in a younger guy with you folks and see how we would mesh and I think over time that worked out really well.

Then to have it shown at Photoville and just stand to the side and have you guys take in all of the praise from people, who looked at the container, that was special to me. That's what I look forward to most. I've worked with The New York Times, National Geographic, NPR, all these big-name publications. But I get more satisfaction from the people that I photograph that have an opportunity to see themselves in those spaces. That makes it special.

Jennilie: Jay, your Before & After video was shown with Elias' photographs of you and the other guys, as well as Var’s artwork and writings and recordings by all of you. So, anything you would say about being both a subject and, also, a contributing artist to Photoville?

Jay: At the beginning I didn't know what I was getting into really. But then when Elias kept calling me once or twice a week, the questions he was asking, the fact that he was interested on whatever we were doing individually. Then when he took the pictures with that camera, the-

Elias: The large format camera.

Jay: Yeah, like a newer version of a 1950's camera, then when I asked if he was doing that because of the depth of field. And, he said, "Yes." That's certainly why he took the picture with the camera. So then I started seeing how he was really thinking about his choices. "This dude is not a joke. He knows what he's doing." He started telling us the people that he used to follow, and then he was following all of us for the rest of the summer, I felt really honored that they had assigned him to work with us.

When I came out and I saw the trailer—the big, the picture of everything coming together, that's what when I was really like, "Oh, this is like our dream come true working with this type of professional and the fact that everybody knew him over there. The people from Adobe, they called him over to the tent. So I felt proud that I was being looked after, like, “Oh, this one of Elias' people." It was really quite an experience.

Jennilie: Elias, referring to wanting to work with OPEN DOORS, you talked about “my people” and Jay just about being “Elias' people.” Could you talk a little bit more about the underlying motivation around who you photograph and why?

Elias: I grew up in southeast Queens where it's predominantly black. Then I moved to the Bronx where it's both predominantly Black and Latino. Having lived around my people all my life, as an African American, and seeing the representations of Black or Brown people in mainstream media that was always one-sided to disparity or just rendering people that look like me as invisible, I’m trying to tell a well-rounded story about Black and Brown people in a more positive way, to outweigh that imbalance of what representations already exist. And that's what I tried to do with the Reality Poets. Their past lives or preexisting conditions led to their current situation, but they're doing something positive. And, that's what I wanted to highlight.

Jennilie: Jay, how do you feel hearing Elias say that?

Jay: It feels great, like people are recognizing what we're doing, that we're just trying to help people like ourselves and let people know the good message we're trying to bring.

Elias: Another thing for me is photographing underrepresented Black and Brown historical communities like my hometown, St. Albans, where a lot of well-known Black jazz and Black athletes lived at some point in their career, and then a BMX park that was fully run for 30 years by the riders. That's history and you guys are definitely history. 

Jennilie: Elias, you mentioned when we talked last week that you had been traveling a lot at the start of the pandemic.

Elias: Yes. That was all while things were starting to pick up in terms of cases in New York City. I had to over plan, overpack cleaning supplies just so anytime I was in and out of an airport I had some alcohol, I had some wipes, or things like that, hand sanitizer to clean my hands, some sort of face covering. And there were some people that you were traveling with that were on the same page and then others that were pretty careless, which is still kind of happening right now. I went from New York. I went to Montgomery, Alabama. Then Selma, Alabama. Then Birmingham. Then from Birmingham to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Baltimore, then Baltimore to New York.

Jennilie: Was it all part of one project?

Elias: Yes. It was a part of the cover story for National Geographic. They recently found the last known slave ship survivor, Matilda McCrear, and that history has been updated over the last two, three years. So, I photographed Matilda's descendants who recently found out that she was the last known survivor of the Middle Passage and the last known slave ship.

All of the descendants lived throughout these areas and I had to travel to every single one of them. Knowing that I was bouncing from airport to airport, city to city, I was kind of paranoid because I was photographing people that are up there in age, and I didn't know what I had. You know how these symptoms work, it can be anywhere from 2 to 14 days before you realize you have it and you can be passing them off without even knowing it. I was careful to not shake hands. But still, it's like figuring out all over again how to be kind without touching. Like handshakes or hugs, that's normally how I greet people and how people greet me. So you know, everything's been reduced now to hand waving or elbow bumps. And that might be the way things are for a while. So that was definitely a rough time, just being unsure and also knowing that I did have to travel to these places.

But the good part about it is that the editor I worked with is a personal friend so she offered any type of support that I needed. That kind of relationship is becoming a little hard to come by because some editors just view you as a body, somebody that's disposable. I recently had a back and forth with an editor. She reached out to me, just a cold call, saying, "Hey, I have this Covid-19 story that I want you to work on." And, like in my head, she's not giving me full details. Like where am I going to be going, which is very important during these times and helps me prepare. But she just wanted to know if I can go out and then, “I'll give you details, the day you have to go out," and I just sounded unsure the whole time over the phone and she was like, "I'm getting the sense that you don't sound excited for this." Which for me is like how are you excited about being in ground zero of an outbreak? Being in the state with the biggest cases, how are you excited about that when you're hearing about hundreds of people dying every day? How do you become excited about photographing a pandemic? That didn't really sit well with me, so I had to pass on the opportunity.

