Los Angeles-based visual artist Carlos Jaramillo’s recently published zine, “ROC,” marks a creative rebirth of sorts. After a two-year creative slump, stemming originally from a cancer diagnosis and followed by the pandemic, Jaramillo picked up his camera again in early 2020. Living in Rockaway Beach at the time—a small peninsula on the edge of New York City—”ROC” is a visual expression of his emotional experience during the beginning of quarantine.  

“Everything felt so dark and hazy, and picking up a camera for the first time again allowed me to reflect those qualities through these black-and-white photographs,” he explains. “It felt reminiscent of my early years shooting film and was the beginning of me creating photos again that I liked — and obviously, it was a way of starting over. Being bilingual, and in ESL and speech therapy for most of my childhood, photography has always been a medium that allowed me to express emotions and thoughts that I otherwise do not always have the skills to communicate complexly. I wanted to portray these emotions, and this series became more of a personal catalogue on Rockaway and my feelings during that time of healing creatively.”

See more from “ROC” below!