Aimos, its been a true pleasure hearing about your upcoming drop on Blockparty, kicking off the #NowCrediting movement from Street Dreams Cafe. I think your experience in the industry contains a story that is important to tell.

Far too often, artists have their work taken, with no regard for the consequences, whoever they may effect.

Your image of X is the most liked (and likely the most seen) image of a person on Instagram- but this image has been used endlessly without your permission. What happened with this particular photograph over the years?

So I flew down for no pay & came outta pocket to shoot this festival and ended up snapping this legendary photo. Xxx posted it on his IG. It was the only photo he posted too. My notifications started going crazy everyone telling me that x posted my image. He even commented & liked on my original post. We then started DMing each other. He said how he enjoyed the images and it was very humbling. At the time I didn’t ask for credit because I feel like that’s not something I gotta ask someone- that’s like telling someone to follow you back. In my head I told myself like bet I made the first step eventually imma be a legendary photographer and get to work with X in the future.

Unfortunately that did not happen. X ended up passing away. I was heart broken even now it’s sick thinking about it. After he passed I started getting emails/msgs from everyone asking for the photo, licensing the photo and even trying to strong arm and blacklist me for it. It was a dark time for me. It kind of crushed my dreams and showed me a lot of creatives don’t get the respect they deserve.

At the end of the day, this is about art. It takes me to a higher place and is an outlet and escape for me. It gave me a purpose to start fighting for someone besides myself and helping friends along the way.

Everything that was going on with this photo started to affect my real life. It started to affect me mentally. This left me struggling trying to figure out how I was going to take care of my family. I come from nothing and I’ll stay with nothing before I give up my art and my life, knowing that it will help change this narrative the industry has for us artists.

I put my faith in God and kept it pushing. It was fucking hard like anxiety and PTSD to the point I couldn’t leave my home because I felt safe here. I know god put me through this cause he know I was gonna overcome and I feel like I owe it to everyone to tell my story so I don’t see my loved ones getting taking advantage of while we just tryna make the world better through our art.

This is why we decided to partner with #Halfthestory. They are a non-profit that focuses on digital well being. This way we can share resources with other young people struggling with their mental health. This industry is a trap they use what we love our outlet. Then make it toxic for us to be in.

A 1 of 1 of THE photo will be dropping with a starting bid of 100k and come with a print at 24x36, framed.

A photo illegally used in a vinyl booklet will also be able with 12 editions to purchase at $12 each.

A third photo hand chosen by AIMOS and the team will be dropping with 17 editions at $17.

The two other limited editions will come with 8x10 signed prints from AIMOS.

Full information here.