Monthly Archives: February 2021

Gordon Parks, one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century. I had heard of him, but really didn't know anything about him until I started researching for this blog post. What a fascinating person he was!He made a huge impact with his still photographs, and he also was a writer, film maker (he directed the movie "Shaft"), and composer.Parks was born in Kansas in 1912. He was a self-taught photographer. He was inspired by the likes of Dorothea Lange. Parks said, "I saw that the camera could be a weapon against  poverty, against racism, against all sorts…

February is Black History Month, so I thought it would be fun to look at the history of black photographers. From Jules Lion, who made daguerreotypes in New Orleans in 1839, the year after they were  invented, to contemporary photographer Yannis Davy Guibinga, black photographers have made significant contritions in journalism, portraiture, fashion and art.P.H. Polk was one of those artists. He went to school in 1916 at Tuskegee Institute with the intention of becoming a painter like Van Gogh or Rembrandt. But he was told by the institute's founder, Dr. Booker T. Washington, that he should take…