Contact sheet of “Everyone is Photogenic” Test Run / Photos by JJ Tiziou.

Stand in line at your local pharmacy and you’ll see the message loud and clear: your beauty is only worth the skin you’re in. It’s a message displayed between the lines of bright and bold typography—insistent typeface meant to catch your attention.

The messages we receive about how beauty’s defined—and what defines it—are a daily part of our lives. The way we regard ourselves is evidence of that.

But for West Philly photographer Jacques-Jean “JJ” Tiziou, there’s another epistle that should be shared—one that, if held with the same earnestness as it envisages, could dismantle superficial beauty standards.

That message? “Everyone is photogenic.” 

Over the 10 years that he’s owned his business, JJ Tiziou Photography, Tiziou has heard a plenitude of self-effacing remarks by those he photographs. “I’m not photogenic,” most say. “I don’t take good photos,” others lament.

And, as if physical appearance in and of itself is a threat, some believe their portrait will “break his camera.” “It pains me,” Tiziou told West Philly Local. “It’s one thing if you don’t want to be photographed, but to think of yourself of less worthy because maybe a celebrity is more photogenic than you are, that’s a load of crap.”

As we talk on the common room couch in The Cedar Works, 4919 Pentridge Street, Tiziou explains how his upcoming photo project, “Everyone is Photogenic,” will dispel those superficially constructed definitions of beauty. There is an unassuming quietness to the 34-year-old photographer—dressed casual in a black t-shirt, worn blue jeans, and broken-in sandals, Tiziou’s tall, slender frame is slightly hunched. His low, gentle tones are a stark contrast to my emphatic voice.

It’s calmness, though, that’s defied by the underlying intensity in which he speaks of “Everyone is Photogenic.” The project, which will take a year and involve 10 one-day shoots of nearly 1,000 people in total, aims to “remind people that real beauty is not dependent on physical appearance in the first place.” He’s already held a test-run at his Cedar Works home base, photographing 79 fellow members of the West Philly community in a single day under the same lighting (the official project will work much the same way). The poignant images, which he said have received an overwhelming positive response from most participants, are currently the “face” of “Everyone is Photogenic,” and are the subject of a billboard on 52^nd and Spruce Streets featuring Tiziou as part of the Center for Emerging Visual Artists’ “Made in Philly” campaign.

“There are a lot of societal definitions of beauty that are problematic. They’re designed to prey on us, to create insecurities, and to capitalize on those insecurities,” he told West Philly Local. “The word photogenic does not mean what it’s popularly conceptualized to mean. Look at the root of the word; it means to generate light, to emanate light. For me, that’s a sacred thing.”

Launched early this week, the “Everyone is Photogenic” Kickstarter campaign  has already drawn 92 backers and almost $4,500 in three days, with 27 days to go to reach the $110,000 goal. The money donated through the campaign will fund the project entirely, earmarked for a project manager, photo shoot costs, a traveling light box installation, and public billboard displays. Once the Kickstarter campaign closes, Tiziou will start community outreach, with photo shoots scheduled for late fall through spring of next year, and subsequent exhibitions taking place that summer.

“I want to do it all or nothing. It’s a little ambitious, but I know there’s support out there for it.,” Tiziou told West Philly Local. “Whether I could mobilize that support effectively will be an interesting test, but even if it didn’t work, it’s an opportunity to really talk specifically about this message.”

Rallying that support, though, may not be wholly difficult. He’s already seen crowdsourcing success with two previous Kickstarter campaigns: his first raised $25,000 for “How Philly Moves”, his 85,000-square-foot dance photography mural commissioned by the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program currently on display at the Philadelphia International Airport. His second, which funded photography of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Campaign for Fair Food march in Immokalee, Florida, raised $5,000 in five days, Tiziou stated.

Participation in “Everyone is Photogenic” is entirely free, Tiziou said, with subjects receiving a finished hi-res self-image to download and share.

