Do You See You? The Revolutionary Artist!

“You should be able to look at me and see my work.  You should be able to look at my work and see me.”

Roy DeCarava

Thru Black Eyes

In sociology we have something we call reference groups.  Reference groups are those groups of people you look up to and aspire to become.  As a budding photographer I have found it so important to find those photographers whose work can inspire and inform my work.  What I’ve found in my studies, just like in my former academic journeys, there are few African Americans put in front of us in the classroom.

When the roll of great photographers are called they very rarely look like me or see as I do. The eye of the photographer is focused via his or her socialization.  The background from which one comes informs how he or she views the world through the view finder.  Moreover when the world of photography has primarily been defined by the eyes of those who don’t look like and don’t see as I see then the question becomes how is the work of the African American photographers viewed in a world that is defined by the “masters”?

When I think of the roll call that is laid out in photography programs we get all the usual suspects. The Life  magazine photographers and the  Magnum photographers and VII are the names we here.  But if I were to call the names:

The Kamoinge Workshop

Louis Draper

Thomas Askew

Jim Alexander

Albert Fennar

Moneta Sleet

Michael Cheers

Vandell Cobb

Kenneth Coleman

Lacey Crawford

Todd Duncan

Bill Gillohm

Bob Johnson

Herbert Randall

John Shearer

Ozar Muhamad

G. Marshall Wilson

Just to name a few….the room would go silent. These names aren’t called.  The work of these photographers is not on the contact sheet of important photographers.  How do I see the group I want to be part of when the group isn’t presented to me in the classroom?  As an African American who holds a camera and views the world through the viewfinder how do I connect with those who have been socialized as I have, especially those, who like me, considers themselves activist photographers?  When the work of those who look like me and see like me have been ignored by the institutions that shape photographers the question becomes how are these institutions teaching me to see and can I see myself and my work in a world that doesn’t see those who came before me?

The answer to my dilemma is it is up to me, it is up to you to find your group.  Your group is that group of artist, thinkers, game changers that you want to be part of and you have to study them. Follow them and find out how you might become part of that group.  Don’t wait for or expect others to show you the road to artistic freedom and expression.  It is your responsibility to find yourself.

Required Reading - Not Assigned - This is my reading list over the winter break.

Let me be clear this is not a personal attack but rather an institutional critique.  This is not about the teachers in the classroom but rather I am talking about how institutions systemically embrace, nurture and support systems of oppression. Masters aren’t trained to nurture revolutionaries.  Masters are trained to break revolutionaries. Institutions that award you master degrees aren’t preparing you to become a master but rather to submit to the master. You have to reflect on Audre Lorde question:  “Can we use the masters tools to dismantle the master’s house.”  The master will never give you the tools for freedom.  The tools to secure your freedom is constructed in the heart, mind and eye of the revolutionary artist.  Go find your group and in-turn you will find yourself and create revolutionary art.  Where are you looking?  What are you seeing?  What are you creating?

Considering Jeremiah: Rev. Wright is Right

I don’t claim to know Rev. Jeremiah Wright well.  What I do know is the times I have bee in his presence I have been mesmerized by his brilliance, his love for a liberative God in Jesus and his love for people. He is so accessible.  Anyone can walk up to him, talk to him and you can see how he cares for them.  He gives them his full attention.  He listens and looks with a pastors heart.

Rev. Wright isn’t into celebrity he is into to people.  This image represents how I see him.  As I was taking pictures last Wednesday night at Ebenezer Baptist Church Rev. Wright took time to greet and talk to everyone in line.  He gave special attention to each kid that came through the line to shake his hand.  He bent down and talked to them and he asked, “Do you want a picture?”  The kids would smile, because they had felt the genuine love Rev. Wright had for them.  He would take time to pose with them and take the picture.  

Above all Rev. Wright is a pastor with a pastor’s heart. He cares for people and it shows.  You can feel the love when you are around him.  I thank God for pastors like Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright.  When we love God by definition we are called to love people.  How do you know what know about Rev. Wright?

Deciding on What's Next: This Is Your Journey!

Yesterday, after worship, one my fellow church members who sits next to Vanessa and I asked, “So where have you been this summer, we’ve missed you.”  I replied, “I have been shooting pictures and making videos working on my degree at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).”  He replied, “I thought you already had your doctorate.” “I do but I am doing an MFA in photography.” It was as if he were implying that I should be done with school because I have a PhD and DMin.   Degree completion(s) are only a part of the journey they are not the end of the journey.  I firmly believe that we should be life long learners.  This doesn’t mean we have to keep enrolling in degree programs but it does mean that we should continue to advance our knowledge, skills and passions in some kind of formal sustained process.

Tonight I will present my summer work for my class at SCAD.  This will be the official end to my first year of studies at SCAD.  Being trained as an artist has been both challenging yet very rewarding.  When I think back over the year I am reminded how I have grown as an artist.  From the very first quarter I have been pushed.  The professors at SCAD have made me look inward in search of my creative sources.  It has been an inward journey to produce art that is created with the intent of being shared publicly.

At SCAD we are constantly creating art to be critiqued by our peers and professors. This isn’t writing the paper, turn it in and get the grade.  The private dialogue between professor and student is not what happens at SCAD.  What I appreciate most about SCAD is that leaning, developing and growing, as an artist is truly a communal project.  I have enjoyed being apart of my new community because in this community I have found new life, new energy and an excitement about the demands of my work. 

