Volume 1. The Beginning

All it took was some time, and a camera.

That’s all photography is…

At The Dojo we are based on our 3 C’s. Create, Collaborate, and Community. We are based and serve a community we live in and strive to make the places we live and work a better place.

In our first rendition of Royal Exposure we partnered with The Creative School of DC to pour into Queens and Kings of DC. Over the course of 8 months we took them through the basics of photography, model interaction, were fortunate enough to travel with the Creative School to Alabama where a curated Juneteenth photo shoot was put on by Queens and Kings of the program. Over the course of the program we worked with the National Arboretum for a special Juneteenth community photoshoot, The Martin Luther King Library for a once in a lifetime experience of photographing Andrew Young, and many other expericnces that were curated specifically for the Queens and Kings. The program culminated into a published book, below you will see some excerpts from it.

We look forward to many more iterations of Royal Exposure.

The question is simple, and asked to all Queens and Kings before we start a Royal Exposure program…. “Why do you want to create?”

Royal Exposure Excerpts

In our first rendition of Royal Exposure programing we partnered with The Creative School of DC to pour into Queens and Kings of DC by offering the Dojos Royal Exposure curriculum and programming. Over the course of 8 months we took them through the basics of photography, model interaction, were fortunate enough to travel with the Creative School to Alabama where a curated Juneteenth photo shoot which was put on by Queens and Kings of the program.

Over the course of the program we worked with the National Arboretum for a special Juneteenth community photoshoot, The Martin Luther King Library for a once in a lifetime experience of photographing Andrew Young, and many other expericnces that were curated specifically for the Queens and Kings. The program culminated into a published book, below you will see some excerpts from it.

We look forward to many more iterations of Royal Exposure provided to The Creative School of DC.

“What you’re looking at right now is a bit deceiving. If you flip through it too quickly you might just mistake it for a photo-book / photography website. To be honest, that’s what we thought it was at first. After nearly six months of studio sessions, photography classes, community-based photoshoots, and curriculum development meetings, we cobbled together a handful of the images that best communicated the collective brilliance of our Queens, Kings, and community members. More than a creative exercise, this book forced us to reflect on what it has meant to show up with young people in the midst of a pandemic and attempt to capture a new narrative together. But after weeks of editing, we realized it was missing something essential: the actual voices of our Queens & Kings.”

Vol 1 Intro- Words by Spn of The Creative School