Houston’s Northside Flea-Markets inspires a feeling of nostalgia, comfort, and charm. For the past few years I have been visiting these open air markets to document the essence through photography. After spending time working alongside visual journalist’s I realized my work was confined to the perspective of a visitor and sought to dive deeper and truly capture the experience of the people who work to make this market what it is today.
In February of 2023, I alongside a friend embarked on a journey to document these beloved markets by renting two booths alongside the merchants, calling it Studio D-18. D-18 is a portrait studio aimed at documenting all those who make this market what it is for their community, and their stories as they tell them. We work to document the merchants, patrons, families, evangelists, stray animals, lovers, beggars, hustlers, scammers, and everyone in between who exist in this micro-culture. Moreover, by opening Studio D-18 as a base of operations and offering professional services for an accessible price, we’ve thrown ourselves into the fray of business and commerce with all the politics and business management that the local merchants also deal with everyday. I’m no longer a visitor with a camera, but a participating member actively working to meet a market demand while also documenting the culture in a fuller context.
I’m approaching this from an anthropological perspective. My goal is to document the material culture, social organization, economy, scope of language, ideologies & religions, and social change over time that make up this distinct micro-culture. My lens is artistic, but objective; The narratives I document through conversation and interviews will be told directly by my neighbors, never spoken for them.
