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Family History Memory: Recording African American Life
Photographer, archivist, and curator Willis has assembled photo quilts, photographs, and essays that have been previously published in edited volumes, exhibition catalogs, and monographs. It is the first time her own photographs have been published as a collection. Most of them depict the African American community in such contexts as beauty, cancer diaries, city scenes, shotgun houses, and Hip Hop but one section deals with Palestine. The essays discuss family, history, and memory. There is no index. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 25, 2005
About the author
Deborah Willis
127 books43 followersDr. Willis is chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 25, 2015
"The photograph is an instrument of memory, one that explores the value of self, family, and memory in documenting everyday life."
I don't know many Black photographers. You just do not here much about any mahogany Annie Leibovitz's, but for the better part of a decade I have known the name and work of Dr. Deborah Willis. She has spent decades working actively as an artist and professor and her work is a rare breed in a rarefied and exclusive field. This book, published in 2005, shows why she is so lauded.
I initially received this book mostly of different photo essays by Dr. Willis for Christmas 2007 but did not bother to read it for another month or so. When I did I was impressed by the pictures themselves and the precise layout of the book. It is mostly photo essays, but it also includes a few selected essays at the beginning and end that focuses on her life, family, and the start of her career (as well as her battle with breast cancer) and these are well worth the read.
The charm of this book is the simultaneously unified and diversified. Her main focuses is everyday life no matter where she is at. The photographs featured go from her family pictures to pictures that influenced her over the decades, but the main attraction is her own photography which is in great display and beautiful black and white for the most part. She covers her hometown of Philadelphia, New York City, Johannesburg, Havanna, Salvador da Bahia, Palestine during the First Intifada, Miami and other places from the 1960s to 2004. She provides a unique focus as an African-American woman of the post-WWII world and the photographs have a special nostalgic charm for me as it takes me back to the D.C. and Maryland of the 1990s specifically and the look of her photographs remind me of how much my own hometown has changed (and not changed) in the last quarter-century.
Whenever I master how to embed photos in these reviews I will be sure to share a few of the pictures featured in this book.
I don't know many Black photographers. You just do not here much about any mahogany Annie Leibovitz's, but for the better part of a decade I have known the name and work of Dr. Deborah Willis. She has spent decades working actively as an artist and professor and her work is a rare breed in a rarefied and exclusive field. This book, published in 2005, shows why she is so lauded.
I initially received this book mostly of different photo essays by Dr. Willis for Christmas 2007 but did not bother to read it for another month or so. When I did I was impressed by the pictures themselves and the precise layout of the book. It is mostly photo essays, but it also includes a few selected essays at the beginning and end that focuses on her life, family, and the start of her career (as well as her battle with breast cancer) and these are well worth the read.
The charm of this book is the simultaneously unified and diversified. Her main focuses is everyday life no matter where she is at. The photographs featured go from her family pictures to pictures that influenced her over the decades, but the main attraction is her own photography which is in great display and beautiful black and white for the most part. She covers her hometown of Philadelphia, New York City, Johannesburg, Havanna, Salvador da Bahia, Palestine during the First Intifada, Miami and other places from the 1960s to 2004. She provides a unique focus as an African-American woman of the post-WWII world and the photographs have a special nostalgic charm for me as it takes me back to the D.C. and Maryland of the 1990s specifically and the look of her photographs remind me of how much my own hometown has changed (and not changed) in the last quarter-century.
Whenever I master how to embed photos in these reviews I will be sure to share a few of the pictures featured in this book.
November 12, 2011
Deborah Willis books often evoke great emotions. The pictures were timeless. Her level of photography, her eye is untouchable in many ways.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews