Behind the Lens with Johanne Rahaman

"I try to teach, to pass on that knowledge to preserve who you are and the stories that we tell between each other. That's so important to protect."

Trinidad-born and Miami-based documentary photographer Johanne Rahaman has been examining urban and rural spaces in Black communities throughout the state since 2014 for her project BlackFlorida. To get an understanding about the project, her work and the impetus behind it all, go behind the lens with her in this intimate video and informative interview as featured on The New Tropic. 

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A clip of the published article is below:

What got you started on your journey with documentary photography, and how did that become this project, BlackFlorida?

I started doing photography in 2002, and I wasn’t really quite sure what I wanted to photograph. I didn’t have a clear direction. But I knew that I liked photography and I started shooting in Wynwood before it was Wynwood, before it became what it is now, and would spend many days just walking around there. I left Miami in 2006 for Woodstock, New York, and I stayed there for about four years and moved back in 2010. And I’ve been here since. I always feel like an outsider in Miami even though I’ve lived here for 20 years total.

I was homesick for Trinidad and the only place that reminded me of where I grew up, Laventille Hills, was Liberty City. So I started coming home from work, I’d change, and get in the car and drive to Liberty City. And I started photographing. It was more like nostalgia for home. In the process of trying to capture the nostalgia, I felt this need to go a little further away from the city, and I ended up in Pahokee. 

I started to connect with people in a different way and I would spend so much time just talking with them and finding similarities other than just the visual or the obvious. And I wanted more. I wanted to see more. I was showing the images online, on Instagram and people would reach out to me and say, “Hey, you know you need to go to this community. You need to go to that one because of this narrative of the Black community there.” They’d tell me the history of this place, the history of that place. 

The Black community really guided me through what I needed to photograph. And so by the end of 2015, I was doing the work, I was creating the images because I was interested in it. I was enjoying it and it sparked my curiosity, but I didn’t really have a name for it because I wasn’t trying to create a project. That’s when I called it BlackFlorida, because that’s what it was.

The further away from Miami I went, the further away I wanted to go. I’ve reached as far as Jacksonville and Key West. I’ve made so many connections with people who have become a lot like family to me.

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