The Primers | The Photographers | The Progressives | The Pragmatists
Moderator: Deborah Willis, University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
Through the advancements in technology and printing, photography becomes the most accessible form through which individuals could determine how they wanted to be seen. The burgeoning black media ensured the publication and circulation of photographic portraits, as well as the development of a modern criticality through the act of representation. In this lecture, I explore how, in collaboration with their patrons, African American commercial photographers generated a body politic that fostered racial equality through portraiture.