200 years ago, to take a picture, you’d have to haul out a wooden box with a lens attached. Although the mechanics were fairly simple, it took a lot of effort to produce a photo, making them a luxury few could afford. In the past, photographs were reserved for the wealthy. Our oldest surviving pictures reflect their place in society. I think of Abraham Lincoln. We’ve all seen the famous picture of him – unsmiling, serious, important, official.

Cameras didn’t used to be used for art.

They were strictly for documentation – to show what life was like – to show future generations what you looked like and what you did. Photographs of enslaved people are often of them working or in relation to their owners or families. That’s it. There was no expression – there was no emotion. They were documented objectively, as part of everyday life. Photographs had a job to do. Especially when it came to the enslaved, they were used as resources for their owners. If a slave escaped, instead of printing a mere description of them (as was done in the early days of slavery), a photo could be printed. Now there could be no doubt to what they looked like or whether or not they were a fugitive. In many pictures, slaves were used as props. They made whites look more powerful and dominant as they were forced to kneel beneath or sit next to slave-owners.

Documentation was a double edged sword for slave-owners.

The truthful nature allowed abolitionists to finally prove the brutality of slavery. As Matthew Fox-Amoto writes for The Oxford University Press, photographs were able to combat the supposed docile, “family-like” nature slavery was said to be. Copies of the photograph The Scourged Back, for example, made their way to Northern newspapers, and helped change the way slavery was thought about.

As cameras changed, their role became wider. The more cameras advanced, the cheaper and more accessible they became. By the 1940s, Black people were able to capture photographs of themselves. Unlike decades before, the strictness around photography had loosened. During slavery for example, Black enslaved people weren’t allowed to pose in certain ways – anything that made them look powerful or dignified. They couldn’t even hold pictures of their loved ones – cutting them off from their lineage and culture. In the 1940s, for the first time, Black subjects were able to pose however they wanted. The teeming life of Black communities like Harlem were photographed extensively. Images of Black people dancing, singing, wearing fashionable clothes, and building communities took over the oppressive images of a few decades prior.

But from the Civil Rights Movement onwards, Black photography hasn’t quite had the same spark it did in the Harlem renaissance. There have been more important things to photograph. Photos serve as proof to testimony: proof of racism and all the other evils of the world. Moments of hope and joy have shone through in every decade, but there’s no denying the underlying grief and frustration associated with social movements over the past 60 years.

Photography is able to capture pure truth. That’s its highest responsibility. One could argue photographers have an obligation to capture the world around them – no matter how disturbing and brutal. In today’s world, anyone with a cellphone can take part in that activism by snapping a picture or taking a video. But as I’ve said in the past, the world doesn’t need to see only suffering. As much as photographers should take part in social justice, they should take part in joy. Black people are everywhere – not just in prisons, not just being attacked by police, not just in poverty, not even just protesting. Black people exist in the warmest, most unique, most blissful places too. They’re going to prom, playing in their neighborhoods, becoming valedictorians, getting married, creating art, discovering a cure for cancer.

In 2018, photographer Dana Scruggs became the first Black person ever to photograph the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. 50 something years after the Civil Rights Movement. Even with her momentous achievement, Black photographers and subjects exist in the margins of the craft. We need Black creators in this artform – even in the commercial landscape. Black photographers deserve to show their skills and become members of the same spaces their white peers are – Black models and photo subjects deserve to be framed in powerful, non-derogatory ways. This is the goal of Project Black Lens – to give Black photographers a break into a white dominant space – to capture the joy they see in their lives. The project has the promise of shaping the future to be more representative, and changing the narrative of what Blackness is. I think photographer Gregory Prescott said it best, “the human body is actually something beautiful and not just sexual or porn and it would be amazing to see bodies of color viewed just as beautiful. It would be amazing to educate other people of color to have this same insight. We are all works of art.”

To learn more about Project Black Lens and how you can help young Black photographers learn valuable skills, please check out our article and visit our website.