A North Carolina native, Watson is currently documenting the rural, historically Black community of Scranton, NC, where over 80% of the land lies in a floodplain. On the frontlines of climate change – Scranton offers a stark preview of the future for low-lying communities nationwide.
Watson’s 2020 series Behind the Mask—a response to the experience of being Black in America—earned him the Alexia Grant from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, recognition from The Washington Post, and was listed among Buzzfeed News’s top photo stories of the year.
In 2021, as an artist-in-residence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Watson created Tarred Healing, an “unapologetic archive” of the Black experience in Chapel Hill—an act of self-healing and a tribute to the resilience inherited from generations who endured and overcame systemic racism.
He has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, NBC News, National Geographic, Bloomberg, Rolling Stone, and ProPublica.
His photographs have been exhibited at the National Civil Rights Museum, Duke’s Nasher Museum, The Mint Museum, the Chrysler Museum, and the Allenton Gallery at the Durham Arts Council.