We have chosen to look at the Book published by David Campany called “So present, so invisible.” From his brief introduction, he clearly states that photography itself is evolving everyday, how now we have images produced digitally. Photographs aren’t a problem to capture anymore because we all have cameras on our phones. The topic of photography turns into a very conversational aspect as their is so much to talk about within one image than not. In his book, he has had various conversations with lots of other photographers the one photographer I have chosen to explore is Latoya Ruby Frazier.

“I look for narrative or context that will amplify the voices of the marginalised who have so many important stories to tell about America, capitalism, working class life and the current issues we face..”

“I believe in the value of documentary photography especially at this moment, as we watch the mass media manipulate the issues around gentrification ,poverty, police brutatltiy and corporative violent against our ecosystems.”

“Kracacuer felt that photographs obscured the truth and fought contemplation. Benjamin was concerned that photographic world masked the complexity of the human world.”

“Andrea Holding Her Daughter Nephartti”

The image above comes from one of her famous publications called “the notion of family.” In this exploration of her work she was trying to tell her story. Frazier was an African- American along with all her family. She wanted to emphasise the struggle her family had to go through and come to terms with oppression of Braddock, a small suburb, and the terrible physical and psychological torture they endured for years. Her work captures a balance between family and society, our body enduring pain but also be somewhat hopeful aswell.

Visually, what we can see from this image is 2 ladies, one being the mother and the other the daughter. They’re positioned in the centre of the image which immediately draws our attention to them as the models straight away.

After having done some contextual research on the image, Frazier has captured this moment because of what was going on at the time. The image is called “Andrea Holding her daughter Nephratti.” She’s holding her daughter because of the living conditions at the time in Flint. A crisis began in 2014 when officials switched to a cheaper water source. The new water source caused old lead pipes to corrode. The lead became toxic which meant all civilians would have to switch to bottled water for ordinary everyday tasks. Frazier spent 5 months with three generations of woman from Flint as they attempted to live their normal lives. She described that those woman often lent on one another and relied on each other to be able to live day in day out. This explains the positioning of the mother and daughter in the image above as you can see one of them is resting her head on the other. The positioning of them is important as it mirrors the reliance on each other at this particular time.

Symbolically, as they are wearing white it could also be inferred as a sign of peace due to the cultural differences that Frazier was experiencing as an African- American in Flint at this time. The colour white is often associated with peace and coming together, something which only happened in Flint after they changed the water supplies The reliance they had on one another to complete day to day tasks that now became a challenge. The tone and emotion coming from the image is rather ominous in the sense that neither of them are smiling but neither of them look angry. Frazier could have kept them almost emotionless to portray what was happening to her community not only racial abuse but physical abuse as well.