Tell Your Story: The Legacy of Charles “Teenie” Harris

Charles "Teenie" Harris

“Embracing the gray area between objectivity and subjectivity, information and interpretation, journalism and art, the create powerful visual reports that transcend the realm of traditional photojournalism.”

Breet Abbott

Engaged Observers: Documentary Photography Since the Sixties p.1

While Brett Abbott was talking about the generation of photographers who followed Charles “Teenie” Harris I want to suggest that his definition of the “engaged observer / documentary photographer” fits Teenie and his work.  Tennie was a photographer who documented African American life in the Hill District of Pittsburgh from the 1930 through the 1970s.  Tennie Harris took over 80,000 shots over his career.  He chronicled Black life in the Hill District and throughout the city of Pittsburgh.  His work is considered the most complete document of urban life in American history. 

The Teenie Harris Archive - Take a Quick Look!!!

Teenie was connected to the community.  He felt what he was shooting.  While he was both a freelance photographer and employed by the Pittsburgh Courier  he wasn’t your typical photojournalist.   When I visited the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh this weekend to see his work his images moved me.  I was taken in by his work.  As you look at his work you can see the life of his subjects.  His subjects were not be captured by the camera but rather liberated by the camera.  His images are not still images but rather they are real images.  Teenie’s images are life giving, life sustaining images as his subjects appear to be connecting with you as you look at them.  There is life in the eyes of his subjects. 

Teenie made sure that the African American community of that time was not forgotten.  He took shots of the life of times and as a result of his work we remember as he memorialized the glory days of his community.  Of his 80,000 negatives there are very few duplicates.  “He did not take unnecessary shots and was frugal with his photographic materials, which prompted Mayor Lawerence to refer to [Teenie] as ‘One Shot.’ While other photographers were taking multiple shots, [Teenie] had taken what he needed and was off to another assignment.”[1]  Teenie was a “sure shooter” he knew he had the shot; he got it, and moved on.  He was sure because his work came out of a relationship with this work that assured a connection that transcended the viewfinder. In the end he has helped us remember because he connected.  As I look back at his work I ask what is it of my work? Will my work help us remember?

One Shot Teenie

Teenie Harris Photographer: Image, Memory, History

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[1] The Spirit of a Community: The Photographs of Charles ‘Teenie’ Harris (Westmoreland Museum of American Art), June 2001.,  P. 8

Straight No Chaser: Remembering My Grandmother

My Grandmother!  May the ancestors welcome her.  They have a new conversational partner!
I know she is talking stuff....

The saying goes, “You marry your mother.”  I believe that I married a brilliant, strong, wise and beautiful Black woman.  While my wife has some of the traits of my mother what I would argue is that the women in my life influenced how I saw women.  The women around me when I was young were brilliant, strong, wise, Black  and beautiful.  Today I want to pause and remember my grandmother, Mrs. Alta Bell Scott.

Today, in the wee hours of the morning my phone rang, it was my mother telling me that my grandmother was making her transition.  As I lie in the bed and clang to my wife the rest of the morning all I could hear was my grandmother’s voice.  She was a strong woman who spoke her mind. She wasn’t afraid of a confrontation.  If you wanted to bring it, bring it, but you might walk back with a limp.  She taught me how to speak up, stand up and be a strong Black man.  There was no apology in her spirit.  She was a fighter, pure and simple.  The fight I have in life I owe to my grandmother who exhibited such for me.

When she saw you she always made you feel good. She would hug you so tight and hit you with those little hands of hers.  She had the strongest hands in the world.  She would say, “Boy you look good.”  She would then go on to compliment you and tell you how well you were doing and how proud she was of you.  She always made me feel like I could leap the tallest building and climb the highest mountain.  When I was a little boy she would call me, "Mr. Burpee" look at me and say, “look at that little man.”  She made me proud to be a Black man.  When she would call me out, I would stick my chest out and walk upright.   She didn't allow you to apologize for your presence.  When you walked into a room let folk know you are there!!!

I remember a picture of her that sat on the mantle in the living room.  She was standing there looking like a queen.  It was one of those old black and white pictures that you would go to a studio to take.  She had a waist line and shape that made this little boy say, “I want my wife to look like that.”  To put it mildly and respectfully, my grandmamma was BAD!

She was a wise woman who didn’t shy away from giving you life advice.  She would talk common sense to you.  I remember her reading the newspaper from cover to cover and then talking to you about what she read.  I truly believe my love for reading, politics and social justice came from the women who influenced my life.  She also loved a good movie. She would read the description of the movie, the actors in it and say, “This is going to be a good one.”

Storyteller, yes she was a storyteller. When I was preaching in San Diego a week ago, Rev. Leslie White said, “This is a storytelling preacher.” My grandmother taught me how to tell a good story.  When we would stay with her in the summer she would tell us stories at night, as we got ready to sleep on the wooden floor in front of that box fan.  I remember one ghost story she used to tell and I am still scared. She would tell us stories about her life together with our grandfather, the things they did, places they went and how they had a good time back in the day. 

As a kid who stayed with her in the summer it was outside or inside.  We played outside all day and she would instruct me on what it meant to be a man. Be tough, be strong, stand up for yourself and don’t take no SHIT!!!  You betta not cry and if someone hits you, “Knock the shit out of them!”  She had a way with flowery language, and I get that from her as well.   I could go on but the tears are getting in the way. 

Did I marry my mother?  I married the good I saw in the women in my life.  As I sat last night talking to my wife about my grandmother I could see my grandmother in my wife.   Life is precious…and at times it seems so short and it goes so fast. It seems like only yesterday I was sitting in St. Petersburg waiting on some northern beans, rice and cornbread to be done so we could sit and eat dinner.  Yea, how I loved those “boiled pots.”  I say to my grandmother, “Thanks for being an example of a brilliant, strong, wise and beautiful Black woman.” 

