“Take a ride through Baltimore, but go deep. Please don’t stop at the pretty neighborhoods advertised on ‘Visit Baltimore’ commercials and vacation sites, because that’s not deep,” D. Watkins writes in his essay in photographer Devin Allen’s new book Baltimore. “Head west. Keep going, way past the huge stadiums and the tall buildings that make up downtown. Keep going west, toward the sea of concrete that holds a collection of those collapsed houses that flash on news reports about the city’s crime. Don’t stop on the outskirts of the boarded-up communities, go deeper, keep going, into Devin Allen’s Baltimore.”
Devin Allen, and his photography, rose to fame in 2015 when one of his photographs appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine‘s May 11, 2015, issue. The photograph, in stark black and white, shows a lone protester running in front of an army of cops at a protest in the wake of the killing of Freddy Gray by Baltimore Police. He was only the 3rd amateur photographer to land the magazine’s cover at that time.
One can remember seeing that cover all over social media as soon as it hit the newsstands. And like the TIME cover suggested, it makes wonder if what I was seeing was 1968, or 2015. When covering the Black Lives Matter Protests in New York City, one could think of that, until that time, one had not seen anything like that. One could immediately look him up, find his Instagram, and have been following him ever since.
However, Allen’s work is much more than just that one moment. Since then, he has continued to photograph Baltimore. His photographs are more than just a documentation of the city. Many made collaboratively with his subjects, they delve much deeper. They show both moments of everyday life, interspersed with protests. They are street scenes and portraits. Moments of love and those of grief. But through it all is the community that binds it all together. Allen’s photographs are a tribute to Black resistance and a celebration of his community. They serve as a call for self-realization that allows for complexity, tension, and contradiction.
Allen’s work serves as both witness and mirror, reflecting moments of profound tension and resilience in America,” the books editor and Director of Programs at The Gordon Parks Foundation Michal Raz-Russo says. “His photographs of Baltimore are more than documentation of events—they capture, in his words, the ‘texture’ of community, the quiet strength of people navigating systemic inequities, and the hope and creativity that persist even in struggle. His work insists on the vibrancy, creativity, and humanity that persist regardless of circumstance, challenging the ways these communities are too often seen.”
In 2023 Allen was awarded the Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book Prize for his photographs, leading to this book. It spans his photographs from 2015 through 2023, and includes more than 100 photographs, many of them never published before. “Devin’s work shows us that beauty is a constant character. Doesn’t matter if we are fighting against police violence, dealing with the horrors of systemic racism or even living in a dictatorship — beauty is always a character,” Watkins says. “Devin has a talent of walking into the darkest places, carving past the trauma, and finding a beauty that everyone can enjoy and understand.”
Baltimoreis published in conjunction between Steidl and The Gordon Parks Foundation and can be purchased through the Steidl website here.
