Spiro’s Sight

Please take a few minutes to watch the video below. Consider the words (below) of Frederick Douglass as you view the photos before we analyze them in the classroom. How did Douglass view the "art"of photography? {Inspired by a post written by Maurice Berger of the New York Times Lens Blog}

“Negroes can never have impartial portraits, at the hands of white artists. It seems to us next to impossible for white men to take likenesses of black men, without most grossly exaggerating their distinctive features. And the reason is obvious. Artists, like all other white persons, have adopted a theory respecting the distinctive features of Negro physiognomy. We have heard many white persons say, that ‘Negroes look all alike,’ and that they could not distinguish between the old and the young. They associate with the Negro face, high cheek bones, distended nostril, depressed nose, thick lips, and retreating foreheads. This theory impressed strongly upon the mind of an artist exercises a powerful influence over his pencil, and very naturally leads him to distort and exaggerate those peculiarities, even when they scarcely exist in the original.”

 
Images of Emancipation from Spiro Bolos on Vimeo.
Music by Nils Frahm. "Si" from Screws