New York City FC’s Post

Transcript

My name is Miles Lofton, I'm a freelance photographer and DJ based in Brooklyn, NY. I feel like the arena of sports, there aren't a lot of opportunities or exposure for queer people and queer artists. So I felt like it was a great opportunity to show my work to people who may not have seen something like that before. Soccer is something that I used to do when I was in middle school and a little bit in high school. So that was sort of. Something that made me even more encouraged to be a part of the collaboration with NYCFC. I think it'll be really cool to see people wearing the design. This is the first time I've ever really worked on something like this. You know, sharing on social media is one thing, but having it on someone's body is another thing. And I feel like so many people will see the work and, you know, maybe be encouraged to look at more of my art. And I think that's really exciting, the photograph that I've featured in the scarf design. There's an image from my thesis project. It's called In the Life. It's a project that I started in 2019 when I was studying abroad in London. And essentially the project was my attempt to, I guess, show a representation of everyday queer life, specifically Black queer life. It was something that I didn't see a lot in the media that I was consuming. I saw a lot of representations of Black queer people that focused on. The negative parts of our lived experience, or it was a representation that was sort of performative, not a lot of us just sort of existing and being as we are. And so I wanted to create these images that sort of focused on like the mundanity of life, but also making these images that felt very intimate that people could connect to, whether they are queer or not. And so the image that is on the scarf, I photographed that in LA. Is this couple, Their names are Ashley and Court. I spent most of the day with them just sort of hanging out. My approach with photographing this project was sort of like a fly on the wall. It's sort of a mix between like documentary and conceptual work where I sort of had a framework for how I wanted to photograph them, but I sort of let things happen as they did. And so this was sort of a moment between the two of them where we were on the street and they were. Daring and Embrace and I sort of came in with my camera and snapped a picture. It's one of my favorite photos of the two of them. For always being fed images. And I began to realize that those images have a deep effect on how we view ourselves and how we view the world. And as a photographer, you know, I have a large power to be able to at least influence in a in a small way how people view the world and view themselves. I hope that people feel some sort of connection to the individuals. That are in my work, I wanted to spark a curiosity for people who maybe this is their first time seeing a queer couple being intimate with each other and you know, now they're more interested in learning more about queer people and queer culture and that sort of thing. Or somebody who already, I swear and they see that and they see like, oh, this looks like me. This is like something that's familiar. This is something that makes me feel. But it makes me feel seen. I think both of those things are what I want people to take away from the work that I make.