In Dawoud Bey’s work from this period, we see his portraiture evolving from the handheld 35 mm camera street photography of Harlem U.S.A., to ​“formal but casual” black and white Polaroid street portraits made with a 4 x 5 camera on a tripod. This film allowed him to make an instant print, which he would give to the subject, and produced a high-quality negative from which larger prints could be made. During this crucial time, Bey went from searching and recording subjects in the urban landscape to creating compositions that foregrounded individuals within the environment – often youth and teens, one of his primary demographic subjects.