The other photographer I am looking at for my question based on the importance of family is Latoya Ruby Frazier, a photographer who documented her own family during an economic downfall and a struggle of racism within her home down of Braddock, Pennsylvania. For her series ‘ The Notion of Family’, she looks at how these events within her town have effected her family within their home. There are two photographers who were large influences for her work – Carrie Mae Weems and Dawoud Bey. Carrie Mae Weems is considered to be “one of the most influential contemporary American artists”(–), and has investigated many factors through her works such as family, sexism, class, cultural identity, political systems and the consequences of power. When it comes to her influence on Frazier’s work, the topics which they both explore are quite similar, with Weems looking at cultural identity as one of her topics she has explored and Frazier looking at racism within her community. Frazier has also seemed to have taken on the same type of images which Weems has, such as candid images of others, and gone with the same use of black and white images which Weems has. Dawoud Bey is an American photographer who uses documentary style techniques to ” challenge stereotypical images of African Americans and other historically marginalized groups. “(–) Bey would have been an influence for Frazier as the topics which they both explore are similar to each other, with Bey looking at racism and stereotypes of African Americans and Fraizer looking at the racism within her community.

In this image you can see two women sat on the floor in the middle of the black and white image. They both look at the camera with two different expressions, the older woman having a slight frown on her face while the younger woman looks a bit happier with a hint of a smile on her lips. They look like they’ve been interrupted from the middle of a conversation that they were having. They seem comfortable in each other’s presence, which indicated that they’ve known each other for a while and have a bond. The older woman looks to be the younger woman’s grandmother, as they both look similar to each other. The room they’re sitting in seems to be the living room, with the television and numerous other decorations, including the grandfather clock in the background. By the look of the room they don’t look like they’re struggling with money, but they don’t look like they are a middle or high class family either.

In Latoya Ruby’s series ‘ The Notion of Family’, she looks at the legacy of racism and economic decline in America’s small towns, through the use of her home town of Braddock, Pennsylvania which became financially depressed after the fall of the steel industry in the 1970s-1980’s. To look at these issues she focuses on three generations of her family – her grandmother, her mother and herself – and photographs them in their home. She follows the social documentary style of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange to create images which were inspired by Gordon Parks, who promoted the camera as a weapon for social justice. Her images, including the one above, are raw photographs of her family and captures the authenticity of the moment. With the use of black and white images, she is able to highlight the beauty of her home town and how this place has affected her family’s life along with the other people who lived in the area.

Both photographers include family – in Walker Evans’ image you can clearly see the family of five standing together on the porch, and in Latoya Ruby’s image you can see a grandmother and her granddaughter. When it comes to the contexts of their images, they are similar in the way in which they both look at the effect of economic downfall on families. Evans was exploring the effect of the Great Depression on families within small communities, while Ruby was looking at her own family in the time of racism and economic downfall in her home town of Braddock, Pennsylvania. However it is different in the way which while Evans was looking at multiple families and how they were effected by a country-wide event, Ruby was only looking at the effects of economic downfall on her small hometown, and her own family. As Latoya Ruby was looking at her own family, she had more of a connection with those who she was photographing and knew them well, so she could shape her photographs to suit their personalities, lives, ect, whereas Walker Evans didn’t know the families personally and did not have that connection, so he may not have been able to take images which truly reflect who these people are. When it comes to each of them as individuals, there are differences between the two which could effect the way they take their images and look at the events which they are documenting, such as the fact that Frazier is a woman and Evans is a man, so they would each look at the events in different ways – through a man’s point of view and a woman’s point of view.

Bibliography :

• Carrie Mae Weems Biography, carriemaeweems.net( http://carriemaeweems.net/bio.html)
• Dawoud Bey’s Briography, thehistorymakers.org( https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/dawoud-bey-40)