Khalil and I had been planning this shoot for the better part of a year. He reached out to me last June and said he had an idea for a shoot that he wanted to explore. He knew that he wanted to use chains in the images as well as explore themes of black masculinity. When he arrived at my studio one morning last month and began to lay out the chains that he brought with him, I immediately recognized that we’d need much more to really make the images work. I suggested that we make a quick run to the hardware store, and he agreed. We ended up leaving the store with every inch of chain that they had…