Book Highlights Timeless Achievements of African American Photographers
Are you looking for a book to read that is informative, historic, and reflective? If the answer is yes, then I would recommend reading Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 To the Present, by Dr. Deborah Willis.
As Willis explains in her book, photography has advanced a long way since 1839 when Louis J.M. Daguerre invented the daguerreotype, a machine that made an image on ionized copper.
Reflections in Black is the first book to chronicle the history of black photographers in the United States. The front cover of the book is a picture taken by Arthur P. Bedou. The picture shows a crowd with a photographer in the center.
The book is divided into five chronological sections. Each era has a distinct photographic theme. From 1840 to 1900 the theme is portraiture. Part two, which depicts the era from 1900 to 1930, is titled “The New Negro Image.” Part three is photography from the 1930s & 1940s and Part four continues with photography from 1950 to 1979, “Social and Artistic Movements.”
Willis writes about the importance of black photographers to their communities: “between 1900 and 1940, African American photographers flourished in businesses established in larger cities. Generally, these photographers were the ambassadors to African American communities.”
After World War I, a large scale migration of blacks moved from the south to urban areas in the Midwest and north. In Part two Willis writes, “from the turn of the century through the 1940s, black photographers witnessed the systemic denial of human rights of African Americans after modest gains during the Reconstruction period. Between 1917 and 1918, some 400,000 black Americans volunteered for a racially segregated army during World War I.” Many of the soldiers who returned from military service in the war were part of the migration.
In part four there are pictures of several influential blacks such as Billie Holiday, Arthur Ashe, Duke Ellington, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dinah Washington, Mahalia Jackson, Ralph Abernathy, Harry Belafonte, Rosa Parks, James Baldwin, B.B. King, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. Willis writes: “Influential as both a photographer and folklorist, Baltimore-born Roland L. Freeman started taking pictures with a borrowed camera in the 1950s, then continued this hobby while he was in the U.S. Air Force… Freeman decided to become a photographer and document his personal experiences and the activities of the civil rights movement.”
The most extensive section of the book is part five – Photography in the 1980s and 1990s. In this section, Willis shows how photographers during this era focused their photography on their families. “Amalia Amaki uses family photographs and historical images to reinterpret and transform the media image of black America. She transfers photographs of jazz vocalists such as Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith onto cloth and arranges the images with American icons and symbols such as flags, patriotic colors, and buttons.”
The photographers of this era also chronicle contemporary social problems in their communities. Photographers such as Carl Clark, Craig Herndon, Delphine A. Fawundu and Lynn Marshall-Linnemeir (whose photographic works include documenting Mound Bayou – the oldest black community in America founded by former slaves) are written about in this section. In “The Constructed Image” section of part five, Willis writes, “in his photographs, Bill Gaskins captures the vast array of black hairstyles, underscoring the importance of the African tradition of adornment in the modern African–American community.”
Willis received a bachelor’s degree from the Philadelphia College of Art and a Ph.D. from George Mason University. As she chronicles the progression that African American photographers make through history she presents several insightful questions. For example, what stories are told by the photographs? What message is the photographer try to convey?
In 2000, Dr. Willis received a MacArthur Fellowship. Her latest two book projects are Black: A Celebration of a Culture, published in 2003, and her most recent work – Family History and Memory: Recording African American Life, published in 2005.
As Willis explains in her book, photography has advanced a long way since 1839 when Louis J.M. Daguerre invented the daguerreotype, a machine that made an image on ionized copper.
Reflections in Black is the first book to chronicle the history of black photographers in the United States. The front cover of the book is a picture taken by Arthur P. Bedou. The picture shows a crowd with a photographer in the center.
The book is divided into five chronological sections. Each era has a distinct photographic theme. From 1840 to 1900 the theme is portraiture. Part two, which depicts the era from 1900 to 1930, is titled “The New Negro Image.” Part three is photography from the 1930s & 1940s and Part four continues with photography from 1950 to 1979, “Social and Artistic Movements.”
Willis writes about the importance of black photographers to their communities: “between 1900 and 1940, African American photographers flourished in businesses established in larger cities. Generally, these photographers were the ambassadors to African American communities.”
After World War I, a large scale migration of blacks moved from the south to urban areas in the Midwest and north. In Part two Willis writes, “from the turn of the century through the 1940s, black photographers witnessed the systemic denial of human rights of African Americans after modest gains during the Reconstruction period. Between 1917 and 1918, some 400,000 black Americans volunteered for a racially segregated army during World War I.” Many of the soldiers who returned from military service in the war were part of the migration.
In part four there are pictures of several influential blacks such as Billie Holiday, Arthur Ashe, Duke Ellington, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dinah Washington, Mahalia Jackson, Ralph Abernathy, Harry Belafonte, Rosa Parks, James Baldwin, B.B. King, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. Willis writes: “Influential as both a photographer and folklorist, Baltimore-born Roland L. Freeman started taking pictures with a borrowed camera in the 1950s, then continued this hobby while he was in the U.S. Air Force… Freeman decided to become a photographer and document his personal experiences and the activities of the civil rights movement.”
The most extensive section of the book is part five – Photography in the 1980s and 1990s. In this section, Willis shows how photographers during this era focused their photography on their families. “Amalia Amaki uses family photographs and historical images to reinterpret and transform the media image of black America. She transfers photographs of jazz vocalists such as Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith onto cloth and arranges the images with American icons and symbols such as flags, patriotic colors, and buttons.”
The photographers of this era also chronicle contemporary social problems in their communities. Photographers such as Carl Clark, Craig Herndon, Delphine A. Fawundu and Lynn Marshall-Linnemeir (whose photographic works include documenting Mound Bayou – the oldest black community in America founded by former slaves) are written about in this section. In “The Constructed Image” section of part five, Willis writes, “in his photographs, Bill Gaskins captures the vast array of black hairstyles, underscoring the importance of the African tradition of adornment in the modern African–American community.”
Willis received a bachelor’s degree from the Philadelphia College of Art and a Ph.D. from George Mason University. As she chronicles the progression that African American photographers make through history she presents several insightful questions. For example, what stories are told by the photographs? What message is the photographer try to convey?
In 2000, Dr. Willis received a MacArthur Fellowship. Her latest two book projects are Black: A Celebration of a Culture, published in 2003, and her most recent work – Family History and Memory: Recording African American Life, published in 2005.
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