Portraits of Oregon - Marcus

My artist name is m5 vibe and I grew up in Hinesville, Georgia. In my youth, other than playing video games, I occasionally would buy disposable cameras and take photos of my friends in my neighborhood and school. I never took it seriously at that time, but unknowingly, I believe I was finding my eye. After graduating High School, I enlisted in the Army (active duty) and was stationed in Europe and Asia with 3 combat tours before I finished my contract with the military.

After exiting the Army, I was looking for a way to heal from my experience in the military. I happened to come across journaling. It helped to get my thoughts out of my body and onto paper. This led me down the path of spoken word poetry, then to music. Now, I have circled back to the hobby that I had in my youth, photography!

Growing up as a black man in America, of course I saw how my community was treated and viewed. I have been in many spaces where I have been treated differently because of the color of my skin. I experienced how much harder I had to work as a black man than some of my white peers. Understanding this, I did what I had to do and worked hard at everything I did to get where I wanted to go. I didn't let any closed doors stop me and I always found a way. A positive from this experience is it forced me to know as much as possible about anything I do, which made me so versatile that I surprised myself sometimes.

Finding a community that supports you is incredibly important. Bringing a skillset you have crafted over the years into your community helps uplift the community as a whole. What's beautiful about diversity is that we all come from different cultures and backgrounds and see/operate in the world uniquely. Being open to learning from different cultures changes our perspective and opens our minds to things we may have never considered before. Everybody is passionate about different things. We all can't know or be passionate about everything, that's impossible. But when we take our specific passion and combine them with other community members' passion, that's when magic happens.

I currently still create music and release it, as it is still a part of my healing journey. I have also created a photography business in 2023 specializing in Events. Photography has been a healing art form for me as well. Understanding that adding my art in the world from my eyes and experience helps others, I suggest to anybody to not shy away from sharing their art with the world. Arts heals and the world needs more of that.