BLACK AMERICANS
The portrait photographer James VanDer Zee operating from his Studio on 125th – 135th street, is renowned for his visual documentation of Black New Yorkers. Especially revealing are the images during the Harlem Renaissance. The photographs of Van Der Zee offers evidence and glimpse into the soul of Black America.
The Identity of Black America is often presented as a political construct, but it is also about the living social realities of millions of people, caught up in the American Dream. Black Americans, although from the same Root and Vine as African Americans, their aspirations, motivations, and destinations are American as apple pie. Black Americans are a distinctly different community from African Americans.
Over a period of time in severe experiences, progressive groups of people woke up wide awake, with a different mindset, identifying themselves as African Americans. They began seeking metaphysical reconnections with their ancestral origin.
PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY
In a room as a Formal Studio, with camera, a backdrop, and organised specific lighting setup. The photographer began making attempts to capture the identity, character, and personality of the individual, alone or in a group setting. With added use of props, the finished printed images show the aspirations, desires, and captured true essence of the person.
In Traditional Portraiture, the eyes, face, hands, striking pose, and style of clothing, are the primary mode of visual communication. Working all together in an attempt to convey emotion, and making connections with the viewed image.
DAWOUD BEY
PORTRAITS IN THE STREET
Dawoud Bey is another excellent portrait photographer, exploring and making arresting images from contemporary American Cultures. Using large format cameras and Polaroid films, Bey offers the photographed person an instant print of the portrait, in the collaborative process. This new way of working, allows him to inserts his visions into broader narratives, and conversations about Black American Life.
Every Portrait is the result of a random meeting, agreement, experiment and discovery. Dawoud described this new way of working, contain the kind of lush physical description he wanted his photographs to contain. It is no longer just about taking a photograph, it is all about establishing a relationship out of which comes the image of the person.
The body of creative works titled ‘Portraits On The Streets’ is an act of political responsibility, that make visible the contemporary nature of photographic images to create dialogue and transform stereo-types.
PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES
From its invention in 1826-1827, throughout the 20th century to now the 21st century, photographic image making and audio-visual presentations have become the medium of popular communication. All around the world with higher levels of visual literacy, image making offers us vast archives of documented evidence, that reveals the spirit of nations, cultural values and lifestyles.
As the new global visual language, photographs are documenting frozen moments in time with factual meanings, as an important source of collective memories. Photographic images assist viewers to understand the times of a particular era, or specific cultural moment. As an object of self-expression, preserving visible magic moments, photographic images contain story telling narratives. If one image contain a thousand words, freezing moments of life, let us all attempt to write a book of classic photographic images.