 One of my younger cousins wanted to start a blog at one point and she did not think she was beautiful because she was brown. So I picked up my camera and like had it in her face all the time. I wanted her to see how powerful showing herself to the world could be and seeing what other people see. My name is Whitney Mitchell, and by day I work as the director of social media at a boutique marketing agency, but then outside of that I'm a photographer and I'm a collaborative artist. Tumax always has been rooted in music, art, closing kicks, so that's where the max comes from. My younger cousin and I started with a Twitter handle. Two weeks later she was like, I don't wanna do this. And I didn't have a Twitter handle, so I took it. From there I started really wanting to take pictures of my friends, specifically that cousin. There are so many layers to them that I love expressing with the textures, the backgrounds and the walls and foliage that comes down in our pretend fall. Just making sure that my friends can see how beautiful the city is around them, with them in it. I was born and raised on Staten Island. I lived there until I was 17, and then I moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and I ran track at LSU. I mean I had this really poetic career ending injury. It made me realize that I had to take life seriously and that I wasn't just one thing, that I had more layers and more to give to the world from there. I moved back home, and then I moved back to New Orleans for a dude, and then that's all she wrote. I was doing work in the community, and so I met a lot of the people who have been born and raised here, who are never going anywhere, don't wanna go anywhere, and so prideful about their city, that it made me realize I had tapped into something that was super special and I couldn't just leave it. I haven't given New Orleans back that freedom that it gave me. When I'm behind the camera, there is no expectation of what I'm gonna create because nobody knows what I'm creating until they see the end product. People allow me a permission that they sometimes don't allow themselves. I never actually wanted to make a livelihood over my art, I just wanted to have it so that I can release and remind myself that I was human. It transitioned from being art to content, which I hate. That's when I was like, oh well, this could be another arm to pay off my student loans. I'm forever thankful because I feel like these layers that we pull back allow us to discover new people and new versions of ourselves and new avenues to make money. I often, when I was growing up, felt like that people performed as characters, whereas here, people are a character. There's a flamboyant spirit that is ushered through everybody here, and it's almost an expectation like, are you letting go? It's Mardi Gras. That is the one time in the city that I feel like everybody commits to letting go. But for some reason, the spirit gets all of it in my bones and I just like, go crazy. The spirit of New Orleans is how are you celebrating amongst your peers? How are you communing with your tribe? It's easier in New Orleans because we have the space for it and we bring out the best in each other. Everything is community here. When people celebrate, it is with the community. When people are grieving, it is with the community. That is what keeps me rooted in this city. We're in a time now where everybody is experiencing all different types of cultures, even within the black community. And so it's my responsibility to make sure that I am not coming here and impeding on the avenues of growth or expression that were built before I got here. I've only been here only for 12 years. To some people that sounds like a long time to New Orleans, that ain't nothing. It's a drop in a bucket. I got a long way to go before New Orleans embraces me as somebody that champions the city. My role right now is somewhat of a gateway to connecting to the people who really contribute to the fabric of the city.