I Can’t Stand To See You Cry is the debut monograph by American photographer Rahim Fortune. The book is a profoundly intimate exploration of care, grief, and community. Returning to Texas to nurse his dying father, Fortune used his camera to document the quiet, difficult moments of terminal illness alongside the broader cultural landscape of the South during the 2020 pandemic and civil rights protests. Through striking black-and-white and color portraits, Fortune captures the “complexities of the Black experience,” revealing a world defined by both deep-seated tradition and the urgent, shifting realities of modern America. It is a work of both personal catharsis and significant social documentation.