“Everyone’s photogenic, but not everyone has a photography budget,” he told West Philly Local.

Representing beauty “regardless of physical appearance or how one portrays oneself”

The first batch of project images gleam as much intensity as his elucidation of “Everyone is Photogenic.” Standing in his studio space on a separate visit, Tiziou clicks through the different photographs enlarged on an oversized computer monitor. There, I’m made privy to every inch of every face—some neighbors I recognize, some complete strangers. And in every portrait there’s a smile, be it slight or full on. Every portrait exudes an indefinite happiness pressed against a dark background that only extenuates the beauty Tiziou sees.

JJ Tiziou standing in his Cedar Works studio near a gallery of his work / Photo by Annamarya Scaccia (West Philly Local)

His prolific photographs on the open walls of his studio are no different. While from projects passed, they all possess Tiziou’s same, distinctive trademark: focused, saturated images across the spectrum of multiculturalism that draw your eye in and challenge you to look away.

Much like with “How Philly Moves,” Tiziou wants “Everyone is Photogenic” to reach across different cultures, ages, identities, abilities, and barriers to properly portray the diversity that ebbs and flows in West Philly and throughout Philadelphia. To achieve this, the local photographer plans to hold photo shoots at sites that are accessible to neighborhoods, accommodating to people in those neighborhoods, and are located among various geographies throughout Philadelphia. (Cedar Works, he said, will act as the project’s ground base and location for perhaps half of the project). He is also considering possibly taking a day to visit and photograph people in their homes who are physically unable to travel.

Tiziou is also open to photographing people who, for whatever personal reason, cannot or choose not to show their face, but want to show themselves in some way, be it in silhouette or veiled. “There are faces that we don’t see that are hidden from us for whatever reason and I want to acknowledge those too,” the 34-year-old photographer said. “It’s about letting any of those identities participate.”

Although, at its core, Tiziou’s photo project aims to disassemble the society’s beauty constructs, “Everyone is Photogenic” is also about establishing a nourishing communal space where people feel safe to exist authentically—and one where participants’ interactions, no matter how short or in-depth, foster a community.

“There’s different ways [community] manifests in our lives, but for me that idea of ourselves not being worthy or our neighbors not being worthy impedes potential for community,” Tiziou said. “[The sites] become places and opportunities for people to meet a couple of neighbors, hang out and share a meal. There’s something about creating spaces where you can bring people together.”

(It’s an undertaking not particularly far off for Tiziou—after all, he does host monthly house concerts at his place on 45^th Street and Osage Avenue, the next taking place on Friday, Sept. 20, with Baam Bada, The Meta, and West Philly singer-songwriter Umer Piracha.)

In a way, the portraits themselves will play a larger role, albeit obscurely, in nurturing kinship. While “Everyone is Photogenic” is about “photos of us,” Tiziou said, he also wants people to study the images of the other participants and realize “I’m one of them and they’re me and we are us.” It’s a goal exemplified by his proposed light box installation, which will feature a contact sheet of images (similar to the one hanging in the Cedar Works’ common room) that will be displayed at each location and feature a contact sheet.

“[There’s] something really powerful in seeing all of the images side by side,” Tiziou told West Philly Local. “It’s a really intimate experience. You have to get up close to see one image well and then, when you’re up close, you’re in this field where you’re drawn to other ones nearby.”

The light box installation, though, is only one part of fostering that intimacy. At the project’s end, Tiziou also plans to rent out a digital billboard on which he can cycle “hundreds or thousands of portraits of our neighbors” for the broader community to view—and ultimately appreciate (he is currently in talks with a couple of companies to weigh his options).

“It’s about how we view ourselves and our neighbors, and letting that light shine in ourselves and how we can bring light into our lives, the lives of the people around us, and draw light from the people around us, and realize they’re not obstacles in our way,” Tiziou told West Philly Local. “It’s really about that it connects all of us.”

–Annamarya Scaccia