IHEARTGRAIN
Southside, QGTM
“Just being myself and being jiggy with that shit…”
How’d you come up with your name?
IHG: I didn’t want to use my actual name, all of my friends are rappers and all have aliases so I came up with that. Grain is an effect you can put on your photos and I really gravitated to that effect, so it made sense.
How did you get into photography?
IHG: I was that friend who never wanted occasions to end. I would always record and take pictures to try to make the moment last and capture the memories. That's where it really began, trying to make things last forever.
Take me to your childhood, what were you like as a kid?
IHG: I was totally different as a kid, I was very shy, never really had much talents, just pretty much a big bookworm. I played a couple sports but I wasn’t really artistic.
What changed that?
IHG: High school really. My highs school was really big it had about 5 thousand kids so I was around a different group of people everyday. It opened me up to a different side of life. Like I said, at the time everything was about education at the time, so being around different kinds of kids created a spark. I started paying more attention to fashion. Me and my friends were getting fly off of discounted clothing and thrifted clothes and it started to give me a sense of identity. Then when I went away to college and I saw people secure and free in whatever it was they wanted to do it gave me confidence to be the same way.
So how did your family react to this process of you finding yourself?
IHG: Oh, they did not like it at all. I come from a very reserved Caribbean family so anything outside of education, like sports or the arts, they weren’t trying to hear any of that. It was the hardest thing getting them to understand beyond their ignorance to certain things. Eventually I just kept forcing it in their faces, being persistent, and when I didn’t fold they had to accept it. Which was recent, it wasn’t until I was 21.
So what were the things that started grabbing you and pulling you into the art world?
IHG: My inspos were different. I didn’t have the typical big inspirations growing up I just had to find things I liked. Then the freedom at Bridgeport was something that attracted me and then I came home and I was just surrounded by art and different styles and I tried to find where I fit in that space. I started to learn how important art really is, which I feel like is slept on. It’s extremely important.
“Now I’m not bothered by any of that stuff because August taught me how to vent.”
So you had many different artistic lanes you could’ve gone down, why at that time did you choose photography?
IHG: It was something I had always had an interest in, documenting things, and then nobody was really doing it at the time. I bought my first camera, a Nikon d7200 DSLR, and it was just like a magnet. It caught me. I was scared at the time, it was the biggest purchase I had ever made in my life, but I love that I took that leap.
So describe the moment where now you have the camera but you come outside and you’re “The Photographer”.
IHG: I brought it to school and I started taking pictures of my friends' fits, they were all fly. Then people saw me walking around with the big body camera and I think that’s when it started sticking to peoples minds. I realized I was onto something about a year and a half later, then I had the moment, the first Pearl Boysz shoot. That’s when I first actually captured a vision that I had in my mind effortlessly.
So what does it mean to you to be a part of the Pearl Boysz movement?
IHG: These are people I’ve known for almost 10 years now, we all impacted and influenced each other growing up. Honestly these guys are my biggest inspirations. So honestly, what it means to me to be a Pearl Boy is just being myself and being jiggy with that shit. That's what it does for me. We never followed trends, we just always tried to be us.
How has it helped you artistically?
IHG: Being around 5 other people who are so talented in their field had definitely propelled me in my field. Nobody only does one thing. Everybody picks up new skills and masters them so it just makes me push the envelope to work harder and be more creative.
What is your favorite shot so far?
$: Me and my friend went to Howard beach and shot in like this swamp land. It’s a portrait and it had the sunset in the back. He had just dyed his hair blond and had on a red Helmut Lang hoodie and the colors just popped.
What's your favorite part of photography?
IHG: The reaction and the joy people get. The feeling of seeing people watch their vision come true.
Where does IHEARTGRAIN go in the next few years?
IHG: I want to be published and I want to own my own dynamic studio, honestly. I want to lay the foundation of an empire and push more people to be comfortable behind the camera.
