Memphis Tulips is an on-going series of black and white photographs made in Philadelphia. In 2017, I met a man named Shawn who was apprehensive toward me at first but quickly became my closest friend and star of my pictures. Shawn, his family, and others around him tenderly hold on to each other or stare back at the world with deep skepticism. The diversity of this working-class community is profound. They welcome me as an outsider—someone different racially and socially—while also insulating themselves from the gentrification bubbling around them. The people in these photographs take care of each other in the face of shared adversity. Bio: Paolo Morales is a black and white photographer interested in the documentary tradition from the positionality of an Asian-American male. He received an MFA in Photography from Rhode Island School of Design and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor at Bucknell University. Morales' work has been the subject of eight solo exhibitions. His commissioned photographs have appeared in VICE Magazine, Papersafe Magazine, The Washington Post, Dazed, and The New Yorker. He was a participant at Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, a 2016-2018 Fellow at Hamiltonian Artists, and an artist-in-residence at Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, and the Center for Photography at Woodstock. Morales was born and raised in New York City and lives with his wife and corgi in Philadelphia.