Annotative Bibliography

Father and Child, Harlem, New York, by Roy DeCarava

Observation

In this photo I see a black man and a black child. The child is clutching the face of the man and kissing him on the cheek. Both subjects appear to be wearing simple t-shirts. There is a glass in the frame, suggesting the subjects are in the kitchen. The room is dimly lit, and the photograph itself has an orange tint. The photo also appears to be flipped 90 degrees to make it on its side.

Inference

In reading the excerpt from, Roy DeCarava, Harlem, and the Psychic Self, by Erina Duganne it became apparent that DeCarava was intent on making his photography much more than just a simple image. He wanted to start a revolution in the art of photography and take a simple image and create an abstract meaning that was up for interpretation to his audience. The chapter also discussed some of the intimate details of DeCarava's childhood and life. DeCarava was raised by a single, widowed mother. They moved around Harlem frequently and lived in neighborhoods heavily populated by Hispanic, Irish, and Italian Americans rather than African Americans. He felt very out of place as a child and often used that solitude as a subject for interpretation in his photographs. Judging by the title of the photograph, I believe that this is a a picture of a father and his child. I believe that DeCarava's inspiration for this photograph stems from the feelings that he probably typically had growing up without a father of his own. 

"'That picture, with its lack of space and light, expressed what I felt as a six-year-old but was not able to express then' In this passage, DeCarava suggests that rather than literally represent the exact hallway in which he grew up, he sought to use his representation of this corridor to assimilate his past, again not to fix it, but to allow it to generate new meanings both in his present and future." (Duganne 134)

It is because of this specific passage that I believe that DeCarava would have taken this picture not only for his audience to interpret, but also for his own benefit. I believe that for him to take this photo he would have had to confront his past and be able to move forward in his own personal struggle. I think that the darkness in the picture illustrates the sadness in this struggle; however, the obvious love between the father and child in the photograph displays his positive journey towards moving on from the negative experiences of his past.


Works Cited

Duganne, Erina. "Chapter 4." The Self in Black and White: Race and Subjectivity in Postwar American Photography. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College, 2010. 132-67. Print.