Living in Detroit with Detroit Lives!

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Chief among my many personal failings is an inability to return phone, text, and email messages within a time framed deemed "socially acceptible." Its not necessarily because I don't want to communicate with the people who are trying to communicate with me. Its just that I'm often in private negotiation with my thoughts. My thoughts are are jealous succubi. They demand my exclusive attention for indefinite stretches of time. Even still, I do my best to escape their surly gravity and return an orphaned email every now and again.

I received one such email from the gentleman pictured above, Philip Lauri.  He intimated that he enjoyed what I was doing with The People of Detroit, wanted to feature it on the website for his social branding organization Detroit Lives!, and he suggested we meet to discuss doing something collaboratively.

Bruce

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As I've mentioned earlier in this project, the downtown summer festival season is one of my favorite things about Detroit.

One of the last festivals of the season is the Detroit International Jazz Festival. Detroit is a city full of music lovers and that was wonderfully evidenced by the throngs of people with collapsible chairs moving around downtown this Memorial Day weekend. Jazz fans were everywhere.

Brandi Loves Detroit

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Brandi Keeler, a graphic artist and graduate of the acclaimed Center for Creative Studies, submitted the winning video in the first annual I Love Detroit contest.

The contest was sponsored by Garden Court Condominiums and Miss Keeler's award for the winning submission was a rent-free year in a Garden Court condo.

You can follow Brandi's year in the Garden Court and check out her interview with our local Fox news affiliate  here.

Ms. I Am Young Detroit

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This is Margarita Barry. In addition to being a really great web-designer, she is also the woman behind I Am Young Detroit  - a weekly blog that highlights people younger than 40 who are having a positive impact on the city.

Anniversary Girl

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Canon EOS 7D | Canon 35mm f/1.4 | Available Light

Growing up poor teaches you a lot. More than anything else, it conditions you to accept the immutable omnipresence of scarcity.

 I've noticed that manner of thinking has cast a long shadow on my psyche. It runs so deep, that I even get buyer's remorse when I spend money in Grand Theft Auto IV.

Debate-Great Maker

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As I've mentioned before, I am a terrible person.

I'm selfish. Fairly impatient. When I get on a escalator behind people and those people just stand there like well-clothed bipedal cows instead of walking with the escalator, I find myself having to repress the urge to punch them in the buttocks.  Like I said. Just an all-around bad person.

Then again, maybe I'm not that bad. Maybe I've just had the good fortune to come into contact with some really good people who make me seem atrocious by comparison.

Poetic Barista

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Crystal is a barista at the the 1515 Broadway coffeehouse and performance venue.

If customer service is a dying memory in your dejected consumer psyche, Crystal has the kind of inviting, friendly personality that will resuscitate it for you.

Fly Mogul

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This is the fourth and final portrait in the series that began here.

This is Deondre Gordon. He's the C.E.O of Delamar Property Management and a certified Fly Mogul.

I really enjoyed making this portrait and I am very pleased with the result. I feel like this project is forcing me to grow as a photographer, retoucher, and artist in general. I'm adding new things to my toolbox and availing myself of a daily opportunity to apply them

Music Teacher

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Alright. As I mentioned in the Filmmaker | Musician post, I'm doing a four photo mini-series on that group of friends.

Here's the second portrait from that meeting.

This is Christen. According to the Info section of her Facebook page, she's a piano and saxophone instructor. She says she can teach both the musically inclined and those with little inclination for music.

Filmmaker | Musician

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So, The People of Detroit has been been getting a bit of attention lately. Noted hip-hop journalist Dream Hampton Tweeted about the project. A friend also told me he saw a link to the project on Talib Kweli's Twitter feed. This, of course, has led to an inflated sense of my own celebrity.

I went looking for someone to photograph on my lunch hour. I saw a group of four artistic looking young people and figured they'd make great additions to the project (so much so that the next three photos will be culled from that encounter).

So, I started to follow them until I got close enough to ask to be excused for my intrusion.

