Artists in conversation: Shedrick pelt

Some people’s catalog of work you can just look at and feel privileged to experience its development in realtime. That is the level of respect I have for Shedrick Pelt’s photography and perspective he shares through the camera. A photojournalist, Shedrick’s produced work for The Washington Post, Washington Informer, and many more media outlets large and small. Pelt’s eye seems to find the perfect moments to capture with a particular finesse. Of course, cameras today allow you to snap a number of photos at a thousandth of a second, but the curation and intention of the photography also separates a picture taker from a photographer. From his documentation of the protests for Palestine and the White House to his perspective of everyday life - Pelt’s visual storytelling is a historian’s dream. They just don’t know it yet — or maybe they do?

I first met Shedrick in 2021 at his Look Hear Exhibit at Dupont Underground in Washington, DC. This was also the same exhibit where I met my friend Richard Williams, who was also presenting, for the first time in real life. When I returned from my move to New York in 2024, I knew I wanted to have an in-depth conversation about photography and the opportunity came when he put a call out for a writer for New York Minute.

Aside from our love of photography, we share a couple of other things in common as well. Shedrick and I are southerners - him growing up between Alabama and my being born and mostly raised in South Carolina. New York transformed us both, the same way its transformed millions of others, and that forms the crux of our conversation as we talk about his book New York Minute coming out in May. Shedrick moved to New York in 2009 and stayed until 2017, staying in Jersey City for a few months before relocating to Harlem. Those ten years, and my much shorter two, give us much to discuss, which I’ve condensed into some few key points.

PHOTOGRAPHY

T: What parts of photography do you find most exciting?

S: The opportunity to relive the moment I think it's important because everything's so fleeting and and even in my life. I try to think back of moments that like That were exciting to me at the time 10, 15 years ago and they're very vague now. The longer I stretch out from them the more vague they get right and I don't have a lot of photos from back then Um, and so I think the opportunity to relive moments and go back right and capture and freeze those moments. I think is the most important part. You know, if we separate it from  capturing a historical aspect of the moment - just freezing the moment so that you can relive it I think is a big part of what photography means to me and also I really and what I want this book to showcase too is like the craft. I really love the craft. I really enjoy going out and making a fucking photo. You know what I'm saying? I really challenge myself to compose something that is beautiful, right? Not only just capture the moment and freeze it but also compose it in a way that is beautiful and like striking, right and captures the essence like right now. I could take a photo of you and I take a photo of your eyes because you have strong eyes, right? And like I would

I would challenge myself to capture that because that would be a beautiful photo.

T: These photos are very personal to you Do you spend a lot of time taking personal photography or do you spend more time like doing like professional stuff?

S: It's one and the same. It's one and the same because Also, like the work the type of work the work the work I do and the reason I've fallen into the work I do and I'm so passionate about it and do so much of it. Um Even when I don't get paid is because the work also offers me something as a person, right? When I capture these communities that I capture when I capture these subjects I capture when I step into these protests I capture I'm also creating the under more understanding about how I see the world too. It's not just going out to capture it just as an assignment. I'm trying to understand like What what do I want to understand more about the Palestinian resistance, right? And how that interacts with the black resistance, right? How do I want to understand more last week last week? I, on assignment I photographed a Holocaust survivor, right this 96 year old Holocaust survivor. So I was able to sit down and understand this story from this woman that is a century old Who is one of the very few? I mean there's a handful of those people left, you know, and so Yeah, it's it's it's very important My my life is running parallel With the stories that I capture, giving me so much insight into who I am and what I want to be and what I want my kids to be in the future and like what I love and like what's important to me as well, you know, I'm saying. So it's a lot of it. Some of it is very self-serving like I'm there for me sometimes, you know and I'm also there or what I'm trying to to amp the stories. I'm trying to amplify

T: It’s interesting that you bring that up because a lot of I've seen photographers suggest that there has to be some degree of separation as a photographer versus being a part of something. We've all seen the image with the starving baby and being eaten by a bird and people ask “well, what did you do after you took the photo?" It was like, well, that's not my call or something like that but it sounds to me like, you know, you immerse yourself into this experience, you know, I just a voyeur. I like that approach.

