“It’s not about what the camera sees in the lens, it’s about what your eye captures before you take the picture.” - Antione Lacey 

What is my muse? Whenever I think about my muse, I think about what inspires me on an artistic and spiritual level. I’m inspired by artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Maya Angelou, Spencer Charles, and many others in my list of inspiration. As a muse, I also define my blackness and the measures I took as an artist to get to where I’m at right now. My blackness is my identity whether it’s produced with poetry or with my artistic expression. I created this photographic project to express the different levels of blackness. There are many levels to blackness, but I’ve only selected three of them.  These three sections are black pain, black joy, and black love.