Focused and Airborne

Orlando has a way of attracting people who are fully committed to something. Marcus was one of those people, a dancer at Walt Disney World who was also working toward a degree in social work, and that combination of artistry and purpose showed up in everything about him. The city was still new to me when we met, and he was one of the first people who made it feel like somewhere I actually lived.

We moved through several spots in a single day, starting easy and building toward something. The gardens near Lake Eola gave us color and quiet, and the skyline across the water gave us scale. Then Marcus changed clothes and the whole energy shifted. Downtown Orlando became a stage, from the iron gates to the fountain plaza to the marble colonnade where he left the ground entirely and the camera just had to keep up.

The Air Jordan 1s in black and red were a detail that seemed to say everything about him before he ever moved. Focused and completely alive at the same time. I had just arrived in a new city and did not yet know what kind of work we would make together, but this day gave me a very good idea.