Aaliyah Wilson

Professor Nichole Froucher

PHO 101                                                          

5/18/21

Jon Henry Presentation

Jon Henry is a photographer from Queen, New York. His work focus on political issues, grief, trauma, and healing within the African American community. I love how he shows the issues that are, happening in the community from police brutality and the trauma caused by police brutality. And the healing we have to go through and still have to go through till this day. Overall I like how he presented his work and how he brings awareness to the trauma the African American community going through in our life.

Aaliyah Wilson 

Professor Nichole Froucher

PHO 101                                                          

5/17/21

Artist’s Statement

I take a photos to show the beauty and the emotions in the world through my lens. I connect with photography because It’s permits us to seize the splendor and wonder of human beings and locations around us. But I mostly want to show the beauty in a place that seen as not beautiful. In my final portfolio, I wanted to show the different times of the year of the beauty that can be shown in different places and showing the color, and lighting in the photographs.One photographer I  connect with is Jade Doskow in her project Fresh Kills, from 1948 to 2001. She shows  the beauty and color in a New York landfill, somewhere some people wouldn’t call beautiful. I can connect with this I also like to take photos of picture that not was beautiful.  I  also want to shows people through my  photography   the moments we may  take advantage of in our daily life. And I also  want to shown people with my photography to not  take advantage of those moments in our lives.

Aaliyah Wilson

Professor Nichole Frocheur

Mini Research Project

4/19/21

The first two photos is from Carrie Mae Weems work The Kitchen Table(1989-1990),The last two is from Carrie Mae Weems work Mayflower(2003)

Corrie Mae Weem is an American photographer and artist. She was born April 20, 1953, in  Portland, Oregon. She has award-winning photographs, films, and videos that have been on display in over fifty exhibitions in the United States and abroad.In her work  she focus on serious issues that are facing African Americans today, like racism, gender relations, politics, and personal identity, she was politically active in the labor movement as a union organizer. And she would take photos for political reasons before she started to take them for artistic purposes. She was inspired to pursue photography when she came across The Black Photography Annual, a book of images by African-American photographers.  The book contains the work of photographers Shawn Walker, Beuford  Smith, Anthony Barboza, Ming Smith, Ader Cowans, and Roy DeCarava.  

One of  Carrie Mae Weems’s projects that I was researching is The Kitchen Table. . She had been working on this project from 1989-1990. The project contains 20 photographs and 14 text panels. She used one source of light in each of the photographs. In this project, she wanted to tell a story of one woman's life as it is conducting in her kitchen. And sharing the experience around family dynamics, friendship, and the war between the sexes. The kitchen frames her story, one of the primary spaces of domesticity and the traditional realm of women, which reveals her relationships—with lovers, children, friends—and her sense of self, in her varying projections of dominance, weakness, aloofness, tenderness, and solitude. Carrie Mae Weems would describe the work of art depicts “the battle around the family ... monogamy ... and between the sexes."

The second project of Carrie Mae Weems that I was researching is the Mayflower (2003). The mayflower shows African American girls in flowered dresses spread out in decorous repose on shady lawns or dance around a maypole in this project. Simultaneously, she exposes a harsh irony: in the nineteenth century, young African American women were much more likely to serve as servants in upper-class homes than to appear in the formal portraits that decorated their drawing rooms. This historical fact contrasts with the girls in the picture who seem to be living a life of leisure. Mayflower is one of Weems first that won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2013 to enter the collection of the National Gallery of Art. It was also acquired with Alfred H.Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund.  

I really enjoy researching her works,I love how she tell her stories in all her projects.Especially in her project The Kitchen Table showing,how intimate  the kitchen table space can be in your house.For me I can relate because my kitchen table is such an intimate space in my house and just somewhere I had good, bad,and even sad moment. Also  love in her project the shows the injustice in the African- American community in her photograph. And I think her making some of her projects black and white really helps to  draw you into the photo. With her doing this i  was able to relate to the photos more then if it’s was in color.

Works Cited

Goodlin, Lisa. “Carrie Mae Weems.” Carriemaeweems.net, 2010, carriemaeweems.net/index.html.

VALENTINE, VICTORIA. “Carrie Mae Weems on Kitchen Table Series: ‘Not Simply a Voice for African American Women, but More Generally for Women.’” Https://Www.culturetype.com/2020/08/13/Carrie-Mae-Weems-On-Kitchen-Table-Series-Not-Simply-a-Voice-For-African-American-Women-But-More-Generally-For-Women/, 13 Aug. 2020, www.culturetype.com/2020/08/13/carrie-mae-weems-on-kitchen-table-series-not-simply-a-voice-for-african-american-women-but-more-generally-for-women/.

Photo by Corinne Day from the” Fifteen” Exhibition. Corinne Day is British fashion photographer know for the images she published in 1990 in “The Face” exhibition. Her work is focus on documentary photographer, and fashion model. She was an model before she become a  Photographer.

