“My favorite sports are football, baseball, and wrestling. I like to play video games and watch T.V. I like people. I have a girlfriend. I asked her to marry me, and she said yes. We will be getting married on February 18, 2005.
My life is perfect with her. I mean ever since I got with her I stopped fighting. I quit all the stuff I used to do and just put all my time with her. I mean if she wants me to I mean . . . sometimes I just put stuff down like if I gotta do something - like go visit somebody - I put that aside just for her 'cause I love her so much. I done told her at the beginning I'd do anything for her. I'd put anything aside for her and that's what basically I've been doing. I treat her like she's my queen. I would rather put her first than I go first. So it's like I told her when every time I get money or something I give it all to her - 'I don't want none of it, it's all for you.' And that's what I've been doing lately.”
—Robert
Dawoud Bey’s series Class Pictures started from a sequence of portraits the artist captured during his 1992 residency at the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Andover. Over the next 15 years Bey took portraits of high school students across the United States aiming to collect the diverse faces of a generation from different backgrounds. Each sitting took 45 minutes and began with the subject writing a brief autobiography before posing in front of the photographer’s camera. Bey only read their personal statement after the session and this text appeared alongside each portrait in the published book.
Regarding this series, Bey said that he wished 'to create a compelling and significant contemporary portrait of American youth in its various social and human dimensions. I believe that such a group of photographs-with the attendant texts-will constitute a significant record and examination of our time... Rather than viewing young people through a lens of social problematics that generalizes the individual, I intend to make a rich and complex description of these subjects.’
