I captured this photo while walking the streets of Brooklyn back in May.

If you walk around New York City, you will find similar messages inscribed on walls, sidewalks, or any surface within human reach.

Abolish ICE. Melt ICE. ICE out of [INSERT CITY HERE].

This image has been sitting in my drafts for months because each time I begin to write, I am bombarded with news that is more appalling than what I read the day before. I have also felt a consistent and paralyzing overwhelm and anger that oftentimes leaves me at a loss for words.

I know many reading this feel the same.

But channeling that overwhelm and anger into words and nonviolent action—especially in the face of an administration that wants to intimidate us into silence and thirsts for excuses to escalate violence—remains one of our most powerful forms of resistance.

You may feel afraid, and that is completely understandable, because these are frightening times. But do not allow that fear to enable silence and complicity.

In moments like this, ensuring calls for justice and accountability are heard is essential.

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On Saturday, January 24th, I opened Instagram to a video of a man in Minneapolis being swarmed, physically assaulted, and fatally shot by federal agents.

That man was 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen and intensive care unit (ICU) nurse whose family remembered him as a "kind-hearted soul" who cared deeply for the patients he served at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Care System.

Immediately following Pretti’s death, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller labeled Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin,” language that Vice President JD Vance amplified in reposting Miller’s statements. Now former Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino said this was “a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

The Department of Homeland Security asserted that Pretti was armed and “violently resisted,” forcing agents to fire “defensive shots.”

Later reports found that Pretti had a legal concealed carry permit, but video analysis by The Washington Post found that federal agents had disarmed Pretti and secured his handgun moments before multiple shots were fired. Witnesses at the scene confirmed that Pretti never brandished the weapon.

Subsequent analyses by multiple major news organizations further undermined the administration’s account, revealing a widening gap between official statements and the evidence available to the public.

Despite these analyses, the Trump administration and other elected officials took a step further in attempting to use Pretti’s possession of a firearm to justify his killing.

But the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups have pushed back, affirming that the legal possession of a firearm is not justification for law enforcement to use lethal force on an individual.

This horrific incident occurred less than three weeks after a federal agent fatally shot another U.S. citizen in Minneapolis, 37-year-old Renée Good.

Trump administration officials similarly labeled Good as a “domestic terrorist,” with Vance claiming that the officer who fatally shot Good had “absolute immunity.”

A private autopsy report—corroborated by a visual investigation from The New York Times—showed that Good was shot three times, with the fatal third shot being fired not through the front, but through the driver’s-side window.

What followed in both cases was not transparency or accountability, but a coordinated effort to control and obstruct any attempts at thorough investigations.

In the wake of Good’s death, six federal prosecutors in Minnesota reportedly resigned after senior officials at the Department of Justice pressed for a criminal investigation into the widow of Renée Good, were reluctant to investigate the federal officer who shot and killed Good, and refused to include local and state authorities in any investigation. An agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigations who sought to investigate the officer reportedly resigned after bureau leadership in Washington pressured her to discontinue a civil rights inquiry into the officer.

Federal officials again excluded local and state authorities from participating in an investigation following the killing of Pretti.

Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension reportedly took highly unconventional steps to gain access to the scene of the shooting and related evidence, obtaining a judicial search warrant and an emergency court order from a Trump-appointed federal judge who barred federal officials from destroying evidence from the case.

According to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Minneapolis protestors against Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and other homeland security officials, a woman who filmed the shooting from just behind Pretti expressed intense fear of being detained due to her proximity to the scene.

“I feel afraid. Only hours have passed since they shot a man right in front me, and I don’t feel like I can go home because I heard agents were looking for me. I don’t know what the agents will do when they find me. I do know that they’re not telling the truth about what happened.”

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The defamation of victims, intimidation and detention of witnesses, insistence that the public must blindly trust the state, and the obstruction any independent investigation are textbook tactics of authoritarianism that should alarm Americans across the political spectrum.

But this is certainly not the first time the American government has justified violence against its own citizens.

It is not lost on me that George Floyd was murdered in this same city just over five years ago, a moment which further fueled the Black Lives Matter movement that built on a centuries-long plea demanding the basic humanity that Black and brown Americans have long been denied.

Nor is it lost on me that Black Americans have warned, long before this moment, that unchecked state power does not remain contained.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his Letter From a Birmingham Jail, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. … Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly,” a reminder that violence and injustice tolerated against one group inevitably spreads beyond it. Langston Hughes more firmly wrote, “We are the people who have long known in actual practice the meaning of the word Fascism.”

It is worth remembering how quickly the response to George Floyd’s murder in 2020 turned toward defamation, and how that defamation persists years later. His life was and continues to be placed on trial, as if any of it excused being asphyxiated beneath a police officer’s knee for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store.

Floyd’s family and friends remembered him as a loving father and a gentle presence in their lives, but those remembrances were drowned out by narratives designed to make his death more palatable by stripping him of his humanity.

In the aftermath of the killings of Alex Pretti and Renée Good, family, friends, and other community members shared similar accounts of their goodness. Their instinct is completely understandable, especially in the face of baseless smear campaigns carried out by the Trump administration.

But whether it is George Floyd, Renée Good, Alex Pretti, Keith Porter Jr., Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, or anyone else unjustly killed by state violence whose names we may never know, we must ask ourselves, is simply being human not enough? Are rights and lives not worth protecting unless we personally approve of the character of the victims?

When the cries of “Black Lives Matter” became louder in 2020, so too did “All Lives Matter.” On its face, to proclaim that All Lives Matter, and to put that belief into action, is revolutionary in a world where some lives are more valued than others.