The young woman pictured above noticed me first. When she turned. Her face came alive with a certain look of recognition/excitement.

When I saw the expression on her face, I thought she must have heard of this mysterious man with a camera stalking the streets of Detroit. She must have looked him up on Facebook because he, of course, is far too modest to post a picture of himself on the actually blog. That would just draw attention away from The People of Detroit and he is a selfless, humble servant of the people.

A camera-toting Jesus, if you will.

And now, here he was. Primed to humbly ask to forever immortalize her among The People of Detroit.

Then, to my astonishment, she called out my name...

"Aaron McGruder?"

Whomp whomp whoooommmmp...

I explained that I'd been thought akin to a lot of people - a shorter, poorer Vin Diesel, the guy from Kris Kross (Kris, hopefully. Who wants to be Kross?), an economy class Chico Debarge - but I had never heard I resembled the luminary creator of The Boondocks.

Then again, it takes a certain kind of person to even know what Aaron McGruder looks like. My kinda people.

Once I vanquished my delusions of grandeur, I was able to learn more about Erica. She is a musician and a filmmaker and that box in her hand tells me she is also a sweets connoisseur. It's from a really great local bake shop called Astoria.

I'm happy to say that after all was said and done, Erica was completely open to participate in the project...

...despite my not being Aaron McGruder.

Savvy Chic(k)

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Karen Brown is the owner of Savvy Chic - a antique furniture and vintage clothing boutique in Detroit's Eastern Market district.

I was in one of the farmers' market's newly and beautifully remodeled sheds when I happened to run into her this past Saturday.

Now, Miss Brown's store is phenomenal. She has some utterly singular antique furniture pieces, vintage clothing steeped in history, and evocatively fragrant scented candles from Voluspa

But perhaps one of the most impressive things about the store - and about Miss Brown - lies right beneath your feet. Though the floor is concrete, Miss Brown painted it to appear as if it is weathered wood.

The effect is completely convincing. So much so that I didn't notice it until she pointed it out to me one day.

Savvy Chic is one of those stores that I would not have been naturally inclined to check out. I think I only wandered in their at the bequest of a female friend.

And in fairness, I don't think I am the store's target market.

Karen confided that most men who visit the store mispronounce "chic" ( a thing that embodies sophisticated style) as "chick" (slang for a girl or woman).

Well, one look at her stock of unique items and the masterful faux-wood treatment on the concrete floor, and you may be convinced that the people who say "Savvy Chick" are onto something...

[Contact Karen  at 313-833-8769 or at karen.brown22@yahoo.com]

[View the weekdaily blog and meet more of: The People of Detroit ]

Clothier | Artist

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Phil is one of the owners of a hip hop clothing store called Freshman Clothing at 204 Grand River in the Harmony Park district of Detroit.

Which is the reason why I believe American school children should be obligated to take a Sex and Relationship Education course titled "Everything That Glitters isn't Gold, and Everything that's Wet Isn't Water."

What does that have to do with this photo. Nothing, really. The thought just occurred to me earlier today and I thought it was really, really funny. I wanted to take the nearest opportunity to immortalize it on the internet because I'm a egotistical bastard, the saying is sure to catch on and I want to be properly credited as its progenitor.

Ahem.

Back to my man Phil. I stopped through his store for the first time a couple of days ago.  I'd noticed it before, but had never taken the time to stop through.

Since I was primarily aware of the store as a clothier, I was surprised to walk in and see not t-shirts and jeans, but an impressive collection of art on the walls.

Phil explained that both he and his business partner were artists and they had decided to display some of their work in the store. Phil had just began experimenting with a new style of painting and wanted to give it a public debut.

That said, his new work almost made him pass on being photographed that day. He  wanted to have me come back on another day when he was "clean." His  attire at the time was splattered with paint from his new pieces.

"Phil, I look at those splatters like the wrinkles on a well-aged face: they are irrefutable marks of your development and experience. We should shoot with it on."

That's the movie script version of what I said. The real version had more awkward pauses and fewer words that made sense.

