Category Archives: Inspiration

Jamar Callender

Dawoud Bey, has an exceptional use of lighting and creating the scene for his models which were high school student. The way he uses his models to make his vision become a reality is by using what the models already has to offer. Dawoud, makes absolutely sure that the lighting of the subject face isn’t completely harsh and that it has an almost naturally look to it, given the fact that the natural feature each subject has is brought to light. He, also tries to incorporate their hand gestures to further enhance their poses and facial features to make it someone more intriguing. I see that simplicity goes a long way in photography and I personally can relate to his style because we have a somewhat complementary taste in photo, but i’m more into black and white photos. What I also see in his work is how each subject more in focused than, the background and their eyes immediately gazes into the camera which makes it that much more intimate for the viewer looking this photography.

Todays, class I will be using this inspiration to replicate his work while also incorporating my style in the photoshoot session. My subjects will use their eyes as a way to make it special feeling when viewer look at my piece.

Dawoud Bey’s Project

Dawoud Bey’s photography project was really unique. He has done something really unique. Throughout his photographs he has portrayed the minor groups of our society but I can’t help but recognize how bias the was. His portraits includes children of color and  their stories are some stereotypical stories that you’ll find in most of the colored people in that group. Even though the project started of as a very unique project, it took a very drastic turn and became cliche  very fast. I feel like the project would’ve been much more unbiased if he photographed middle classes families of all color and race and break out of the cliche and stereotypical stories.

Inspiration-Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey photographed high school students in their schools for his series Class Pictures. In a short response to this work (300 words min), characterize his portrait style. How does he use expression, pose, framing, light, and foreground background relationships to create these sympathetic portraits of young people? What ideas did you get about how you might approach today’s in-class shoot from looking at this work?

View a selection of Class Pictures:

https://mam.org/bey/gallery.htm

and the interview with Dawoud Bey about creating this work: