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Women of a New Tribe
A Photographic Celebration of the Black
Woman
By Jerry Taliaferro
Book Review by Kam Williams
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African-American females have had a very
difficult history: from slavery to racism to
poverty. Although slavery has been abolished
in this country, and we are working on
eradicating racism and poverty, in the 21st
Century, African-American females face one
of the most difficult hurdles we have ever
had to face: a severe lack of self-respect.
We have
allowed the media to make us believe that we
must have straight hair, light skin, thin
bodies and ’European’ features to be
considered beautiful. This book is not only
an opportunity to reaffirm to all black
women that we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully
made’ by God, but also an opportunity for
everyone to see the emotions and beauty
Jerry Taliaferro wrought through his camera
lens.”—Cheryl A. M. Waymer, mother and model,
as excerpted from the Foreword (pg. 7)
“These
beautiful women have always been around us.
They are our wives, mothers, sisters,
daughters and friends. We can see the beauty
in them if just try. Perhaps in seeing their
beauty, we will come to see what makes a
woman truly beautiful… Just maybe we will
come to understand that real beauty is more
than that which can be seen. Real beauty is
that which lifts us, real beauty touches our
hearts.”—Jerry Taliaferro in the
Preface (pg. 10) |
Jerry Taliaferro is a
West Point graduate who turned to photography full-time
after leaving the military in 1988 following a decorated
career in the service as a Special Forcers Officer. Over
the intervening years, he has met with considerable
success at his true calling, though devoting most of his
attention to commercial assignments.
Recently, however,
after preparing a single portrait of an African-American
female originally intended simply to serve as a sample
in his portfolio, Jerry was struck by the fact that
“Very little attention had been paid to the beauty of
the black woman. The black woman was almost invisible.”
So, he came up with the novel idea of portraying sisters
in a glamorous style from the Forties reminiscent of the
classic, black and white fashion shoots of such classic
Hollywood actresses as Greta Garbo and Katherine
Hepburn.
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The upshot of his
efforts is an enchanting,
emotionally-engaging and
spiritually-stimulating masterpiece entitled
Women of a
New Tribe: A Photographic Celebration of the Black
Woman. Taliaferro proves himself to be quite a gifted
artist behind the camera with this eclectic collection
of over 100 photos. For the images contained on the
pages of this oversized, coffee table book achieve far
more than merely capturing each model’s physical beauty.
No, the pictures also magically reveal an intimate
aspect of the subjects’ souls as well.
It is noteworthy that
this groundbreaking tome features a rainbow of
African-American females in terms of color, shape, size
and age, and not just ones who meet a shallow
Eurocentric standard of beauty. “What about the jet
black goddess with skin like glass, the caramel toned
Amazon or the Great-Grandmother whose beauty defies
time?” the author asks in the Introduction. “This book
is an attempt to see them too.”
Indeed, a timely and overdue homage which wonderfully
elevates and illustrates both the inner and outer beauty
of all sisters, a segment of society generally taken for
granted, if not denigrated by the mainstream culture. |
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Where can I
find the book?" has been a constant request
since the
WOMEN OF A NEW TRIBE exhibition
premiered in Charlotte NC in June 2002. This
exhibition which has been called a
"stunning" and "spectacular" collection of
black and white photography is the source of
a book that is destined to become a
collector's item. This book is more than a
homage to the physical and spiritual beauty
of the black woman it is an experience.
An
experience in seeing in a new way and in a
new light. Blue Greenberg of the Durham
Herald-Sun wrote, "Taliaferro turns our
ideas of stereotypical beauty upside
down...". Rarely has the black woman been
portrayed in such a manner,
WOMEN OF A NEW TRIBE presents its
subjects in way normally reserved for the
great icons of feminine beauty like Garbo
and Crawford. |
Through the use of large
format black and white photography and a style that
harkens back to the great glamour photography of 1930's
and 1940's Hollywood the beauty of black women is lain
bare. The meticulously "built" images echoes the works
of such photographers as George Hurrell, Sinclair Bull
and Laszlo Wilinger. If the book I DREAM A WORLD
celebrated black women who changed America then
WOMEN OF A NEW TRIBE honors the black women we see
around us everyday. It is a magnificent tribute to our
mothers, sisters, wives, daughters and friends.—Publisher
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Jerry Taliaferro
was born in the small southern town of Brownsville,
Tennessee. After graduating high school in May 1972, he
joined the Army. Almost a year later he entered the
United States Military Academy at West Point and
graduated four years later as a member of the Class of
1977. His real interest in photography began when he was
posted to Fort Bragg, North Carolina for the Special
Forces Officers Course in 1981. While serving in
Germany, his interest photography continued to grow and
in 1985 he was published for the first time when a
Munich magazine purchased the rights to one of his
images. After returning to the United States in the
Summer of 1985, Jerry began doing assignments for
advertising and design firms. In July 1988, he left the
military and began his pursuit of a career in commercial
photography. Over the ensuing years, his interest turned
more to fine art photography. This change in direction
has resulted in several projects and published pieces.
