The power of storytelling has always been
at the forefront of what we do.
Shaping our narrative starts
with who is behind the lens.
Before film, before TV,
there was the still image.
Strong Black Lead brought more than a dozen photographers,
image makers, moment creators from different corners of the storytelling
universe to talk about the unique ways we shape our narratives
and craft our legacies.
This is Strong Black Lens.
Our photos.
These keepsakes are the time capsules
we need, the evidence we have that
our people are resilient.
Even through many adversities, we still have these moments of celebration,
whether it was our first cars, our first road trips with friends,
dinner or even purchasing property.
We did that and holding the beginning of our legacy close to us is a must.
Most of our imagery is in the Black home,
sitting on our own coffee tables because we documented our own--
That’s the most important thing.
My-- I think of like, Oh, the most important photographers for me
are the photo enthusiasts, the moms and dads going to
the 1982 Johnson family reunion.
I need to see what the fish fry at church looked like.
Those intimate moments.
The most important images that I should be
taking should be the ones of my family.
As I think more about legacy
and Black legacy,
the Black core family,
you know, and how lucky some families
are to have a photographer in them,
you know,
I feel like it's my responsibility not only to tell the story of the Black
people as a whole in my experience, but, like, my family.
As soon as I got this camera, I felt like the world was in my hands
and I would just make little documentaries with my friends.
And me and my family, during the holidays, we would make Christmas videos,
and it was all about documenting moments and preserving family history.
There's a part of photography
where you almost validate
your existence, or the vision
that you have in front of you.
Whatever your reality is,
what your neighborhood's like, what your family looks like.
That's where it's-- I think it becomes more important because there's
almost a fight to prove that we exist.
I think in a lot of other
areas white people take photos,
and that's fine.
I don't think they're ever in a space of having to validate that they existed.
So for us, it becomes almost revolutionary to create these images.
You know, it's the audacity to exist.
We have the responsibility to make sure
that people know that we exist and that we lived normal lives.
We have families, we have love, we have hurt.
We have all the pains and the things that go through
as-- that we go through, as humans.
We are humanizing ourselves, even if society doesn't really care
to acknowledge us.
Well, white people have been the ones that have controlled
the narrative about what Black is,
what Black identity is, who Black people
are for the entirety of our existence
when it comes to photography
and when it comes to like so many levels of who we are as people
and what other people think of us, non-Black people think of us,
because we have a lot
of white photographers that have made a lot of money off
of photographing Black people.
That's so interesting because the economy around
the visual image-making practice
no one wants to talk about.
Right. And you hit on that.
And I always have this argument with my agents.
Ever since I've been coming up.
I've been doing this for so many years, and it's scary because you hit it on it--
You know, when I went to New York and I was showing my work around,
you know, if I have five Black people, my portfolio, I wasn't getting hired.
It's just so strange how it's flipped now.
We're artists and we can do anything.
Well, it's like, you know,
photography is a weird one because, you know, anyone can pick up a camera
and take images.
It's really about how we see
and how we perceive things or how we perceive the world.
So it's about a way of seeing.
So the eye is really about what you want to portray,
your narrative or what vision you're trying to put out into the world.
And we all come from different backgrounds.
So we have these different experiences.
So when you're behind the lens and you're capturing a moment
or you're capturing a person or you're trying to create a situation and
try to get that on film,
all that stuff
is there and how you see it when you click the button.
When you click that shutter, that comes from you.
That's that moment where you feel is just the decisive moment, some people call it.
But I call it-- it's a soulful moment for me.
I think it's just more about-- It's--
It's guttural.
I feel like photography
is literally the foundation of history.
At different points in my life there have been different images
that have changed
the trajectory of my career.
But there are also photos I've taken that are just really important to me.
And I feel like we know things exist.
We know things have happened because we've seen it in photos.
It solidifies to me our very existence.
I feel like everybody should be able to document their own story
and tell their perspective and explain what's happening to them and in the world.
I grew up in an atmosphere that was always full of photographs.
You know, it was family photo albums
that was center stage in the household,
and it was always a wide range
of photography books.
So before I actually physically picked up the camera,
I was actually just looking at the family
photo albums that gave me insight
into the power of photography and the importance
of documenting the family.
When I picked up a camera,
I kind of realized that this was,
you know, this could be my tool.
This could be really my way
of kind of expressing myself
and kind of commenting on the world.
