Street photography in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Washington State, spanning the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the election of Joe Biden following the Trump presidency. The photographs below are excerpts from a self-published book titled “I’m perfect. You change.” The book is available here.

A week after the COVID-19 quarantine, I drove from Baton Rouge to New Orleans to see for myself what the silence and abandonment of the tourist areas of New Orleans felt like. The palpable absence of people reminded me of the months following Hurricane Katrina. On this occasion, I walked around Jackson Square with my camera when an Asian woman approached me with her hand extended for money. She said nothing. I asked her if I could take a photograph of her. Still she said nothing but stood waiting. After the photograph, I put a five dollar bill in her hand. The exchange was heart-breaking because of the irony between the message on her t-shirt and her forlorn appearance: nobody would change places with her to be as perfect as her shirt claimed.