I find Corinne Day work interesting.I love how capture she the model happiness and joy in her projects doesn’t seem like it was focused .It’s just  come off as naturally smile and the model looks truely happy in the moment  Corrine is taking the photo. I love that she has experience of being the model in the photo then being the person that take the photo.  Being able to tell the model what to do in the photo and being able to capture it. I think her having the experince of both she able to capture the geniue moment in her photos.Overally I really enjoy researching her exhibition and learning about her and her journey of becoming an photographer.

A Walk To The Park. Project: Documentary Subject:My Cousins

In the beginning of this project I wanted to do an nttive project. But the more I started to take more pictures of my cousins I realize  It was more of  an documentary project. I wanted to show me spending time with my cousin. Especially with the year we just had not being able to see each other. Because of the the pandemic and social distancing.And now being able to spend time with together. I realize how much they had changed, they are starting to become teenagers now. And they are not the little annoying cousin I knew before the pandemic. I’m able to talk to them and getting to know them all over again. And not just be o our phone when we are together I think the pandemic has show me to spend more time with my cousin and the people in my life.

Exhibition Assignment: 
 The exhibition that will be talking about is Certain These Clouds  Go Somewhere by Marisa S. White. Her images give a dream-like and surreal photography. Marria was raised in Houston, Texas. Now she resides in Colorado. She had received her BFA from the University of North Texas,  and she studied at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography in Missoula, Montana. The gallery hosting her exhibition is Catherine Couturier Gallery. The exhibition is on display from February 6 - March 13, 2021.  There are about six images in this exhibition. The dimension of the photos range is 10x10,20x20,30x30 and 40x40. 

The two photos that caught my eye were the No.9 and the Reason. The No.9 shows a small aperture F22 or F16. The photo also shows a shutter speed of 1/1000. I also see in the photo  a balance of colors. Between the dress,the clouds and the sky. While the Reason photograh  also shows a small aperture of F22. I see a fast shutter speed of 1/1000. And a low sensitivity ISO 100.Both photography has a dream like and surreal photo.Overall  I really enjoy this exhibition.

When I first saw it this exhibition. I was wondering what was going on in the images. But the more I continue to look at the images. I started to relate with the images. It was like the images were telling a story. About uncertainty with the first image the girl is falling into the ocean. It  could represented someone losing themselves or letting go of themselves. Then you go to the image No.9 where someone is standing in the clouds . This photo represents someone uncertain or lost. It could also represent someone's head in the clouds.And not realizing the beauty that is around them. But the image Reason shows the person seeing the beauty that is around them or in there . And the starting to enjoy the beauty. But it think the exhibition relate to today where we can get trap in our daliy busy life . And not taking the time to enjoy the beauty around us. Our taking time to  taking a breath and just enjoy life.

The link for Marisa S.White exhibition is http://www.catherinecouturier.com/exhibitions/current-exhibition/marisa-s-white-certain-these-clouds-go-somewhere/

Top Photo

Date: Feburary 23,2021

Time: 5:25

Taken on IPhone

Bottom Photo

Date:Feburary,6,2021

Time: 3:15

Taken on IPhone 

Top Photo 

Date:February,24,2021

Time: 2:51am

Taken on iphone

Bottom Photo

Date: February, 2,2021

Time:5:41

Taken on iphone

Top photo

Date: February 2,2021

Time: 5:22

Taken on IPhone

Portrait mode

Bottom Photo

Date: February 7,2021

Time: 6:03

Taken on IPhone

Top photo

Date: February 23,2021

Time: 5:56

Taken on IPhone

Bottom Photo

Date: February,6,2021

Time: 5:02

Taken on Iphone

Sunset cloud

Date: February 22

Time: 5:12pm

Taken on I Phone

Photo #1

Photo: Photographer Unknown

Black Slave Woman Nanny Mammy & White Baby 1860s Civil War Era CDV 

Pinterst.com

Quote from the reading:

“Will her family ever see this image? if so, what will they make of her situation? Does she live with or near her biological family? The loneliness expressed in her eyes speaks to me 150 years later”.

While I was looking for a photo,I found this photo and started to ask myself  the same question Deborah Willis was asking in the reading.Is the little girl  happy? Is she being force to take this picture and take care of the baby.Is she lonely? As i continue to ask myself  more questions. I started to be sad because she had to take care of children's  from a young age until she is older. And won't be able to have a childhood or freedom. Because she was not  look at as a human but as property. And it shouldn't be beacuse she is human and she deserves to be treated as a human and not property.

First Photo: Yasmine Malone, Oxford Mississippi 


Second Photo: Aaliyah Wilson, Brooklyn, New York 


In the first photo, Yasmine is representing confidence in the most uncomfortable place. When it comes to doubt and insecurity and seeing that beauty is the action of loving yourself. I connect with the photo because it reminded me of the time that I didn’t know who I was.I had begin to doubt myself and thinking I wasn’t good enough or pretty. I begin to feel like I was being used from the people around me.It wasn’t until I start to learn more about myself.And realizing that beauty is the act of loving yourself. And that I don’t need validation from other people.