Nonetheless, he was convinced. Thankfully because I think it adds a lot to the portrait. Much in the same way that people like Phill add alot to the city.

See, Phil is the exact kinda person that that led me to start this photo project. Murderers, corrupt mayor(s) and semi-literate, super belligerent city council people grab headlines but they do not define Detroit. Ambitious, multi-talented folks like Phil are the heart of the city.

And much like a literal heart they tend to be obscured from view.

I'm doing my best Ben Carson...

[View the weekdaily blog and meet more of: The People of Detroit ]

Actor | Comedian

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In the Movie Director post, I promised that a young man named Kareem that would be next. More or less true to my word, here he is.

As detailed in Movie Director post, Kareem and I grew up in Highland Park together. Though the title of  this photo is Actor | Director, it could have just as accurately have been called Straight Fool.

Kareem has always had a irrepressible comedic exuberance.  This innate comedic sensibility has undoubtedly been the drive behind Kareem's comedic ambitions. 

That ambition drove Kareem to move to California in pursuit of his entertainment career.  That ambition has also earned Kareem small appearances in several movies, performances at comedy clubs both in Detroit and California and the admiration of fellow Detroit expatriate and MTV Wild n' Out alum Carlos "Spanky" Hayes - who Kareem describes as a friend and mentor.

"I'm on the grind, man!," Kareem exclaimed.

I can relate. That's why I'm posting this entry at 3:30 in the gotdamn morning like I aint got no gotdamn day job.

When you have an innate need to communicate, you are never truly happy until you create the opportunity to do so.

Follow Kareem's grind on his Facebook page.

[View the weekdaily blog and meet more of: The People of Detroit ]

Journaturalist

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jour·nat·u·ra·list (jur-nāch'ər-ə-lĭst), noun

1. A portmanteau word formed from "journal" and "naturalist" commonly used to describe a young woman who grew up in South America, lives in Detroit, works as a journalist and has a strong affinity for nature (exemplified by the ability and willingness to milk goats and weed urban gardens with a machete).

see also: Minehaha Forman.

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Educator | Mentor

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People like Myco are God's way of saying "I'm sorry" for people like me.

I remember reading the autobiography of Malcolm X when I was a kid and fantasizing about being the next prophet of progress - leading my people up out of the ghetto.

I got full of righteous indignation. Zeal. Vigor.

Then I played Nintendo.

Outlier

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The People of Detroit began after a personal creative lull.  I took some time off of photography to regroup, get my bearings, absorb information about photography theory, technique, and technology; try to grow as a photographer and as a person.

This is the first photo from the photo documentary that grew out of my artistic rumination.

So, on the first 80 degree day of the year (looks like the city of Detroit is coming out of hibernation along with me), I decided to set about downtown on my lunch break to find my first subject.

I wasn't having much luck until I heard someone call my name out. Come to find out a high school classmate was drawn to a Campus Martius park the same as I was this afternoon.

Candiss was sitting in the downtown park reading with her doggy.

Candiss and I are graduates of Highland Park High school. Highland Park High is more or less the urban high school of popular imagination:

 A lot of kids from broken homes. A lot of kids for whom education was not a priority. A lot of seething angry and disappointment that overflows into confrontations. Luckily, guns rarely factored into those confrontations ("only" one dude got shot on school grounds during my time there. Rumor has it, it was over a marijuana debt. Luckily he survived. I say luckily because dude was cool and I could think of at least 7 other guys who would have been more deserving candidates for a fatal shooting).

More commonly the confrontations manifested as fights where one guy would get jumped on by 5 or more other guys who clearly had no plans on chancing a loss.

I say all this to put Candiss - and myself - into context.  I've had a couple people who are familiar with HP, tell me, "You ain't go to no got damn HP."  In the spirit of playing it forward, I always say the same thing about Candiss.

She's not your typical Parker Polar Bear. When I sat down next to her, I joked that she was reading Zane or Confessions of a Dick Sucking Video ho. What was she actually reading?

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

What could be more fitting?

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