Gordon Parks How the Photographer Captured Black and White America Review
KT: I was excited to see this volume come in because I have long been a fan of Gordon Parks's photography, and I was eager to learn more about him.
KT: I was excited to see this book come up in because I take long been a fan of Gordon Parks's photography, and I was eager to learn more well-nigh him. Carole Boston Weatherford'due south book is less a biography than it is the story of how he found his calling. When he was 20-five, he was then taken past a magazine photo-essay nigh migrant farmers that he bought a used camera and began to document what he observed.
Artist Jamey Christoph faced several challenges with illustrating this volume: to start with, there's the historical flake and the different settings, both of which would have required research. Christoph does both actually well, giving a remarkable sense of time and place through his muted stylized paintings.
And and then there'due south the whole claiming of making the pictures interesting when most of the action in the volume involves Parks taking photographs once again and over again. And once more. Here's where I recollect Christoph'south fine art actually shines. He focuses on Parks (always easily identifiable by the camera strap and camera hanging from his shoulder) every bit the observer and shows us what Parks is seeing. In each of these illustrations, Parks is off to one side, often framed by low-cal, looking at something that strikes him. His obvious fascination with what he is seeing causes us to look more closely, too. Nosotros see the sometime human and petty male child sitting in an alley. We run across the mother and daughter walking past the restaurant with the "Whites But!" sign posted in the window. We see the old charwoman scrubbing the floor in the government edifice. Nosotros really see them, just as Parks'due south photos of these subjects makes the states meet them.
Most amazing: none of Christoph's art actually looks like photos, even the ones that are supposed to be some of Parks'southward most famous photos. The only way we know they're illustrations of photos is by the white frames around them, and that they're painted in brown tone rather than color.
Robin: It's besides articulate that Christoph loves the subject field matter. Whenever I read a volume past an illustrator or writer I practice non know, I normally do a piddling research. This time, I went to the interwebs to find out near Jamey Christoph. His website was bare bones, but I was able to find his older blog and find out a little more about him. He appears to be quite young, is a freelance artist, and has drawn a lot of Playbill covers. He has besides illustrated about ten books. I don't think I am speaking out of turn when I say this electric current book is the most serious volume he has taken on. On his web log, he says that he didn't know a lot most Parks and details why he wanted to exist a function of this book. To work with Carole Boston Weatherford must accept been an amazing learning experience. If you poke around on his weblog, you will see the two of them visiting a Washington, DC, third-grade form and passing out gratis copies of the book.
But I digress. When I was doing research, I establish original photographs of Ella Watson [the discipline of "American Gothic," one of Parks'due south well-nigh famous photos] and her family unit. I assume the committee volition exist finding these likewise. I remember doing this sort of inquiry when I was on the commission. I probably would call on a photographer to help me look at the originals in lite of the artist's interpretation if the book seems to have traction with my committee. (By this time of year, each member of the committee would know how many suggestions each book has, and, in a few brusk weeks, the members will know how many nominations each book has subsequently the outset round of nominations.)
KT, you said you were impressed that the illustrations don't look like photos. I idea that was amazing, also. How exercise you think the illustrations, especially the ones on the spread with five small images and Mrs. Watson'south somber face up, agree up to the original photos?
KT: If you lot haven't seen the originals, they are fine. Merely if y'all know the originals, you will encounter that the photos, every bit Christoph shows them, are cut off. The Ella Watson photographs often show the surroundings of everyday life, with people in the groundwork, often seen through doorways or reflected in mirrors. You might see framed photographs on bureaus that show earlier generations of her family. There'southward such a depth to his photographs, such an exploration of life and character. He showed ordinary people every bit complex and multi-layered. That'due south part of what makes Gordon Parks's photographs fine art.
Christoph shows merely a pocket-sized portion of these photos, but he makes it await like he'due south showing the whole thing. Substantially, he'due south reducing them to snapshots. So while I don't want Christoph's version to be an verbal replica of the Parks photographs, I do want them to come closer to communicating the feeling those photographs give us. He does reach this, at to the lowest degree, with the "American Gothic" photo of Ella Watson, standing in front of the American flag with her mop and broom. Peradventure that is because information technology was a more formal pose. Simply am I expecting too much?
Robin: I don't know. There is the whole "let'south wait at the book that was written (or illustrated), not the book we wished had been written" issue that comes up a lot on committees or while nosotros review. I often accept to remind myself that the book in front end of us was the one that was written and that there are a lot of children who would know nothing about Gordon Parks if the book had not been created. So, there'south that. Simply, these photos practise exist. They are famous photos, and lots of people know them and volition know that they were not snapshots.
I honey the experience of that page, even though I adopt the original photographs. That muted sepia and the royal faces of the women and children in the photos draw me in and brand me want to know more than. I like how the author's words are stacked upwards on the right side and the photos make full the remainder of the spread. The motion-picture show on the far left corner, where the adult female does not wear her glasses, seems specially poignant with the baby, the shirtless boy, and the girl with her doll. Gordon Parks is off the page, doing his piece of work: taking pictures.
So, information technology does matter. Only, the whole book matters more to me. I love how the artist uses shadows and light to highlight what he wants the reader to see.
Which was your favorite spread, KT?
KT: I have two favorite spreads, and I think they both testify the force of this volume overall. The showtime one appears early, and information technology shows Parks at age fourteen, just after he moved to Minneapolis after his mother died. It shows him standing on a threshold property a suitcase, looking like he'due south ready to step into an uncertain hereafter. On the facing page, it shows an assortment of iii snapshots of Parks at different stages in his young machismo: working every bit a busboy, a piano actor, and a waiter. They are non just effective at showing the passage of time, they also foreshadow his futurity career as a photographer.
My second-favorite spread is of Parks walking home from work in Washington, DC, stopping to notice an old man sitting on the steps in a dorsum aisle, adjacent to a piffling male child. This is a really practiced example of what you mentioned before, Robin, nigh Christoph's use of lite and shadow. The light in this picture falls on Parks on the edge of the left side of the page and on the Capitol building in the groundwork. The man and boy are in shadow on the far right side of the spread, but at that place is a bit of light glowing on their shirts that draws your eye right to them. The same calorie-free casts a glow on the puddle in front of them. The viewer gets to feel the aforementioned thing Parks is experiencing in this scene: you lot almost missed these two people in the shadows, but once you look, you tin can see them, and you won't forget them. It'due south a very dramatic, nevertheless quiet, scene.
Robin:That's a good identify to stop, KT, considering the DC spread happens to be my favorite! Information technology has a completely different feel from the other spreads and allows the reader to see how Parks is feeling in this new city. He is searching for his subject and, when he finds her, we are all improve for it. Maybe the commission volition fret over the drawings of photographs, and possibly they won't. I never know how that volition all become down. What practice you all recollect the committee volition capeesh in this new volume from the pen of poet Carole Boston Weatherford and artist Jamey Christoph?
Source: https://www.hbook.com/story/gordon-parks-how-the-photographer-captured-black-and-white-america