THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 29, 1996 TAG: 9609290040
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 148 lines
From the core of Munson Park, Dawoud Bey could pivot himself in every direction and keep an eye on the kids.
The nationally known art photographer - whose 20-year retrospective opens today at the Virginia Beach Center for the Arts - had nine youngsters in his charge at the neighborhood park off 26th Street on Saturday. It was day three of his photo workshop.
Bey had devoted the previous two days to teaching his basic how-to's: get close to your subjects, don't cut their feet off, capture them behaving naturally.
Beyond that, Bey had an agenda. ``I'm trying to get them to begin to look critically at certain forms of representation - more specifically, how African Americans are represented in the media.''
Images are power, he said. In giving these youths cameras and imparting a basic visual literacy, he intended to empower them.
``I try to give kids a sense of the power they have, that this camera can be used as a tool,'' he said.
His students spoke as if they had learned his lessons well.
``We've been talking about stereotypes, and what images we want to portray in our pictures,'' said LaTonya Sanders, 17. ``It made us think more about the images we were taking.''
``And we learned about composition,'' added Phalishia Jackson, 13. ``He was telling us that we don't need all that space up top, and that we should get closer to the subject.''
``Take a picture of a person being themselves,'' piped in Derrick Walton, 11. ``And if you want to tell them how to sit, you can. And, do not cut off their feet.''
Old houses with porches, and newer apartment buildings, faced the small, square park on all sides. From Bey's vantage point, the youths, aged 11 to 17, created a panorama of picture-taking activity.
Each participant had been given - for keeps - a Polaroid camera. On Saturday, they were allowed 20 pictures each. In clusters or alone, they approached people engaged in typical Saturday activities - sweeping the driveway, resting on the porch, riding a bicycle.
Several kids had coerced the neighborhood mail carrier into the park for a portrait session, and he was giggling at the attention.
``The mailman really thinks he's a celebrity today,'' said an amused Thelma Clark, arts and crafts director at Colonial Boys & Girls Club, where the workshop was taking place.
The kids were taking pictures of one another and of friends and relatives who happened upon the scene. In between, they would run to Bey with their pictures, to get his reaction.
Shalonda Clark, 14, showed him her portrait of an older woman and child on a porch.
``Now, this is really good,'' said Bey, a large man with a commanding yet kindly presence. ``But I want you to go back and take the same picture. Get both of them in it, but get closer.
``Don't be nervous,'' he continued. ``Just move right in - as long as you ask them, and get their permission.''
Asking permission has become a vital point to Bey, whose career has been built on his reputation as a socially responsible photographer. In his elegantly lit, giant Polaroid portraits, he imbues his subjects with an almost regal demeanor, rather than portraying them as passive victims.
At 42, the artist - whose name is pronounced dah-wood bay - has exhibited at the nation's top art venues, from the Museum of Modern Art to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, which organized the national touring exhibit with 10 stops, including Virginia Beach.
Raised in the Queens borough of New York City, Bey holds a master of fine arts degree from Yale and is assistant professor of art at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. He lives in New Haven, Conn., with his artist wife, Candida, and son, Ramon.
``I think there's a tremendous potential for the camera to be an exploitative tool,'' he said on Friday. ``Part of my work is to keep it from becoming one.''
Bey is thinking of the kind of documentary photography where pictures are shot on the street. The subjects never see the results and have no control over their image being sent out into the world.
In such instances, ``the power would seem to rest with the photographer,'' he said.
Bey began shooting in just that manner. In 1975, he took to the streets of Harlem, where his parents were raised. His choice of a setting also was influenced by a now-legendary exhibit he saw in 1969 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. Called ``Harlem on My Mind,'' the show included images of black people by black photographers such as James Van Der Zee.
As the years passed, he felt uncomfortable about his relationship with the people he photographed.
Exploitation occurs when the subject is portrayed as a passive victim, he said. ``If you're poor, and you're sitting on the steps of a rundown building, and along comes this photographer, the presumption is you're helpless about your plight, and you need me to be your mouthpiece.
``And it also presumes someone will see your picture and help your plight.''
Bey sees it as truer, and more fair, to allow the subject's strength to shine through the portrait. To that end, he adopted the studio portrait style he has used in recent years.
It takes one to four hours for him to complete a portrait with the camera he now uses, a Polaroid view camera that produces 20-by-24-inch images. During sessions, he encourages his sitters - for the most part, minority youths - to reveal themselves as they relax and adapt to the setting.
Gradually, Bey arrived at a reciprocal arrangement that suits him just fine. Since the early 1990s, Bey's subjects are the people who attend his workshops. They get to shoot him as much as he shoots them.
``And that's what the work is all about. It's not just my voice.''
In Hampton Roads, he was unable to photograph his workshop students - for lack of time, and funds. Polaroid owns all five existing 20-by-24 cameras, and rents them for a hefty $10,000 a week.
Bey's earlier Polaroid portraits featured young people staring out at the viewer. It was the kind of direct gaze that African Americans - until fairly recently - dared not use toward whites, for fear of their lives.
Lately, his work has taken a more introspective turn.
Bey said the pictures mirror his life. ``Oh, sure, all portraits are about the photographer. I sometimes think that the things I connect with are about an aspect of myself. And when I recognize it, that's the photograph.''
When he's shooting, ``people ask me, `What are you looking for?'
``It can only be myself.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by DAWOUD BEY, 1992-93
Color photos by MOTOYA NAKAMURA, The Virginian-Pilot
Dawoud Bey, a nationally known art photographer whose exhibit opens
today in Virginia Beach, seeks to counteract stereotypes of blacks.
Here he shows Shatika Kelley, 11, how to better compose a picture.
At the Colonial Boys and Girls Club, Derrick Walton takes
photographs during a workshop. Part of the lesson: "Take a picture
of a person being themselves," Derrick says.
Photo by MOTOYA NAKAMURA, The Virginian-Pilot
Dawoud Bey, a nationally known art photographer whose exhibit opens
today in Virginia Beach, seeks to counteract stereotypes of blacks.
Here he shows Shatika Kelley, 11, how to better compose a picture.
Graphic
WANT TO GO?
What: ``Dawoud Bey: Portraits 1975-1995''
Where: Virginia Beach Center for the Arts, 2200 Parks Ave.
When: Today through Nov. 10
Hours: 10 a.m to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 10 to 4 p.m.
Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.
How much: free
Call: 425-0000
Reception: A free exhibit reception takes place today from 2 to 5
p.m. A tribute performance of African music and dance is set for 3
p.m., to be followed by the artist's gallery talk.
Youth exhibit: Photos by Norfolk youngsters who participated in a
workshop with Bey this week go on view Monday for two weeks at
Colonial Boys and Girls Club, 26th Street and Colonial Avenue,
Norfolk.
KEYWORDS: PHOTOGRAPHY by CNB