I shot this photo back in 2013 at the Los Angeles Pride Festival.

I don’t know why, but I love taking photos of people when they are facing the other direction. Partly because I feel like I’m capturing their moment for a brief second, partly because I still get intimidated taking photos of random people on the street.

When I was looking through my photos the other day, I stumbled across this library from LA pride in my archives and as I looked through the photos they were of people of all races, all ages, and all different demographics. I remember back while I was shooting this event I didn’t even think about diversity in my photos because, at an event in Los Angeles like LGBTQ+ Pride, you don’t have to think about it. I wish the world was this way, where you didn’t have to think about it but unfortunately it’s not. We do have systematic racism in our country and people of color have had to endure a struggle that I cannot even fathom.

We really need to get our shit together and work together to fix the problems with have with racism in this country because, at the end of the day, diversity is important and Black Lives Matter.