My curriculum unit ends with a more contemporary photographer. Bruce Davidson is the perfect choice. Davidson has a strong interest in kids and coming of age issues. This is partly due to that fact that he was raised by a single mother who worked in a factory. Born in Chicago in 1933 he discovered his love for photography at an early age. He purchased his first camera at 10 from the money he made on his paper route, and was allowed to roam the streets taking snapshots. By 16 he won first prize in the Kodak National High School contest, went on the study at the Rochester Institute of Technology and later at Yale. Davidson has an outstanding collection of work, which runs the gamut from
The Dwarf
to
Central Park
. In between those he studied gang life in Brooklyn and covered the Civil Rights movement.
Davidson spent the spring of 1959 with a group of teenagers who called themselves "The Jokers." He later published this as
The Brooklyn Gang Project
. He gained access to them through a social worker and then spent months and months hanging out with them. Of this time Davidson said, "My way of working is to enter an unknown world, explore it over a period of time, and learn from it. I was 25 and they were about 16. I could easily have been taken for one of them... I found myself involved with a group of unpredictable youths who were mostly indifferent to me. In time they allowed me to witness their fear, depression and anger. I soon realized that I, too, was feeling some of their pain. In staying close to them, I uncovered my own feelings of failure, frustration, and rage."
One of the more powerful images from this project is a photograph
Kathy reflected in Cigarette Machine (
www.museum.icp.org/exhibitions/davidson
).
It is probably taken in Coney Island as there is a carnival like atmosphere in the background. In the foreground is a young man rolling up his cigarette pack in his T-shirt sleeve. Kathy, I would assume, is his girlfriend. They have just purchased a pack of cigarettes and while he is putting the pack away she is taking a moment to see how she looks in the glare reflected off the machine. She has her left arm up on top of her head, much like the classic Hollywood pin up girls did. She is just checking to make sure she is sexy. The boy knows he's sexy because he just bought cigarettes. I am forever amazed by the allure of cigarettes and teenagers. Of course I am not the only one captivated by this image. There are entire movies devoted to maintaining the sexiness of smoking. Davidson's subjects all have this James Dean quality, the alienated rebel without a cause, the isolated teenager whom no one understands. The lonely kid who must, at all cost, look tough.
Another photo from this collection is of two teenagers kissing in the back seat of a car. It is an amazingly romantic picture. They are in the backseat, and the boy has his back to the driver and the girl is lying down in front of him. He is holding her up and kissing her.
We can just barely see the driver's ear in the front and out the back window is the highway, streaming by. One of my students said "this picture is my favorite. You can tell it's from many years ago yet couples still do the same thing. It's like no matter where you are or who you're with if you really love that person you're not afraid to show your emotions. It looks to me as if these two teenagers are on a road trip with some more of their friends. The photographer found a way of capturing them showing their love for each other in a way most adults would find inappropriate." These pictures are coming of age photos, a subject that students will always be interested in.
Davidson worked for
Life
for a while and then in 1962 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to photograph the Civil Rights movement. His work from this time included Malcolm X, steel workers, the Ku Klux Klan, and various protest marches
and demonstrations in Alabama. These were all published in a book called
A time of Change
. One particularly striking photo from this series is of two young boys, both black, taking up about half of the frame. The other half is the American flag. The boy in the foreground is wearing overalls and has painted his face white so that he can draw with his finger the word VOTE on his forehead. The other boy is just glaring at the camera. He looks hot, angry and hopeless. (www.magnumphotos.com/time of change). It is striking to see these photographs today in light of the fact that most Americans, both white and black, do not vote at all.
One of Davidson's strongest books is
East 100th street
, published by Harvard University Press in 1970. In the late 60's Davidson chose to photograph only one block in East Harlem. He did this for two years, documenting as many different types of people and places as he could. He went back day after day knocking on doors, asking permission to photograph them. Over the course of time he built trust in the community. The result is a powerful book full of faces; families who like the "rest" of America went to church on Sunday, had barbecues and went to school. It is also full of pictures of tenements and scared and scarred children looking out their back windows onto trash laden backyards. I love these photographs so much because as a teacher in the city I am often asked why
Black people don't rise above their social conditions. Most people don't really want the answers; they just like to ask the question. The problem is not race. The problem is racism.
One of the photographs from this collection is of a young couple on their rooftop. It is called
Spanish Harlem (
www.magnumphotos.com). They are sitting on some sort of beam that goes across the roof. Behind them is the skyline of Manhattan. She is wearing a skirt and a tank top. He is wearing black jeans and a black shirt. She is wistful looking, thinking of far off places perhaps, while he is staring straight at the camera, smoking a cigarette, and is either a tough guy or putting on the face of a tough guy. One hopes that she won't get pregnant or in any way trapped in East Harlem, but the viewer knows her chances are slim, as well as his chances, although he seems content with the "thug life."
Another photo from
East 100th street
is of a young father holding up his twin girls. They are wearing fluffy pretty dresses and the father is obviously proud. There are shallow little windows in the background but the family has a lot of plants that are all thriving. In the corner are a TV set and a record player. It is a photograph of normal family life. Tupac Shakur, when questioned about why black people live in such terrible surroundings, said black people are afraid too. There just isn't enough money to move. In fact they are more afraid he said, than we are, because they have to live right there with the violence and the drug dealers.
I will end with Davidson's book
Central Park
, because it is this book that so captivated my class. It was completed in 1993 after four years of work. Once again Davidson devoted himself to this project, coming back day after day, regardless of the weather. Because of this he ends up with an array of photographs taken from the fall, through the winter, into the spring and summer. He was considered a man with a quest.
"There's a truth about Central Park I'm trying to uncover." I understand that quest having spent the whole decade of the 1970's trying to find peace in it. I was a country girl driven to go to New York at 17, and I never found any peacefulness there. I was always amazed by the people who did. Most of them were already city people. I never once found an outsider who considered Central Park peaceful. I think this is one of the reasons I love these photographs. His subjects do look peaceful, but always in the background looms one of the world's largest cities. This was probably why this book was one of my students' favorites because they, too, are city kids looking for some kind of peace in nature.
One of their favorite pictures from this collection is of a young couple who are kissing while sitting on a fence underneath the fall trees. It is taken from below and with a fish eye lenses perhaps because the effect is such that the couple appear to be in a circle enveloped by the trees and by their love for one another (Davidson,
Central Park
, p. 49). My students said that "it is a picture of two homosexual men in the park kissing and spending quality time together. I think that he took this picture to show that
even though they aren't like the average female and male couple they still do the same things and show the same affection toward each other."
One photo that we all shared an equal affection for is of a young Hispanic couple kissing at the edge of the park. (Davidson,
Central Park
, p.20) He is holding her face with his right hand and bringing her down to kiss him. She is a willing participant. She has long dark hair and clearly enjoys his attention. Directly to their left is a white couple dressed in their wedding outfits. Hers is a fancy, expensive wedding dress. She is carrying a bouquet, and her veil is tied behind her head. He has on a white shirt, dark black tuxedo, shined shoes, and those little squinty investment banker glasses. It is obvious they come from money. She is staring ahead, while he is looking directly at the couple kissing. One immediately understands that there is more passion between the Hispanic kids than with this match made at Smith Barney.
Through Davidson's work we get glimpses into a variety of people, and places. Since he has done a lot of photographs of teenagers, students will really be able to relate to his work.