Searching for Sweet Auburn

Searching for Sweet Auburn

Taking Your Craft to the Next Level: Steal Like an Artist

“What good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before.  Nothing is completely original…You are, in fact a mashup of what you choose let in your life.  You are the sum of your influences….The artist is a collector.  Not a hoarder, mind you, there’s a difference:  Hoarders collect indiscriminately, artists collect selectively.  They only collect the things they really love….Your job is to collet good ideas.  The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.”

Austin Kelon from Steal Like an Artist

There are books I go back to over and over again, and one of those books is Austin Kleon’s book Steal Like an Artist.   This little book affirmed for me what I have been doing my entire career.  What I have been doing is picking from those people whom I love, whose work I love, whose work inspires me and moves me.  I realized that if I was to create work that made a difference I had to know what came before me and then ask how do I extend this work.  The work that inspires me is not to be copied but extended or taken to the next point on the continuum.  Whose work are you influenced by and how is their work inspiring your work?  How are you taking what they have given you and moving it along?

I follow some great documentary / street photographers and photojournalist, I am totally inspired by them but my goal is take their inspiring work to that next spot on the continuum.  Recently I began to ponder aerial photography and it’s role in my current work, Faith in Sweet Auburn: The Next Chapter.  I found that a small drone could take my work to that next spot / level.  I have access to a tool that many of mentors did not have.  I have something to add to the work I am immersed in. I purchased the DJi Phantom2  Vison +:

I have been spending the last view weeks trying to learn how to fly the Phantom so that I can use it for both aerial video and photography. I am spending time everyday learning how to fly, how to control the camera, how to compose shots from the air.  Is it hard work? YES!  It looks easy but it isn’t.  While it isn’t easy it is what I am called to next in my work.  The question for you: what are you called to next?  How are you pushing yourself to extend the work of those who have inspired you?  What are you working on that has the promise of taking you and your work to the next level?

Here is a sample video of what I am working on:

Austin Kleon’s TED Talk:

The Poetic in Street Photography: Living in the Moment

I love the challenge of street photography.  You go out into the streets and you don’t know what you are going to get, if anything.  You walk the street; connect with people and you keep your eyes open.  You are looking for a shot, always composing, always thinking. It is a poetic dance one does as they walk the street.  You can’t control what you see; you can’t move that red truck out of the way.  You have to make the picture as it comes to you in a split second.  There is a thrill in the moment you make a picture and it appears that the stars have lined up. 

This poetic image of street photography has inspired me and Alex and Rebecca Norris Webb have affirmed my metaphor in their latest book.  Their new book On Street Photography and the Poetic Images is a book I have been waiting on.  I received it in the mail last week and fell in love with it right away.  It isn’t your usual photography book.  This book is unique in its format, composition and approach to the subject.

The format of the book is one of a picture on each page with a very short topical reflection.  This isn’t a book composed of how to do what you do but rather it is a book this structured in such away that inspires you to find your why. That “why” that moves you out into the street.  The book turns the artist inside; it calls the photographer to look at themselves in the viewfinder, as they go outside.  Alex and Rebecca make you think about how your worldview influences what you put in your viewfinder.  They don’t approach the subject of street photography as something that can be taught but rather as something that has to be lived and experienced.

One of the many things I love about street photography is that is rooted in the experience.  You experience the streets.  Your feet have to hit the pavement and you have to move, sit, talk, engage, think, act, react and always be in the moment if you have any hope of recording the moment.  It is the experience of the moment(s) that make what I do so exciting.  The work changes me and I hope as others engage the work it moves them.  What moments are you experiencing in your work?  Is your work changing you as much as you hope your work moves others? 

http://aperture.org/shop/alex-webb-and-rebecca-norris-webb-on-street-photography-and-the-poetic-image-books

What is it about you and your work that makes you UNIQUE?

I like to assign myself reading.  I love to read and a big part of my creative process is cerebral.  I have to wrap my mind around what it is I am trying to do.  While I read a lot I am very selective on who I read.  My reading is also complimented by my looking at the work of those who inspire me.  In the world of photography there is a group that I consider my mentors.  They don’t know me but I know there work. 

I work at finding those mentors and this comes from my reading and looking at images.  This summer quarter one of the books that I have assigned myself to read is Image Makers Image Takers by Anne-Celine Jaeger. The book “systematically examines what motivates and inspires today’s photographers and what makes them succeed. It reveals how the world’s leading photographers, from the field of art, documentary, fashion, advertising and portraiture, actually work, and explores what it is that picture editors, curators, gallerists, agency directors and publishers are looking for when they choose an image.”  From cover to cover this book is simply inspiring.  I have learned so much from the diverse voices and points of view in this book.  One voice that has spoken to me above the others has been Eugene Richards.

Eugene Richards is known for his compassion and his ability to confront difficult subject matter.  He, like me, is one of those photographers who likes to get close, no long lens for us.  When he talks about developing your style or personal way of seeing, he says, “In order to develop a personal way of seeing, you have to study the work of people, look at where you fit into your own society, and work to develop your own vision out of all of this.”  So the questions for us is who are you “studying”?  To study the work of an artist is to fully immerse yourself in their work and their life.  You have to know their story to understand and fully connect with their work.  As you study, where do you fit?  What is your story and how does your story inform your work?  What resources do you pull from inside of you that brings something new to the table?  We are not to copy our mentors but rather we are to extend the work and take it to the next level or point on the continuum.  Where are you and your work taking us?

Eugene Richards

Image Makers Image Takers