S: I think that's something that is sort of lost on journalists nowadays, right? Like I see a lot of in my field and and and I'm not critiquing anybody and what they do because everybody does what they do but I want to be more than just a picture taker. I want to be a photojournalist in every single sense. You know, I'm saying I want to be like I said, that's why I align with historian because I'm gathering these stories. I'm archiving. I'm capturing. I’m creating dialogue around these stories. I'm not just taking them and throwing them in a on a hard drive, right? I'm trying to understand what what what the moment is about and so In it all again, it all comes back to me trying to understand more about myself as well. I'm gonna be more than just a picture taker.

WRITING AND PURPOSE

T: Let’s get into these writings. So there's haikus throughout the book. You wrote those yourself, right?

S: Yep.

T:What inspired you to incorporate poetry and writing into the book? That's different.

S: I also want my work in a digital sense - I want my work to outlive the algorithm, right? I want people to digest my art and I want it to sit with them. I want them to take this with them and take away with them and I also want to give texture to my work more so than just post a picture and then a week later we've forgotten about it. Or drop a book where people flip through it, look at the pictures, and sit it down and never pick it back up. You know what I'm saying?

I want them to read these haikus and stop and absorb that. Absorb those words. Maybe they can find something for themselves within that, right? I wanted to I want to give more than just a photo and the haikus also fall in line with my love for this traditional idea of Japanese culture. Coming from the South, everything about me is about tradition, right? And I think the Japanese culture also is very connected to tradition. So you know, ikigai is another huge element to this book which loosely means a reason for being and so I wanted to add another texture to that and go further which which is why I added the haikus.

T: That makes sense. They're very well written. Um, and I agree with this. This why I add a lot of words when I put the books I produce have a lot more writing in it. I feel like writing was my first love. It was my first love before photography at least.

S: I admire writers because I'm not a writer and I admire the beauty that you can create in words because I can write something and I can put my stuff next to a writer and it ain't the same. I can get something down on paper with correct exclamation points and periods, but it ain't like a writer, you know what I'm saying? So when you see a writer that is a writer and can write it's - I love that. It can transport people. I’m not like a book reader either and I love the romance of just being able to sit down and grab a book and read a book from from front to back. Words were here before there were visuals obviously, right? Well, not necessarily.

T: Well, the eyes.

S: Yeah the eyes.

T: Before anybody could like make an image.

S: Yeah, there were words and people were describing the world in words and you had to use your imagination based on the words that were given to you.  People have written words that were so beautiful that you don't even want to see a picture of what they're writing about because the visual that you get from the words could never measure up to any picture you take, you know, I'm saying I feel like that was fine or whatever you paint.

T: I think including words to kind of like break up and you know give people more I think photo books nowadays. My relationship with photography  has been strained for the past few years because of the genocide and it just doesn't feel as important to be honest.

NEW BOOK, NEW YORK MINUTE

T: What do you hope people get from the book?

S: I think with what's going on in the world -I think -  I hope first and foremost it can give them a break. It can give them something that can take them off or whatever path they're on, even just for a moment and transport them into, another moment that is less uh aggressive, less threatening, you know, I'm saying less confining you know. Hopefully gives them some whimsy with the way motion and emotion is is weaved into this book. I hope it gives people insight into somebody else's mind.

You know, just take you know takes them away from whatever stressful moments they may be in. And I'm hoping yeah, I'm hoping gives people I'm hoping to give people a moment

T: It definitely gave me a moment. I love New York. So romantic like just looking at the photos kind of took me back like I said, especially looking at Chinatown Just the busyness of the underground the streets. I miss it so bad that's why I was trying to go back with this interview yesterday that didn't happen.

S: Yeah, and thats what's great about it. It's it's it's waiting on you whenever you're ready whenever you can it's waiting on you and it's not going anywhere. I don't think anytime soon unless the world shrivels up.