I would wish that everyone could experience what I have experienced this past year.  This isn’t new to me because I have committed my life to navigating my journey. This thing is about the journey; the joy of the journey is challenging you to become yourself.  This is a process of constant discovery, hard work and never resting on what you did yesterday.  What we did yesterday is a part of the journey and informs the next leg of the journey but if we stop to long to read what we wrote we might never write again. 

I choose to continue to write my story.  The journey isn’t over yet and I thank God for leading me to SCAD.  Where are you being led?  What is that next stop on your journey that will help you see more, be more and do more of what is in you that is trying to get out? 

Don’t Forget to Remember: Museum to Movement

“Atlanta’s most notable tradition is that we have no traditions, or at least that we are not bound by traditions and reverence for the past in the way that some other communities, especially in the South have been.  Like Rhett and Scarlett, we don’t look back.  Instead we look forward to the future with courage and confidence and one eye on the cash register.  We’ll try anything once, and if it works, we’ll keep it until something better comes along.”

Clifford Kuhn

Living Atlanta: An Oral History of the City, 1914 - 1948

I continue to document the transformation of Sweet Auburn Avenue.  It is my hope that my work will do what William Stott says good documentary work does.  William Stott said, “Social documentary work can depict how a situation feels and not just how it looks; it can convey factual information about the world compelling by delivering it in emotionally charged ways, harnessing compassion and sentimentality for persuasive ends.  It can sensitize our intellect and education our emotions.”[1] Stott gives us the potential of good documentary work.  The work has the potential to do more than document what is happening in a factual way but rather it has an emotional component. It moves those who engage the story to a point of connection.  I invite you to enter this story, Faith in Sweet Auburn: The Next Chapter.  This week I want to introduce you to, two of the many people who have a stake in the past, present and future of Sweet Auburn. Last week I had the privilege of interviewing two people from two different sides of the street, Mr. Dan Moore of the Apex Museum and Jennie Rivlin Roberts of ModernTribe. 

Dan Moore has been on Auburn Avenue since the late 1970s and he is a historian who is passionate about the history of Sweet Auburn.  Jennie Rivlin Roberts is a native Atlantan who has opened up a new “popup shop” on Auburn Avenue.  While Mr. Moore welcomes the new shop owners he is concerned about the history of Sweet Auburn being forgotten and he struggles with how the new Auburn Avenue will be connected to the foundation upon which it stands. Jennie on the other hand sees here presence as a continuation of the history of this great Street and great city.  She respects the legacy and history of Sweet Auburn while she and her colleagues write the next chapter.  Listen to their interviews and tell me what you think:

 

What does it mean to remember?   What does it mean to pay tribute to the past?  How do changing communities and city streets remember from whence they have come?  What does the present owe the past?

---

[1] Stott, William.  Documentary Expression and Thirties America. (Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 5-63.

Photojournalism 2014 Style: Getting the Word-Out & Getting the People Involved

Wilson Hicks

“Its elements used in combination do not produce a third and new medium.  Instead, they form a complex in which each of the components retains its fundamental character, since words are distinctly one kind of medium, pictures another.  Of various dissimilarities in the mediums the one most pertinent to understanding of the photojournalistic technique is to be found in the ways in which they activate certain subjective responses in the reader.”

Wilson Hicks

 Photographic Communication: Principles, Problems and Challenges of Photojournalism  p. 19

 Wilson Hicks was the photographic editor of Life Magazine  from 1937 to 1950.  It was Hicks who built the photography staff at Life Magazine  from 4 to 40. He was also a professor of photojournalism at the University of Miami from 1955 to 1970.  In many way Hicks can be considered one of the fathers / mothers of photojournalism.  He understood this delicate marriage between the still photograph and the power of the printed word.  The picture didn’t stand alone in the context of the story but rather the picture served as a key component of the story; the picture took center stage while being surrounded by a caption and written copy.  As Hicks says in the quote above these two mediums weren’t melted into a third medium but rather they were two distinct mediums that serve to “activate certain subjective responses in the reader.”  It is interesting that he calls the subject reacting “the reader.”  Isn’t the reader also a viewer?  The subject that engages these mediums are viewing and reading, reading and viewing, while being moved as the story is constructed in such a way to provoke movement.  The work of photojournalism is to achieve a “subject response” from the viewer / reader.  The goal of my work is to take this principle of “provoking a subjective response in my viewer / reader”  specifically in response to social stratification and gentrification in the Atlanta area.

Hicks and his team of photographers and editors were very intentional about their work.  They had a   They constructed their “picture stories” in such away to advance their cause.  I look back on this time with romantic rose-colored glasses. Once I clean my glasses off and situate myself in the present I ask myself, “How can I do what Hicks and his team did in the time of Life Magazine?”  I answer myself by saying:

point of view, they didn’t claim some unachievable objectivity.

       1. You must create / make images that are so moving and compelling that they demand that the viewer stop, look and ask questions.

       2. You must create a community conversation around the issues you feel passionate about and that need to be addressed.
    3. You must use the tools you have at your disposal in this age to get the word-out.  The magazine as we knew it no longer exist but in an age of social media / multi-media you can and must communicate in new and timely ways.  The community of concerned activists citizens can be developed and sustained via virtual mediums.

      4. You must become an activist in regards to the issue(s) you feel passionate about.

The model of Life Magazine and Wilson Hicks was founded on iconic  images arranged in the format of story that served to move the reader.  It is this story format that will work today.  We are wired for story and the power is in the story as told via the images and multi / mixed media that both informs and moves those who engage the work.  What is the historical foundation your work is built upon?  How are you updated that foundation to work in a changed world?   

BBC Documentary on Life Magazine

The photographers who did the work!
http://life.time.com/photographers/