Jennilie: Elias, do you have any tips for Jay? Or Jay, do you have any questions for Elias about how you can be a photographer or a filmmaker in your community given all of the restraints at Coler right now?

Jay: I was going to say, I don't think there's much I could do because I don't even have a camera.

Elias: Well, I thought you had, not the Canon video camera, but didn't you have a DSLR that you could use?

Jay: Yeah, actually I do have it. I just have forgot about it because I haven't used it in so long.

Elias: Okay, well this is the time to be resourceful and use whatever you have access to. Like, I do this all the time. I get hung up on not having the tool I would prefer to use to make the work that I want to make. But there have been times where before my career took off I had to make do with what I had. So just to tell the stories I wanted to tell. It's like don't pressure yourself too much and just let things go as they come. Just let things come to you organically.

But if you prefer to sit aside and make a list of bullet points of things that are important to you, that you want to highlight and just list them down and then start figuring out how you can tell those stories and then reach out to people or look things up on the internet, read articles, read books, listen to podcasts. You can do that. Then an idea might click off in your brain and then that'll spark the vision for what you want to do. Do you have anything in mind right now?  

Jay: Well, I want to do something for Roy’s memorial. I only got like five pictures of him. So I'm going to have to work with what I have. But as far as doing like a bigger project, I was going to do a documentary about our play Fade.

Elias: Yeah, I remember you talking about that.

Jay: I think now we're going to tell the successes and life-shaking events that happened in one year of our lives. Then with this coronavirus shit going on right now, what's the future look like for us, what are we looking forward to? I'm kind of just focused on that right now. 

Then a lot of people we know be sending me stuff, like to come to this event or collaborate on this project, but I'm not really into that right now. 

Elias: I feel that way too sometimes, just like taking whatever feels right at the moment.

Jay: Right, because I have underlying conditions. So, my mind's more like, "I got to take care of myself, not just 100% but like 200% because if I get this virus that definitely could be the end of me. So, I just try to chill. You know, watch a movie, watch a TV show and just try to sink into that so I can forget about this virus for a minute.

Then I just go and Photoshop something real quick, something that comes to my mind. But as far as being part of that bigger picture, that community of like doing stuff together because of what's going on in this time. I just don't feel like being part of that right now.

Elias: Yeah, man, I get it. I've been going at a much slower pace. If I'm being honest, I'm in my element right now. I'm usually in social isolation and my mind is just running and I'm just thinking of new ideas, looking at photo books, just keeping my mind sharp and cooking and cleaning. So, it was like nothing has really changed in terms of what I'm doing in my house, but I do have those extroverted friends that are in pain right now that they can’t be out.

Jay: When I wanted to look for inspiration or ideas what I used to do is to come outside by myself, over there by the tent, where we hang out. By myself, I smoke a blunt and something will always come up. I will always think of something like, "Oh, my God, yeah, maybe I could do this." But I haven't been doing that in like two or three weeks. I got to find a new system to find inspiration for something while I’m locked inside.

Elias: What I do is I look out the window for however long I need to look out the window and just people watch. Just watching people go by, wait for the bus, go down into the subways and strangely enough, ideas come from that too. Like completely unrelated. Sometimes I'll be washing dishes and I have the greatest idea ever. So, yeah, I'd suggest just looking out of a window if you can. Hopefully, it's a good sunny day and not like today, find an alternative like that.

Jay: I wanted to ask you, Elias, how did you get hooked up with National Geographic? Did you have to apply for that or somebody told them about you?

Elias: I volunteered at a New York Times Portfolio Review. This was probably a year after I had gotten in twice before as a reviewee. One of my mentors that runs the portfolio review introduced me to an editor, who no longer works at National Geographic. I showed him my BMX work. And he was like, "We've got to publish this." It never happened. And he was like, "You got to come into the office and meet the rest of the folks. So whenever you're in DC, just let me know." So at this point, I already had a friend that was working there for a year, but me, I was being very stubborn and I didn't want to utilize my resources as my way in. I just wanted to have the confidence in knowing that people were choosing me because of my work and not because I had a friend that worked there.

So I stayed in connection with this editor that I met at the review. I told him that, you know, I think in 2017, I was going to stop by in February and he was like, "Great. You're going to present your work in front of everybody that works here." So it's the photo editors, it's the people that make the maps, the people that do the research, and they're all in this small room. You're in the dark, you're standing up at the front with your clicker, and you're just going through your work. 

I had prepared several times beforehand just to make sure the way I was speaking, which doesn't always happen, was going through sleek and smooth. At the end, people asked their questions about the work and so on. Then, suddenly people were on their phones emailing other editors. And that's really how things started to kick off, it was really from that moment and showing work from my hometown in Queens, St. Albans, and then the BMX Park that I'm not too far away from.

So it really all started from there. I think that same year I worked on MLK Streets in the US. I photographed in Harlem. I photographed in New Mexico and Memphis, Tennessee. And, that was my first assignment with them. So, ever since then they've been in touch and providing me with opportunities. That's how it all started. So, that one year I was able to get in contact with Nat Geo and get my first assignment later that year. Just a lot of persistence and staying on top of them.

Jay: Great. Good that worked out for you.

Elias: Yep. Thank you.

Jennilie: This was an awesome conversation, you guys, with lots of useful information for artists. Thank you both for sharing a bit about your creative process and how you’re coping right now.