We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Milton Pitts a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Milton, thanks for joining us today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?
So I actually have a regular job. It’s cool to be stable, I don’t want anyone to think you can just jump into photography or any art media and money just pops out. That being said, being a creative is something I enjoy more that anything in my life
Like it’s to the point I have days where I sit at my desk and just stare for 20 minutes plus. I have thought’s like ‘” I didn’t like x photo edit, what more can I add” or “what series should I work on next? Where is my next location? Who can I hit up to get a shoot with?” This is EVERYDAY, also 8 hours on my 8 hour shift.
If I could give up this job, working in IT as a black man. Beating the statistics that people said I couldn’t beat. Give it all up just to make small moments in time for me someone greatest moment with a simple photo, I’d give it all up in a heartbeat.
But, you got to be stable right. So as much as I want that dream, I got to keep working on my name to get there. So, until then my happiness when creating has to sometimes take a back burner to put food on my table.
Milton, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Milton Pitts. I am a Marine Corps vet, Detroit Native, self taught Photographer who specializes in Monochromatic Photos.
My photos try to represent and pull emotions from the black community. I believe that taking the colors out of pictures are some of the hardest pictures to take. The reason being you are only left with the lighting and the emotion of your subject.
I try to bring a sense of reflecting our trues selves in my photos. Growing up in Detroit I didnt really get to show emotions. It was either stand strong or fall to anything. The photos I take, I try to allow for my subjects to release that emotion. Be it happiness, anger, fear, ect.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
I want to put one of my photos at this place called the Carr Center and take my mother and father to see it.
I’ve recently have been finding success being a new name in getting my photos in galleries. It’s cool when you can work on something and see your hard work be appreciated. But, for me I would love to have a piece in one of the best galleries in Detroit. To me, the would signify that I made it as an artist. Outside the DIA, I feel like if you are one of the greats in Detroit, you get to touch those walls.
When I do make it there, I want my mother and father to see it. My dad gave up both the Army and going to college to make sure I had a male figure in my life. My mom, she’s the one that told me never follow a path that others want you to take, follow the path that YOU feel is right.
Being able to show them that their son beat thee odds and made something of himself, That….. that would just mean everything for our legacy for me.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
The hardest lesson that any angry kid in the hood has to unlearn or fall to the hood, “You can do everything by yourself.”
I won’t say I was a star child. Growing up I didn’t really have an outside support system outside of family. When you try to make friends and they turn on you for any little thing; showing off for a female, trying to be hard when you not, feeling like you need attention. Let’s just say you become numb and isolated.
Then throw that same kid into the world and have him realize he’s not truly accepted, you become a loner. You start to believe you have to take the world on alone.
Took me years of realization that no one can move in this world alone. Took a lot of reaching out to people and saying “I’m not ok, I’m drowning.” I got over that hump and got to this thing I love because of the people that helped me learn that lesson.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: millz_unfiltered
- Linkedin: https://linktr.ee/MillzUnFiltered?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=98e30681-f107-4f61-8529-56035a8d7cdd
