Photo: Portrait, New York, c 1965. Louis Draper (American, 1935–2002). Gelatin silver print; 20.3 x 25.4 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Whitehill Art Purchase Endowment Fund, 2016.271. © Louis H. Draper Preservation Trust.
The photograph is more than a work of art: it is a piece of evidence, a document of fact, and an artifact of the past. It offers proof of what has transpired in time and space, for seeing is believing—and belief is faith. To shoot or not to shoot, that is the question, for what we focus our attention on grows in power and strength. To frame a story through just one perspective, or to never frame it at all, these acts have the power of changing the way people see the world.
.
Photographers Louis Draper (1935-2002) and Leonard Freed (1929-2006) understood this, each in their own way using the camera as a way to write history. Together they created fresh perspectives that were heretofore largely ignored in favor of the spreading of malicious lies, telling the truth about what it means to be Black in America.
.
Read the Full Story at Crave Online
.
Children in the Mirror, Johns Island, South Carolina, 1964. Leonard Freed (American, 1929–2006). Gelatin silver print; 23.8 x 29.8 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg, 2016.282. Image courtesy of Leonard Freed / Magnum Photos.