My roots are the biggest part of my inspiration. I wanted to photograph something I could relate to. Something that was part of me and that a lot of people neglect to see in a positive way-- skin tone.

All skin tones are beautiful, but the one I wanted to portray are the darker ones. As a dark skin toned girl myself, I’ve lived in Europe my whole life. All I see in the media are fair to light skin. I think it's time for the darker ones to shine. What better way to put black on white?

This initially started as a school project but now it’s much more than that. I will never stop photographing black people. The people I choose are not models. I did not want them to model anything but their bare skin. Beautiful and vulnerable. In between shots and I was able to capture those real and raw smiles and we remembered that Black is Beautiful.