You know, for so many years, we were not in charge of our
our visual representation.
So now we have through digital medium, through social media-- We can do that.
So for me, I think it's all about changing the narrative.
And that's why we're here today.
We didn't control our narrative for so long, you know, finding out that
some of these images that were taken of our ancestors,
you know, some of these images are fake.
They're not, you know-- They hired models to model
to create these narratives around our community to project, you know,
hyper Black masculinity, the Black brute to the rest of the world
so people were scared of us you know, photographing children in zoos.
I studied the works of W.E.B. Du Bois
and his idea for the creation
of the Negro exhibit that he would bring to Paris in 1900.
And the idea behind that was based on using images
that represent pride and dignity
within the Black community
and show a larger world to offer a counter-narrative
to the negative stereotypical images that we were accustomed to seeing.
We have to deal with ten times
as much hassle to get in the room to shoot.
And finally, we're in a situation now where they can pinpoint and say “Oh,
we have somebody documenting a president
or a vice president or a governor,
and they're Black and their work speaks.”
And finally,
we are able to tell our own story like,
Oh, Africa is not some shit slum hole or it's not a place of poverty,
it's not a place of lions and zebras running all over the place.
And that to me
is extremely powerful because it gives people hope.
It's absolutely necessary.
Like, as a queer person, I know that growing up, imagery, especially of Black
queer men or Black queer anything, like, you-- It was very scarce.
For me
it's a lot about mending trauma.
Growing up, I didn't see me
represented
virtually anywhere.
I mean, we had-- There are pockets of it.
You would search for that.
You would search for something that looks like yourself
or behaves like you as a sense of comfort and you can't find that anywhere.
I remember I had a cousin and I would go over to their house
and they had a very large photo of Prince
and Prince being Prince in that.
And I remember just staring at that like, why?
Why do I connect with this?
Why do I connect with this person who is moving their body in such a way?
And then I couldn't find that virtually anywhere else.
So today I feel a- certainly a responsibility to provide
imagery and provide feelings for people who are coming up who didn't have that
because if I did it would have saved me a lot of heartache.
It's the powerful global language of photography.
Unlike any other language besides art itself,
it transcends the four corners of the universe.
I was about to get on the train
and I came upon this young brother
about maybe twelve, thirteen years old,
and I'm on one side of the gate.
He's on the other side of the gate and he's looking at me with this look.
And it seems like when you see the picture, you'd think it's in a jail.
But his eyes is piercing, they looking at me almost like saying, help me.
And that image haunted me because we just met for a short period in time.
And he's looking at me in these bars almost like he's
trying to escape this world. So I'm haunted by him.
I was able to capture that image, but it stays with me to this day,
and it's served as a reminder of my duty and responsibility,
not only really as a photographer, but
as one who's trying to make a powerful difference
in a community that there's young men out there and women that need guidance.
My granny passed away a few years ago.
Thank you.
And just going through her photo albums and seeing, like,
all these family members, I don't know who they are
and seeing her like in her heyday with her cigarette, you know,
on the edge of the plastic couch.
A couple of months before my granny died, she let me finally take her
portrait.
And, you know, she was always like, why don't you get a job
at the post office, you know, like, what are you doing out there?
You know, like you need to make some money.
The bank is hiring.
The best part of, like, me becoming successful was her to see that
and for her to finally trust me to take her portrait.
When someone passes away, which we hope they don't, but they will.
You go, wow, that's something-- It's a time marker, it's a time stamp.
I'm very honored to have those type of images in
my portfolio.
This is the power of imagery.
This is the power of being able to have a perspective
that can lead someone to feel something.
We were the documentarians and we were the authors of our own stories, then, at least.
And now I feel like publicly we're being acknowledged for that
instead of it just being, you know, this is for when people come over
and we pull out the plastic album and shit.
And stuff, and stuff.
You said what you said.
I said what I said.
From weddings to the first day of school.
The human experience captured through
photography has served as a time capsule.
not only do we love a good story,
we are the best at telling our own stories.
Black skin is not
harder to light than white skin,
it's just that people haven't taken the time and effort.
It's definitely a copout.
Something that I take pride in is
making sure my people are good.
There is no excuse for bad imagery.
As a queer Black person in this
country, I didn't see me represented anywhere.
Jeymes inspired me in a way that usually
only Spike does.
Being a
person of color
who has a lens is really, really empowering.