"In protest, there is community and joy rising

Headlines will have you believe that protest is violence and mutiny. Protest is many things. Love is at the foundation of most of them."

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/12/02/metro/protest-there-is-community-joy-rising/

On the latest Open Studio with Jared Bowen, local photographers OJ Slaughter and Philip Keith discuss their work documenting activism and social issues via a more intimate perspective than traditional journalists. Philip Keith is a Providence-based photographer whose work has been featured in publications such as Bloomberg, Businessweek, The Guardian, and Rolling Stone. Boston photographer OJ Slaughter has been taking portraits and fashion photos since 2011, but has now turned their attention to grassroots organizing and photographing activism.

A lack of protections for—and an increase in domestic dangers to—photojournalists is becoming increasingly visible amid the pandemic and political rallies

Photographer and creative director OJ Slaughter uses their camera to tell primarily Black and Brown stories, from dreamlike, colorful portraits to black-and-white protest photography.

Slaughter, who identifies as a black, nonbinary (Slaughter’s pronouns are they/them), Jewish and queer person, struggled to find a sense of belonging during a small-town New Jersey upbringing. Taking photos of local subjects became their way of sending “a love letter.”