Ézé Amos
Ézé Amos is a Charlottesville-based documentary photographer and photojournalist, but it is his love of street photography that fuels his art-making. Immigrating from Nigeria in 2008, Ézé brings with him a love of storytelling that resonates far back into his childhood, of tales by moonlight passed around through family. Though, with COVID, Ézé’s practices have been put to the test, leading to some necessary and revitalizing revelations.
Capturing Porch-traits
WTJU: You're listening to WTJU Charlottesville. We talked to Ézé Amos for a new COVID-19 arts exhibition titled, “We Hope This Art Finds You Well.” Ézé shares his experience with photographing people and their communities at the height of a global pandemic.
ÉZÉ AMOS: Initially, when we started this photos, know, people would stay very, very far away. But you know, think about this, you roll off to some of those neighborhoods, you park your car on the street, they step outside their homes. The first thing want to do is, hey! Because they're like, people, human being. I was walking in a neighborhood, and I'm sure folks were looking out the window like, that guy is brave. Because we didn't know anything. We thought even being outside and just breathing air, you could die. I remember when the state actually declared strict stay home order. Folks, the photographers that I got that were working together were all emailing like, hey, should we all stay home? I'm like, if you ask me, what we're doing right now is very essential. Somebody has to tell the story.
Photographing Protest
Documentarian At Heart
One of Ézé’s first photographs was taken by pure chance. It’s of his nephew, praying, framed in his bedroom window. Before he knew anything about shutter speeds, or apertures, Ézé’s first photograph is nearly a certified miracle, But it reveals an unmistakable moment of spontaneity, and with it, a beautiful truthfulness. Ézé affirms a desire and need to stay rooted to that mindset, especially with COVID revealing how valuable mundanity and intimacy can be.
Restless for a project in the midst of a quarantine crisis, Ézé was scrolling through social media when something caught his eye: post after post of people posing for pictures on their front steps. Fueled by a need to photograph people again, Ézé spearheaded the Cville Porch Portrait Project with four other local photographers. He found himself walking deserted streets, standing outside stranger’s houses, learning and discovering neighborhoods all over the city. It was reconnecting with people in the community that proved the value of the work he was doing.
WTJU: You're listening to WTJU Charlottesville. We talked to Ézé Amos for a new COVID-19 arts exhibition titled, “We Hope This Art Finds You Well.” As a photojournalist during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Ézé talks about one moment that continues to impact him and his practice.
ÉZÉ AMOS: I was at a protest in Richmond because we're photojournalists and we had a press badge and stuff. The police let me get close to them and they were talking amongst themselves how to corner the protesters. As much as I, you know, I'm not part of the protesters, I sympathize, I understand what they're fighting for. I went back to photograph with them and I just whispered it like, just fight, just so you know, the cops are rounding up and they're coming around the corner, do with that whatever you want to. Some people would argue you could have just let that play out. I would argue otherwise. The protest covering all of those things changed the way I photograph, change the way I interact with people and the way I document people or tell stories.
As a Black photojournalist, Ézé Amos experienced with urgent clarity the summer of protests for George Floyd and against systemic police brutality. From being shot at with rubber bullets, to marching with chanting crowds, the responsibility of being an artist and a human being was immediately apparent in his practice of photography. In one instance, Ézé was photographing a line of police officers when he overheard plans to round up Richmond protesters. Returning to these protesters, he decided to warn them of the impending raid. “I’m not neutral. I’ll be telling you a big lie if I tell you I go to these events photographing this protest as a neutral. Yes, my profession tells me I should just take the photo and tell the story. But where is that story coming from? From what perspective? Last I checked, I’m still Black.”
WTJU: You're listening to WTJU Charlottesville. We talked to Ézé Amos for a new COVID-19 arts exhibition titled, “We Hope This Art Finds You Well.” Ézé shares what he's been reflecting on when it comes to photography and his plans for taking his practice back to his art making roots.
ÉZÉ AMOS: It is and has always been the elements of storytelling. I mean, I grew up in that culture and I remember loading the first roll of black and white film. I still tell friends that the best photos I've ever taken in my entire life was one of the few photos that came out of that black and white photo. It's a photo of my nephew. So I had my nephew was standing right next to my window. So I just started photographing him. How I got that shot, I still do not know. I just, all I did was focus and that photo turned out to be one of the best thing I've ever done. For me, I think art should just be art. It just happens. It just flows organically. It just happens. And that's what I'm trying to rediscover. I'm trying to rediscover the ignorance of my early photography days.