Customer Reviews

Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present

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This fabulous book deserves all of the praise it has earned. In addition the final chapter, "Photography of the 1980s and 1990s," includes an amazing section of modern art photgraphy, unmatched in any other photography collection in print today. Astonishing and utterly original works of young African American photographers Albert Chong, Pat Ward Williams, Chris Johnson, Terry Boddie, and Calvin Hicks are just a few highlights. In addition, Ms. Willis, a MacArthur Fellow, brings a clear, assured, and scholarly voice to her narration of this wonderful collection. No public or school library can afford to be without this book. The notes and the index are terrific. Also worth mentioning is that the prints are big enough, the paper is top quality, and the color reproduction is excellent. Deserves more than five Amazon stars.

It's difficult to explain the impact of this book. After all, it's a scholarly, historical work. How can it have such a powerful emotional punch? The only explanation is the remarkable effect of seeing African Americans through the eyes of African Americans, an experience so unusual as to be literally shocking. I know I will look through it again and again over the years and see new things every time. Thank you, Deborah Willis, for your wonderful work.

This book is groundbreaking. We have seen African Americans mostly through the eyes of white photographers and artists. In this remarkable volume, we see an entire culture through its own eyes, and the view is inspiring, startling, and rewarding. Anyone who is interested in the WHOLE history of the United States should buy this book.

Deborah Willis' Reflections In Black provides a powerful history of black photographers from 1840 to the present. This represents the first comprehensive history of black photographers, and assembles photos of black life from 1840 to modern times. Nearly 600 images with almost 500 in duotone and over 80 in color make for an impressive presentation indeed.

After touring the exhibit at the Smithsonian, which was excellent, the book offers a detailed account of each of the exhibited photographers and it also includes many more photographs than were exhibited. Deborah Willis has done a tremendous job in reviewing the history of photography in African-America. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in African-American history, photography, and the diaspora.

"Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers, from 1840 to the Present" comes awfully close. The photos vividly chronicle the Black experience in America. From the famous to the not so famous, all the joys and sorrows of a people are marvelously presented in this exquisite document. The accompanying text is entertainingly informative. The authors have truly outdone themselves.

I will be purchasing a few copies for friends. Others, I will tell to get their own.

It's THAT GOOD!

This history of black photographers covers 1840 to modern times, presenting a wide-ranging set of images and social and artistic observations which should intrigue a diverse audience, from artists to those interested in black history. Black and white images accompany in-depth text coverage of the artists and their times in this first comprehensive history of black photographers.

... For more than a century, according to Deborah Willis, curator of photography at the Smithsonian, black photographers deliberately used their work to counter prevailing racial stereotypes and enhance racial pride. Her monumental portfolio of photographs by these artists, studio owners, and itinerant "painters with light" does more than counter stereotypes; it defies attempts to generalize about its subject.

People in this arresting collection of pictures are caught up in all kinds of ordinary pursuits--reading, working, dining, marrying, praying, talking, playing games, posing in lovely clothes, getting haircuts, making music or speeches or dinner--in a spirited, generally trustful relationship with the camera. Clearly Willis's criterion as she selected photographs was, as she says in the text, "expressive power."

Still, white Americans viewing these pictures are likely to bring to the experience the same old images of slavery, Civil Rights marches, and past or present media caricatures of black life that they've drawn from school and popular culture all their lives. Perhaps the delightful photographs of children in the book will take on ominous overtones because we know of future trials the childish mind can't predict. But such a reaction can keep us from realizing that what's on the child's mind may be partly the point.

For example, two Boston children have been posed in front of ornate ironwork, wearing starched lace dresses (it's 1910) and starched bows in their hair. They look beautiful--and stiff, and miserable! Good little girls, they've let Mother dress them up today, but they seem to want to tear off those enormous bows, jump the iron fence, and tumble around on the grass like anyone else their age.

Another example: Malcolm X crouches to hold his two daughters in his arms. He's talking to little Attallah, his eyes warmly upon her. But she turns away from her father's handsome face to stare unhappily at the audience, as if asking us just to go away for a change and give her some private time with Dad.

If the original vitality in these photographs can't keep us from calling up the preconceptions we carry around with us, this may actually be useful. The book's very freshness about what seems familiar makes us realize how old and worn-out our assumptions can be. Thus the photographs can (as Willis says in her introduction) "create a new  historical consciousness that has the power to rewrite history itself."

But "Reflections in Black" is more than a documentary that can provoke useful debates within ourselves and between groups interpreting past or present culture. It shows that despite their commonalities black photographers have a long history of debating with each other. Is their medium an art or an engine of social progress? Should photography make mementos for its subjects or involve and change its viewers? The competing purposes and conflicting angles of vision represented in the book are part of what makes it fascinating.

Best of all, the book is marvelous for simply wandering and wondering through:

A remarkable series by a photographer who eventually lived in Seattle presents a man in three poses- - seated for his formal portrait, then hanged for murder, and finally laid out in his coffin.

Women in the book are gloriously unpredictable. Billie Holliday rehearsing with Count Basie looks like a Fifties coed in sweater, plaid skirt, and ponytail. Zora Neale Hurston smiles like an angel instead of with her usual impish brass.

Men? None are alike. A nattily dressed man waits at a bright window, fedora tipped up to let in the view, papers gleaming mysteriously in the background. A lined, leathery cowboy smokes a cigarette, his arms roped with tendons. Seattle's own Jacob Lawrence looks like a serious man at twenty and equally serious midway through his life, midway up a stepladder, in reverie.

Elsewhere, a lonely stony beach caresses the eye with dark grays and liquid silver. And beside a brick building draped with a gigantic sky-blue banner painted with the face of Malcolm X, a black cowboy rides through a golden field.

A friend had this book and let me borrow it for a few days. The book had so much history and an abundance of photos taken by black photographers and of black people. The photos actually give the reader a different look and perspective of the way history has been recorded. I find the book to be very interesting and educational and for the price an excellent deal.

Beneath the blanket of cultural arrogance that - even today - refuses to acknowledge the contributions made by its own citizens, is a truth that has been beautifully presented here by Ms. Willis. The images and text fully support what writer Richard Wright wrote, that, "OUR HISTORY IS FAR STRANGER THAN YOU SUSPECT, AND WE ARE NOT WHAT WE SEEM." Brava, Ms. Willis, and thank you.