His one-man exhibition Women Of A New Tribe premiered at
the Afro-American Cultural Center in Charlotte NC on 14
June 2002 and is now a traveling exhibit.
http://www.blackartphotoart.com/
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1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus
Created
By Charles C. Mann
I’m
a big fan of Charles Mann’s previous
book
1491:
New Revelations of the Americas Before
Columbus, in which he
provides a sweeping and provocative
examination of North and South America
prior to the arrival of Christopher
Columbus. It’s exhaustively researched
but so wonderfully written that it’s
anything but exhausting to read. With
his follow-up,
1493, Mann has taken it to a
new, truly global level. Building on the
groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby
(author of
The Columbian Exchange and, I’m
proud to say, a fellow Nantucketer),
Mann has written nothing less than the
story of our world: how a planet of what
were once several autonomous continents
is quickly becoming a single,
“globalized” entity.
Mann not only talked to countless
scientists and researchers; he visited
the places he writes about, and as a
consequence, the book has a marvelously
wide-ranging yet personal feel as we
follow Mann from one far-flung corner of
the world to the next. And always, the
prose is masterful. In telling the
improbable story of how Spanish and
Chinese cultures collided in the
Philippines in the sixteenth century, he
takes us to the island of Mindoro whose
“southern coast consists of a number of
small bays, one next to another like
tooth marks in an apple.” We learn how
the spread of malaria, the potato,
tobacco, guano, rubber plants, and sugar
cane have disrupted and convulsed the
planet and will continue to do so until
we are finally living on one integrated
or at least close-to-integrated Earth.
Whether or not the human instigators of
all this remarkable change will survive
the process they helped to initiate more
than five hundred years ago remains,
Mann suggests in this monumental and
revelatory book, an open question. |
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Age of Silver: Encounters with
Great Photographers
By John Loengard
Age of Silver is iconic
American photographer John
Loengard’s ode to the art form
to which he dedicated his life.
Loengard, a longtime staff
photographer and editor for LIFE
magazine and other publications,
spent years documenting modern
life for the benefit of the
American public. Over the years
he trained his camera on
dignitaries, artists, athletes,
intellectuals, blue and
whitecollar workers, urban and
natural landscapes, manmade
objects, and people of all types
engaged in the act of living. In
Age of Silver,
Loengard gathers his portraits
of some of the most important
photographers of the last
half-century, including
Annie Leibovitz,
Ansel Adams,
Man Ray,
Richard Avedon,
Alfred Eisenstaedt,
Henri Cartier-Bresson, and
many, many others. Loengard
caught them at home and in the
studio; posed portraits and
candid shots of the artists at
work and at rest.
Complimenting these revealing,
expertly composed portraits are
elegant photographs of the
artists holding their favorite
or most revered negatives. This
extra dimension to the project
offers an inside peek at the
artistic process and is a stark
reminder of the physicality of
the photographic practice at a
time before the current wave of
digital dominance. There is no
more honest or faithful
reproduction of life existent in
the world of image making than
original, untouched silver
negatives. Far from an attempt
to put forth a singular
definition of modern
photographic practice, this
beautifully printed, duotone
monograph instead presents
evidence of the unique vision
and extremely personal style of
every artist pictured. Annie
Leibovitz is quoted in her
caption as once saying, “I am
always perplexed when people say
that a photograph has captured
someone. A photograph is just a
piece of them in a moment. It
seems presumptuous to think you
can get more than that.” —PowerhouseBooks |
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posted by 27 August 2007
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