T: Well, I mean Eric Adams. He might do something. I think we'll fuck it up

S: He might not be there much longer himself for what it looks like.

T: I think he's safe.

S:Yeah.

T: Unfortunately. I mean, we'll see. Time will tell.

S: We know what it is. But ultimately, New York is always waiting for you and I think that's also a sense about this book for even me myself. It's like it's there for me. Anytime I'm ready to go back. It's there to it'll welcome me back because anytime I show back up it's like ––

T: It falls back in place, right?

S:  I haven’t missed a beat. I get back on my feet and I know I hit the train I hit this I'm going here. I hit this block. I know how to move

T: Yes!

S: And that's a sense of pride too because not everybody can move in New York.

T:I love that feeling so much when I get off the bus or the train at Moynihan and it’s like “I’m back!”

S: You didn’t miss a beat.

T: New York is so lovely like that. I'm going back. I'm going on Friday. I'm going back on Monday

S: Make some fucking photos, man. Yes.

T: Got it. I’m definitely going to make photos. Interestingly enough, I don't know if going back to New York is the best thing for me right now given like the price of it because every time I think about what it would take to sustain New York. I'm like, “oh never mind.” Yeah But I do think Chicago is the next place to go. I think there's so much history and stories there that a lot of people not tapped in with and I think Chicago is just the city with so much richness that's just waiting to burst open.

S: Going back to New York top three moments in New York. Oh man.

T: I'm pretty sure the other moments aren't going to get offended if you don't remember them at the moment.

S: Um, damn! See this is also what I'm talking about when I say like  things from the past for me are just like fogging over the further I get away from them, you know.

T: Oh, that's time for sure.

S: That’s time. Um, hold on. All right. Let me let me pull it in. Okay. My first moment - 2012,2011 - I'm living in Hoboken, New Jersey but I've gone to Dallas, Texas to go door to door selling home security systems because I was still broke and trying to make my way. So I had an opportunity to go to Dallas, Texas and sell these home security systems door to door. While I'm in Texas my entire apartment burns down in Hoboken and I actually watch my entire apartment burn down from a news story.

T: Holy shit. With all your stuff in it?

S: With all my stuff in it - everything. Every photo I had from high school, every article of clothing I had, every shoe I had. An entire building burned down so that is probably one moment that really stands out to me because it also felt like a cleansing, right?

T: Like because I was looking for the positivity. I was looking for the good stuff.

S:I’m like, I was so attached to these things that I felt like maybe they were even like a little bit of a crutch to me. But once those things were sort of off me I felt a little freer and like there was a little bit of weight from taking off and it It caused you know, when you literally thrown into the fire. You learn how to adjust and I think that taught me a lot about moving forward and not letting things weigh on you too much. So I think that was a really big part of my growth as a young man was losing everything.

I think moving to Harlem was also a big thing because until I moved to Harlem I wasn't really tapped into an intellectual side of Blackness.  I knew I was Black. I had a Black family.  But the intellectual side of like Black faces who really changed the world Was really impressed upon me living in such a black space with such black history like Harlem, New York. You start talking about the Black Renaissance in Harlem, you start about Black thinkers and like people that were really part of like changing  Black culture and changing the Black idea from just like people people that were forced into slavery to like people that were really changing fashion and like science and like all these things right. Moving to Harlem really gave me a better understanding of my own blackness And that was amazing for me, right? And that was I very much needed that and that also changed the way I see the world and my connection to my people.

ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

Similar to our love of photography, our New York stories end as we both chose our ambitions over the hustle of making New York living work. Shedrick lived in the city for 10 years before deciding to move forward with his life, taking all of the lessons with him. On New Years Eve at 4 a.m watching the sunrise from a rooftop with his friend Fred, he decided his time in the city was up. “That moment, I decided I was gonna make a decision for myself,” he said. Talking with Fred about what mattered to them, he saved money for three months before he taking a three week trip to Germany and resettling in DC where he’s currently based.