“The Skin I’m In” asks the viewer to consider the dignity of individuals who self-identify as African, African American or from the wider African Diaspora in uniformly posed solo portraits taken in a luminous, romantic light. Each person is emerging from a black background in the tradition of the Italian painter Caravaggio, whose soft directional lighting gently highlighting the dimensionality of facial features, the tonality and texture of the skin. Symbolically, my subjects are stepping out of darkness filled with fear, misunderstanding and confusion into a rightful sense of identity.