But this phrase was not used by individuals who expressed a genuine, universal concern for all of humanity or a desire to deeply understand the experiences of those different than themselves.

Rather, it was created as a direct rebuttal to Black Lives Matter and represented a refusal by much of the country to look itself in the mirror and confront the lasting, disproportionate harm we have collectively caused against Black and brown people, against our fellow Americans. As if the value of life was a zero-sum game.

I continue to challenge proponents of “All Lives Matter” because today—now that violence from ICE, CBP and federal agents acting on behalf of this administration’s directives has become increasingly expansive, impacting citizens and non-citizens, veterans, pregnant women, families, children, and those who pose no threat to public safety—those same individuals are quick to find reasons to justify the loss of human life, rather than scrutinizing the violence and abuse of power behind it.

We should all be outraged by the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. But our outrage cannot stop there. If all lives truly matter, then the lives and humanity of immigrants—documented or undocumented—matter. The lives of people with criminal records, including citizens and non-citizens alike, matter. Past mistakes, immigration status, or perceived humanity cannot be used as excuses for violence. And we cannot only feel outrage and call for justice when atrocities are captured on video, reflected in headlines, or when they fall under the watch of our perceived opponents.

Those who find reasons to deem certain humans expendable, or only take action in moments of comfort and convenience, do not truly believe that all lives matter.

We all must look at and listen to the world around us more deeply and take tangible, unrelenting action, however one can, towards protecting and preserving human life, and confronting the people and systems who devalue it. This is especially true for those of us who can “choose to stay out of politics,” those whose lives largely benefit from and are protected by the systems in place.

Dr. King warned that “we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words of the bad people and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people.” Silence, he understood, is a choice that allows injustice to mutate and metastasize.

History will not judge us by the words or phrases we repeated, but by the moments when we chose to speak, or when we chose to remain silent.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my piece.

If you found what you read to be interesting, please consider liking and sharing the piece with others, and I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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Underexposed by Brian Edsall

Underexposed brings visibility to the people and stories that go overlooked and under explored, with the goal of deepening our understanding of the human experience.

I turned 30 years old this past January, and though I hope to have many more decades of life on this Earth, time feels more precious and scarce than ever before. The days feel shorter and the years feel faster.

Accompanying the feeling of passing time are these pressing questions: Who do I want to be? What impact do I want to have on the world? Am I doing enough?

These questions have become my North Star, illuminating a path forward in what often feels like darkness and confusion. They also provide me with a sense of direction when I go astray.

In reflecting upon my work from this past year, I believe that I often lost sight of my North Star. This is not to say that I regret any of my work. Pushing myself beyond a studio setting to practice street photography, for example, has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my photography journey. I feel more connected than ever before to the city I call home.

Still, I felt myself backing away from heavy issues or more time-intensive stories in favor of work that was easier to produce in a shorter amount of time. I joined Substack in an effort to escape the quick-turn, surface level work that floods so many other platforms, yet found myself returning to those bad habits.

Underexposed is not a far departure from my intentions with Aspects of Life. My work remains centered on human stories and lived experiences. But I felt the need to refocus the framing of my work to, in turn, refocus myself.

Underexposed brings visibility to the people and stories that often go overlooked and under explored, with the goal of deepening our understanding of the human experience.

The work I’m pursuing can be best understood through one of my inspirations, Gordon Parks, who called the camera his “choice of weapons.”

“I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs,” he said. “I knew at that point I had to have a camera.”

Parks’ words are a constant reminder that a camera is not just a tool for making images. It’s a tool for paying attention, for witnessing, and for honoring people who are too often unseen. That is the direction I want my work to move toward, knowing it requires focus, patience, and steadfast effort. Through this work, I hope to contribute in some small way to creating a culture that sees more clearly and cares more deeply.

I see this moment as a particularly important yet complex one for photography and society more broadly. On one hand, we have more access and exposure to information than ever before. Yet this reality is muddled by the fact that we are simultaneously bombarded with advertisements, misinformation, AI slop, propaganda, and content creators—all in an intense battle for our attention.

As wrote, “There was a time when a single photo could stop a war. Now, a photo of a child under rubble competes with brand ads and beach selfies. Even the truth can’t go viral without an algorithm’s blessing. The value of the photograph is collapsing—not because it means less, but because it costs more and reaches fewer.”

HKH’s Substack

Gaza: What’s Left to Shoot When No One’s Looking?

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10 months ago · 15 likes · 7 comments · Hawre Khalid

These conditions augment the importance of intention and compel me to ask how my work can cut through the noise, not in scale or quantity, but in substance. What stories deserve the time and care that our increasingly fast-consuming world often overlooks?

These realities become especially troubling as the media is under attack, and expert analysis is replaced by rage bait, hot takes, and paid actors. As the power and presence of the press diminishes, chasms form where stories and experiences—those of hope as well as those of struggle—are left in darkness.

It is easy, even understandable, to want to turn away from this overwhelm. But those in the position to do so have the responsibility to shine light into those chasms. As James Baldwin wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

Looking ahead, Underexposed will feature work that reflects the depth and attention these stories deserve.

Some stories will confront injustice; others will illuminate joy, hope, or the quiet experiences that rarely make headlines. All will offer a slower, more attentive lens rooted in curiosity rather than judgment.

The hope is that these stories don’t stay on the page, but accompany readers into their own encounters. Ultimately, Underexposed aims to challenge perceptions, expand perspectives, and bring us closer to seeing the humanity we share.

I’m excited to bring a renewed sense of passion and clarity into my work. If I can improve one life, or open the heart of one individual, it will all be worth it.

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