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TIKA

@tikastudios.co

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creative director + photographer
Founder of @we.publication
CA | NYC
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Summer is officially over and I’ve been thinking about the time I spent documenting gifted artists of San Diego.

Photographing them for MCASD was one of the highlights of my season. I got to step into the spaces where their work takes shape and spend time with the people behind it.

Those photographs and stories now live in Giants of San Diego, Issue 02 of WÈ, the independent art and editorial publication I’ve been building.

Featuring Chata, Misty Hawkins, Maxx Moses, Christopher Lloyd Tucker, Manuelita Brown, and Stephen Williams. Photographed for @mcasandiego

@we.publication · Full issue at the link in bio by @tikastudios.co

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8

a month ago

&& then there was Misty Hawkins
whether @mhawkinsstudio knows it or not she taught me the phrase ‘beyond visual pleasure,’
the idea that art isn’t just meant to be looked at, it’s meant to evoke something in us as the ones creating it,
long before anyone else ever sees it.

Commissioned by @mcasandiego
Executive Producer: @_willamarj
Photography: @tikastudios.co
Producer: @lenashareef
Producer: @imani.cz by @tikastudios.co

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7

2 months ago

the Giants exhibit closed this week and I’m sitting with how full this whole experience was.

Chata was the first artist I photographed for Giants of San Diego. she was one of the sweetest, most thoughtful people I got to sit with through this entire project.

@chata_sdxca brought family with her to share the rich history of what La Jolla used to be, who it used to hold, before it became what it is now.

When she showed us the old photographs, it reminded me why family photos matter, especially the ones most people don’t think to keep.

A photo album doesn’t need a passcode or an invitation. Anyone who visits can just pick it up and learn something. I don’t know what that looks like now.

Is instagram the new photo album? genuinely curious what that means for kids growing up without one.

getting to start this project with her story, in the same street the @mcasandiego sits in, still sits with me.

grateful this collection exists. grateful I got to be part of documenting it.

#giantsofsandiego #MCASD #editorialphotography #sandiegoartist tikastudio by @tikastudios.co

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23

2 months ago

Giants of San Diego is MCASD’s exhibition honoring the artists who’ve shaped this city’s creative landscape. I had the honor of extending that story through portraiture with 6 artists, six sittings, each one less like a shoot and more like a diary entry of where they were in that moment.

Chata. Chris Tucker. Stephen Williams. Max Moses. Misty Hawkins. Manuelita Brown. My job wasn’t just to document their work, it was to capture them; the person behind the practice, at this point in their journey.

Getting to sit with each of them, hear how they talk about their own process, watch how differently every artist holds a room — that changed how I think about my own work entirely.

Grateful to @mcasandiego for trusting me with this, and even more grateful to these five for letting me in.

#MCASD #giantsofsandiego #editorialphotography #sandiegoartist #creativedirection by @tikastudios.co

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20

3 months ago

summer in Mexico [on film]

developed by @imstill.developing by @tikastudios.co

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0

3 months ago

nimble.

before we know what the world is capable of, we move through it freely.

to my inner child; — no. 01
saigon trailhead, san diego. 2025.

muse: @tylor.the.creater by @tikastudios.co

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2

5 months ago

We encounter people constantly, but most of it is fleeting. Online or in passing, never really seen.

Wè is my way of slowing that down. A digital publication by TIKA Studios, taking the time to witness someone as they are, in their art of being, and creating a visual diary of where they are in that moment.

Wè means to see in Haitian Creole.
It also echoes oui, yes in French,
and we, for community.

Because at the end of the day, it comes back to community, and what art gives us. But we don’t get the art without the artist. It starts with them.

Every project starts the same way. I witness something real, and I follow the question it raises until it becomes the work.

Wè is where that continues.

muse: @tylitooo by @tikastudios.co

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4 months ago

make the bad art.

#blackartist #blackphotographer #acrylicpainting #creativegrowth by @tikastudios.co

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17

4 months ago

shot this series on a cloudy day at saigon trailhead with tylor. what came out of it still surprises me.

this is from to my inner child; a series about stillness, movement, and trusting what you can’t always see coming.

#editorialphotography #sandiegophotographer #blackphotographer #portraitphotography #tikastudios by @tikastudios.co

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4

3 months ago

onyx: a black artist exhibition · june 19 · brokers gallery, san diego.

two prints from “to my inner child;” on view.

#onyxexhibition #blackartist #blackphotographer #sandiegoartist #editorialphotography by @tikastudios.co

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5

4 months ago

rooted.

nature does not ask permission to grow. it simply does, reaching, expanding, becoming, at its own pace and in its own time. we forget that we are nature too.

to my inner child; — no. 07
saigon trailhead, san diego. 2025.

one week. by @tikastudios.co

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0

4 months ago

tender.

before the world taught us to be hard, we were this.

to my inner child; — no. 05
muse: @tylor.the.creater
saigon trailhead, san diego. 2025. by @tikastudios.co

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0

5 months ago