Raised in Dundalk and the son of a retired Baltimore City police officer, award-winning photographer (and occasional Baltimore magazine contributor) Joe Giordano witnessed first hand the fall of Bethlehem Steel and its blow to the workers, families, and fabric of his hometown.

His work has been featured in The Guardian, GQ, Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, and City Paper where he served as photo editor. Giordano’s “Struggle” series, his portraits of Civil Rights and Black Power-era leaders, is in the permanent collections at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum.

Giordano’s ongoing current project, Shuttered: Images from the Fall of Bethlehem Steel, opens with a preview Wednesday evening at the Baltimore Museum of Industry from 5:30-7:30 p.m. and then remains on exhibit through April 2020.

With his new show—amid renewed debates over trade and tariffs and the role of unions—we asked Giordano about the exhibition and its relevance today.

Other than growing up in the shadows of Sparrows Point, what prompted this decade and a half, continuing effort?
The pictures, I want to use as a warning. They aren’t intended as political, the idea started during the George H.W. Bush steel tariffs in 2002 when I started shooting for the paper [the Dundalk Eagle]. They are harbingers of corporate ownership.

They look like images of the post-industrial America. Why did you use the word harbingers?
General Motors and Unilever are gone. The Amazon warehouses and Wal-Mart and Under Armour will be gone someday, too, and Amazon isn’t going to worry about the impact on workers when they pick up and leave—not unless you get back to unions and have some representation. They just leave everybody behind.

The photographs convey a loneliness. The sense of abandonment is palpable.
Intentionally, there are no shots of molten steel, of the product being made. Everyone has seen those. These are photos of the hulking monsters (the weathered steel mills) that were left behind and the people left behind.

How many photographs are in the show?
About 30. I didn’t count [laughs]. But the installation looks great.

A lot of interesting faces. Faces and images of small houses, American flags, and unions hall that communicate a certain pride and dignity among the retired steelworkers.
In 2010, I was at union hall for an announcement of benefit and pension cuts. Some of the shots are the reactions from a lot of elderly people who counted on those benefits and pensions.

Growing up in Dundalk, you obviously knew guys or knew guys whose father or uncle who were steelworkers.
My grandfather didn’t work at Bethlehem Steel, but at Eastern Stainless in Colgate. They made some of the steel that went into the St. Louis arch. My 92-year-old grandmother still lives there.

At a time when so many fewer breadwinners are in union jobs, it’s almost impossible to imagine the huge role those unions and big mills and plants played in the community.
It wasn’t just working together, but working for a common good. They were not just wage employees; their lives were centered around the union. There are two union halls right next to each other on Dundalk Avenue. Obviously, they needed two. That should tell you something.

What have you learned from this project?
The importance of unions. I’m in my mid-40s and I think my generation took a lot for granted—like unions. Unions hurt themselves in the past, too, with some of their mob ties, bad investments, and poor leadership. But as the old guard fades away, I do think today that unions, like SEIU, are now are attracting younger laborers and that gives me hope and young leaders like New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defends workers’ rights.

So these past two years since the Time magazine cover photo have been pretty crazy for you?
Yes! It feels crazy. Just when I think my 15 minutes of fame are over, I get another email or phone call. It’s very surreal. When I meet people they think I’m this well seasoned, proper photographer. Nope! At the time of the Time cover, I had only been doing this for three years.

One of those companies that has approached you is Under Armour. How is it working with them?
I come in the office every single day—it’s my 9-5. I’m the only black photographer at here. [Black people] have to get into these spaces. I want [Under Armour] to think, ‘We hired Devin to go shoot Steph Curry. He’s from the city and has only been doing this for three years. How many other hidden gems does Baltimore have?’ If they can hire me and I can do some amazing work, I think it will push the envelope and make them open up their eyes and say, ‘Hey maybe we can get more people like him.’

You’re going to be featured in a new exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
I was so shocked when I found out. Aaron Bryant is the reason I have 20 images permanently showcased in the Smithsonian. He’s one of the curators at the National Museum of African American History and he’s been a mentor to me. The exhibit opens on May 4 and I’m really excited. I’m the youngest photographer in the whole exhibit and I have work in there next to Gordon Parks—it’s crazy! It’s definitely a dream. 

