Alex Veras
Prof. Michaels- Photography 1340
9/7/20
Homework #1
Although being impaired on a hearing-based level, Dawoud Bey has very much successfully used photography in order to create a new voice for himself. Although some of his work may not seem all that intricate or awe-inspiring per-se (based on who you’re talking to, the basis of his most notable work consisted of simple photos of black people within Harlem in the 70s. It wasn’t anything flashy or extravagant, it was just pictures of black people within their day-to-day lives, and he used this photo as a means for people to better understand what it was/ still is to be black beside what the general media pushes out to public/ really wants you to think. One of his pieces that stood out to me was the one shown at 2:35 within the video. It may seem like a regular picture of a house and some trees at first glance, but the context he described gave it a completely different meaning. He took, and arranged these photos into an exhibition with the intent of giving people an understanding as to what it must have been like to be a fugitive slave in the times in which the underground railroad was being used. To look at a photo through somebody else’s eyes is a concept I’ve heard of before, but the way he decided to go about is really amazing and is a testament to what you can accomplish through a simple picture and lighting.
What really stood out the most to me about the Carrie Mae Weems interview was the fact that even though it was short, by the first minute and a half, you get a glimpse into her demeanor as a person and as an artist just through the photos you’ve seen that she has taken up until that point. She used photography as a means of empowerment and insight into what it means to be a woman, and she did it all from just her dining room table and the use of a few people and props. The picture from the table collection shown at 1:01 with her and the little girl doing their makeup stood out to me a lot due to the fact that pushes through a deep message even though it’s very simple. I grew up with many women in my family, so that photograph isn’t unlike anything I’ve seen regularly. How I understood it was a coming-of-age sort of thing, and it showed just a basic piece of what it meant/ still means to grow up a woman within the time period in which that picture was taken. The fact that you could interpret all of that through just a picture of a woman and a little girl just doing their makeup under a light on a dining room table it really special.
Both of these photographer’s visions are very similar in the fact that they aim to give the viewer a better understanding into something as simple as everyday life for specifically black people. What makes them different is the subject matter they chose to shoot under/ on. While Bey chose a more generalized approach and chose to photograph pieces representing everyday life across an entire culture, and even time period through his later work such as the pictures based on the underground railroad, Weems aimed to show off everyday life more narrowed in on one single gender and a single space/ point in; being her dining room table. The power of photography is to not only give others a deeper understanding into something like everyday life, but to also capture special moments that make our everyday lives a little less boring. It reshapes the world through the way it can give millions/ even billions of people a light into something new to understand, and besides music, nothing else really stands the test of time and pushes forward a message and a feeling quite like a photo.
Night Coming Tenderly, Black is an amazing series in that Bey is able to get the audience to really feel the emotions of escaping enslaved people. That is always the most important thing a photograph can do is to get you to feel something. It does have this in common with music.
Weems’s Kitchen Table series done decades before the pandemic is a strong reminder that you can create important work that speaks to your experience with what you have at hand.