![]() Like Johnson, Kevin “Surf” Mitchell got involved with CEA as a teenager. “We are sharing stories of people who don’t look like each other but have that one thing in common.” The people in the book and film are “a diverse group,” he said. “It’s amazing that something we’ve been doing for 10 years as a curriculum – taking pictures, learning photography, interviewing people – has become a living documentary,” Pendergrass said. You can’t assume that if someone has tattoos, they’re violent or gang-affiliated.” ‘That one thing in common’īehind The Ink, in all its forms, reveals the stories behind the men and women of all ages, races and socioeconomic backgrounds who have used part of their body as a canvas.Ĭrystana Dutchess Lattimore & Ricky Lattimore – Image by Kevin Mitchell ![]() A lot of people have tattoos who you wouldn’t think would have them. “People’s stories about their tattoos are just as unique and powerful as mine,” Johnson said. When his schedule allows, he serves as a mentor at CEA, a nonprofit designed to mentor and empower youth by exposing them to the arts. Johnson has gone on to get more ink – he has 14 tattoos total – and has become a professional photographer. Now Behind The Ink has become a program, a coffee table book, a documentary film. Johnson’s rose tattoo was the first, or among the first, to be photographed. We might be at the YMCA for a class, walk into the hallway and see somebody coming out of the gym with a tattoo and say, ‘Hey, can we talk to you?’ And we started taking pictures of people’s tattoos and asking them to tell the stories behind them.” “I said, ‘Look, that’d be a great story to tell ,’ so we started doing these workshops.
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