Has all of this exposure made it easier to get work?
I still have to work twice as hard—even after the Time cover. I’ve been turned down so many times. Even after the announcement that my photos are in the Smithsonian, you would think Apple or somebody like that would reach out to me, but nope. When I reached out to Fuji, they said they didn’t want to support my work because it was negative. They didn’t want that to represent their brand. Another photographer at Magnum told me, ‘You’re young, you’re black, you have no accolades and hold no degree in photography. You’re going to have to work a lot harder than everybody else.’

Where you probably work the hardest is on a local level—especially with kids. Is teaching something you’re interested in doing?
I want to show these kids that there are other ways they can do things to be successful. The more successful I am, the more they listen to me. I just want to teach; to create a bunch of mini-me’s with a story to tell. I’ve just been so busy. It’s just hard trying to work with everybody that you can and still pursue your own goals. I’m figuring it out slowly but surely. Any time I talk to kids, I leave inspired. The best reward is opening up doors and giving back.

You have a new book, A Beautiful Ghetto, coming out on June 13.
That book (laughs). It wasn’t even supposed to be a book. I never had a plan, I never thought about a book. I didn’t plan my life past 21. I hit 21 and was like, ‘Wow I’m still alive? Shit, I need to do something with myself now.’ So no, I didn’t have a plan; I didn’t plan anything, I thought I would be dead right now. The book, it came together so beautifully, it was completely organic. All the images are from around Baltimore.

How did you come up with the name and the concept?
In an interview a while back, someone asked me to describe Baltimore. I didn’t know what to say, I always hated the city growing up and I wanted to leave. I thought I would be moving to Harlem. I started to elevate a little bit and evolve once I got deeper into my art. Then I started to see the things that are considered ‘bad’ in Baltimore as beautiful; but it’s also the hood, it’s the ghetto. It’s a Beautiful Ghetto—it rolls off your tongue. So I started to hashtag it.

A lot of the images in the book are my friends hanging out, images from the street. After the Uprising that really inspired me to push the envelope because people were thinking so negatively about Baltimore. I thought I needed to change that perception. I needed to document everything that was happening in the city, so I shot the block parties and how everything came together after the Uprisings with #ABeautifulGhetto. I get asked all the time to go to Flint or other cities to photograph, but that’s not my story. They need to find their own Devin Allen to tell their story like I told mine.

I was working with this great woman named Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, who wrote the book From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. She gave me the name of her publisher and said call him so I did. I told them about the book and sent him some photos and they loved it.

So is it just a book of photos?
Originally, I was going to write some poems to include but then I thought; I’m not a writer so I reached out to some dope writers. I got D. Watkins and Wes Moore, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor to contribute. I know people think the book is about Freddie Gray, but it’s not. It’s about Baltimore and how I see it. It’s broken down into three sections. A Beautiful Ghetto—which my mother wrote the intro for. She talks about how Baltimore was in the ’70s up until the ’90s when she had me and how much it’s changed. After that, it goes into the photos of the uprisings. The last section is called ‘Hope’—guys in the hood with their fists up, kids playing, a portrait of a kid with a police hat on. The book is so well rounded. It gives you a full understanding of Baltimore through photos. The plan is to release an extended version that has all of my photos.

The first book signing will be on June 17 at the Reginald F. Lewis museum since that was the first place I displayed my work. I actually donated my Time photo proofs to them.

What would you say is the key to your success?
Being humble and keeping the right people around me. Lord knows that’s the hardest part—realizing who your friends are and who is really there for you. But luckily, the bad people weed themselves out. I have people like D. Watkins, Aaron Bryant, and Wes Moore; people in my corner that are keeping me grounded. 

What’s next for you? Are you going to continue to ride the wave?
After this book, I feel like it’s time for me to move on. I want this to be the last chapter for me with this. I’m leaving the door open for the next person to come in—it’s time for me to move on. I don’t want to oversaturate this. Next I’d love to get more into shooting sports. I work with some amazing photographers here at Under Armour, so I’m learning more all the time. Then, I want to take the fashion world on, I think I have a good eye so that will be my next venture.

Be sure to check out Allen on TNT’s new show American Race which airs on May 11.