Understanding Black Photographers

Black Photography has been a topic that has been overlooked within the black arts. There have been many notable black photographers, such as James Van Der Zee and Carrie Mae Weems. My blog post focuses on black photographers' impact on black communities and history.

The first interview I came across was from Eric Werner (1944-2011). He was the founder of the Picture This Camera Club student photography workshop and was appointed to the Jazz unites Board of Directors. He discusses in his interview the obstacles that African Americans entering photography and commercial photography face, “I think what has to happen in order for minorities to shoot ads and the kind of commercial work that you’re talking about is that you really have to come up with the art directors….relationship with art directors that are long-standing and go back and that just doesn’t happen in the African American community. Those kinds of people have big studios, million-dollar shops, to say the least.” I believe that Werner’s interview gave a deep insight into what black photographers have to face when working with large companies. He specifically talks about art directors. Since art directors work with these extremely wealthy companies, they often are the long arm of the said company by giving photographers, specifically minorities, the short end of the stick.

This led me to an interview with Sharon Farmer; she served as President Bill Clinton's photographer during his administration and became the first African American female Director of White House Photography. In her interview, she discussed African American women in photography, she talks about a book by Jeanne Moutoussamy called “Black Women Photographers,” “Women are still looking for parity. I won’t call it a glass ceiling. I’m gon’ call opaque, and that you still don’t have women in charge of communications, things are slowly but surely changing, but look at the parity on the dollar. If a woman’s only making sixty-five cents to every dollar a man makes, then we still have a long way to go even in positioning so we still have to talk about equal take home pay.” I loved this interview that she did. She specifically highlighted on how black female photographers are left out in history all the time and mentioned the unequal pay between women in communication places.

The best interview I believe to end this blog post with is one from Jack T. Franklin (1922 - 2009), who was a freelance photographer and worked for the Philadelphia Tribune, Ebony, and Jet. In his interview, he talked about his hope for black photographers and the photography community, “being truthful…it’s photographed that way we will be right. But as long as we start lying we going, we going to be in trouble.” I specifically liked his interview because he discussed the importance of telling the truth through photography. Just like writing, depending on how the author has portrayed a specific topic, it can skew the story or point of view to the audience.

Black photographers are a gift to our community, they are the only ones who can document real black experiences and tell the stories behind them. They can understand the struggle and emotions behind black pictures and the people that they convey in their photos. With this post, I could come to a grounded understanding of black photographers and photography.

Ambassador Update:

This week and last have been spent traveling and moving into my dorm at Spelman College. I finally finished moving in on Monday and I am excited (also nervous) to start my sophomore year!

WORK CITIED:

Eric Werner (The HistoryMakers A2003.006), interviewed by Larry Crowe, January 15, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 1, Eric Werner talks about obstacles for Africans Americans entering photography and commercial photography

Jack T. Franklin (The HistoryMakers A2006.184), interviewed by Shawn Wilson, December 20, 2006, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 4, Jack T. Franklin describes his hopes for the black photography community

Sharon Farmer (The HistoryMakers A2008.076), interviewed by Larry Crowe, April 29, 2008, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 1, Sharon Farmer talks about African American women in photography