I was homeschooled so the majority of my childhood was spent at home. My mom kept me inside for the most part and didn't have a extremely close neighborhood tie to alot of people. Only one in particular she was nice and talked to. Mr. Hill I think was his name and my next door neighbor Ms. Hawkings (not sure of spelling or name). I got into photography. This is film and I learned how to develop it in a Smithsonian darkroom. I will talk about my school days and photography in another blog post. Here are the secret neighborhood kids I played with while my mom wasn't around.
My mother in front of the family house. Looks like there was a lot of greenery at the time.
I made this video to somehow bring awareness to my mother's situation since I had some family members on facebook. I tagged my mother's family members on facebook. My mother's youngest niece from my aunt's family blocked me after this. I also called all of them and only one, the oldest responded to my post and the another nephew from the same family heard me out. If I recall he was my mom's favorite.
birthdays at home
the back of the house
Me as a teen at the front of the house. My step grandmother, Eunice and me with socks in my hair to get it curly and me as a teen again on the back steps. I remember my mom gave me so much grief to take my picture. Questioning why I wanted my picture taken. Because selfies didn't exist yet. Just take my picture mom.
My mom was the teen in this picture with her younger siblings and her mom. Her birds in the basement where we lived for a long while. My kids showing my mom how to play a video game. And yes we had plastic covering the yellow chair.
A picture I took of one of my mom's plants. I also developed the film because this was before digital photography.
I think I was around 10 years old when I started taking pictures around my neighborhood and learning how to develop film at a Smithsonian run dark room. The pictures were taken when I was a kid but this merge of two pictures done in a college darkroom. Can't recall in UDC or Howard University. Obviously a playground and Unions Station.
I borrowed a film image of someone's picture of a river with my picture of Union Station columns, done in the darkroom again.
After a lovely birthday dinner with my mom the kiddos went to catch fireflies in the ally way.
Final thought
When I drive through my old neighborhood it gets harder everytime. I can share all the things that has changed since then but I rather save that for another blog post. It was already hard enough to revisit the past.
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