joy and pain

Okay, maybe that's overstating it, but as I continue to research publications of/by black photographers, I've had some hits and misses. Twice now I've purchased books I believed to be by black photographers, only to discover I had a case of mistaken identity (one was easily returnable, luckily; the other, an import, will cost as much to return as the book itself cost, so I'll have to swallow that one. Damn exchange rate). Sites like amazon.com with their aggressive marketing recommendations based on your previous searches/purchases has proven to be a tremendous help in identifying titles; it's been less easy so far to then take names and identify the race of the photographer, which of course leads to the inevitable question--how important is the race of the photographer if you're interested in the subject, especially with regard to photographers who don't find that useful for the success of their work? To which I answer, very, when there have been fewer than 300 books by black photographers ever published.

Case in point: this weekend I went to Portland, Oregon, so of course I went to Powell's Books, where I picked up a stack of tax-free titles, including Soul Sanctuary: Images of the African American Worship Experience with images by Jason Miccolo Johnson. It was inexpensive, and I'd never heard of it/him, so I was excited to add it to the list. Searching that title on amazon (in order to "borrow" the cover scan) I discovered that Customers Who Bought This Title Also Bought Messengers: Portraits of African American Ministers, Evangelists, Gospel Singers and Other Messengers of the Word with photographs by Nicola Goode. Though white photographers photograph this subject all the time, I always check, which led me to Nicola's website, where she includes her bio:

Nicola Goode, born and raised in Los Angeles, received her BFA in fine art photography from Yale University. For nearly 20 years she has been documenting street life and youth culture throughout the U.S, Central America, Europe, Africa and Cuba. A member of the Society of Motion Picture Still Photographers and the Cinematographer’s Guild she has worked on numerous feature films and documentaries. Her work has been published in magazines and books and exhibited around the world. She collaborated with author Hillary Carlip on the groundbreaking book Girl Power, published by Time Warner in 1995, which documented American teen girl culture. Most recently she worked with celebrated writer David Ritz on Messengers, portraits of African American ministers, published by Random House in 2006. When she is not elsewhere, Nicola can be found in Venice, California with her husband Sean and son Dylan.

I can't tell from this, and of course I'm wondering if she's black how I could not have heard of her, with the Yale degree and all, even if she is primarily a commercial photographer and she received her degree 20 or so years ago--that's actually my educational era. But based on the work on her site I was hopeful, especially because she has 3 publications to her credit. So I did a little web sleuthing, and I finally found this artist's statement on Fotofest's site:

Artist Statement
On a vacation to Brazil with my husband and two year old son last year, I was struck by the openness of Rio de Janeiro’s transgender ‘women’. I was less interested in the showgirls and performers but drawn instead to the ones who led regular lives that dressed for themselves, on the job, in the street, at home rather than on stage. I made some portraits in Rio and when I returned to Los Angeles was inspired to continue photographing transgender people.

The exploration of gender identity and gender perception has certainly been well covered in contemporary photography but I find transsexual portraits are often an exploration of the subject as a sexualized fetish or object. A different cultural climate exists now than the one 30 and 40 year ago when some of the seminal photos of drag queens were made. I believe there is a movement toward greater assimilation and acceptance of transgenders in our society as the trans community redefines its goals and place. There is less emphasis on becoming a surgically imperfect woman that living, dressing and being acknowledged as a woman. The issue ahs become less about sex and more about gender and acceptance.

It is our appearance that gives the world the initial impression and information of who we are and what we are. The desire by many transgenders ‘to pass’ in order to assimilate struck me as a shared obsession with the black community trying to find its place in white society in the 1950s. As a person of a mixed race background I have always been fascinated by plurality. I’ve gotten used to being asked ‘what are you’ even though the answer of being Black and mixed (Native American, Spanish, French) never seems to satisfy; I’m all of the above yet not representative of one thing in particular. [emphasis mine] As color lines have blurred, so do the boundaries and stereotypes surrounding gender.

I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to look into the eyes of my subjects and experience the discovery of so much more than the first glance, the first impression. The transformation exists within the individual as well as the ability to embrace aspects of both male and female in a changing cultural climate.

Clearly she identifies as part black, so I will add her publications to the list. The fact that I had to dig pretty deep to find any reference to her ethnicity, though, gives me pause. Why do I feel like I'm "outing" her? (I'm not suggesting at all that I have any idea how this woman identifies herself, knowing nothing at all about her, so it may well be a moot point.) Does her ethnicity matter in terms of her work, or is it simply that for my purpose here it's necessary to name and claim, so to speak? Yes, I just read An Illuminated Life, the biography of Belle daCosta Greene, J.P. Morgan's librarian who spent almost her entire life passing, so these questions are on my mind. It just feels a little weird.