Picturing Us: African American Identity in Photography

by Deborah Willis-Thomas (Editor), Deborah Willis (Editor)

Winner of the International Center for Photography's 1995 Award for Writing on Photography, Picturing Us brings together a diverse group of African American writers, scholars, and filmmakers in the first concerted effort to analyze and respond to the photographic images of blacks through history. The book's contributors―including bell hooks, E. Ethelbert Miller, Angela Davis, and others―examine the personal and public issues embedded in family portraits and news photographs, movie stills and mug shots.

Genres: Photography, Art, African American

209 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Lori]

Excellent essays regarding AA and how we are viewed via photos...

[Jacob Hale]

This is the first book offering a critical discussion of photography in the African American community, according to editor Deborah Willis. Some it reads as a little dated to me, but I assume that's probably because this book provided groundwork for more recent literature. I wish there had been more and deeper analysis, although some of the more personal essays are extremely moving. And some of the essays do offer excellent analysis: I was especially impressed in this regard by the pieces by bell hooks, Carla Williams, Paul A. Rogers, Angela Y. Davis, and Robert A. Hill. bell hooks argues, quite compelling I think, that pre-integration black photographic practices were powerfully resistant to white oppression. (She's given me a way to think differently than I had about mid-20th century U.S. TS/TV photographic practices, which is the main reason I'm reading so much about photography now.)

[Cardyn Brooks]

This is an exquisite collection of images and essays about the power of point of view and the context for visual impressions.