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A dozen beautiful Black children made their way from backstage to the front of a crowd inside Blue Mark Studios on Atlanta’s westside. Dressed as princes and princes, angels and fairies, Cinderella, even cowboys and cowgirls, the children were living, breathing canvasses, human art.
The artists, Regis and Kahran Bethencourt, the husband and wife duo behind Creative Soul Photography, a Black-owned studio that is creating stunning images of Black children. Commissioned by Disney, invited on national television and radio shows and featured in the pages of newspapers in Atlanta, Creative Soul Photography held a fashion show in honor of their latest book, “Crowned: Magical Folk and Fairytales from the Diaspora”.
Having been released May 23, the book is full of images of Black children in both positive and empowering lights. Kahran once told The Atlanta Voice the idea of positively photographing Black youth was more of a duty than a business plans.
“It’s important for us because we often see so many negative stereotypes of Black youth in the media and we really use our photography and our platform as a way to combat those negative stereotypes,” she said. “These are the stories I feel are not being told, so we use our photography to showcase them.”
The show included a performance by young 12-year-old female rapper, Little Essence of Hip-Hop. Her single, “I’m So Fire,” had the crowd calling and responding to the music. A live DJ entertained the crowd in between performances.
At times the models were presented in pairs, one of which looked like twins. One princess wore a pink dress with a crown of what looked candy and donuts. A prince strolled down the aisle dressed in red with a gold crown. Another prince, dressed in a green jacket with gold trim (above) took his turn walking the catwalk. When he got towards the end of his walk, surrounded by people taking photographs, he turned and smiled. A prince in all of his glory.
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