Stephen Clay was born in Los Angeles, CA in 2002. Studying filmmaking at the Los Angeles High School For The Arts Clay began his early career in screenwriting and music video directing until he began studying photography at Santa Monica College in 2022, and now a photo major at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Clay's photo work primarily aims to study the intersections between queerness and blackness, as well as the inherent power dynamics between the subject, the lens, and the audience. With this work Clay strives to be both an advocate, but also a surrogate for black queer struggles, and with his more political work the struggles of working-class americans mainly those from where he grew up, South Central LA, which continues to be the heart of Clay’s photo and video works. Clay uses both alternative processing and studio lighting to harken back to the history of photography and how that history is intrinsically tied to racism and colonization but also how historically people of color have used photography as a way to objectify and liberate the self, while also speaking to the future. The main goal with this work and the referencing of older works and processing techniques is to not only use objectification as a way to liberate the self but also use this referendum of photo history, specifically black photo history, to pave the way for future thinking on identity, and creating a two-way relationship to photo past and present.