Gordon Parks
Gordon Parks
Gordon Parkswas a noted American photographer, musician, writer and film director, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s—particularly in issues of civil rights, poverty and African-Americans—and in glamour photography. As the first famous pioneer among black filmmakers, he was the first African-American to produce and direct major motion pictures—developing films relating the experience of slaves and struggling black Americans, and creating the "blaxploitation" genre. He is best remembered for his iconic photos of poor Americans...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth30 November 1912
CityFort Scott, KS
CountryUnited States of America
I suffered first as a child from discrimination, poverty ... So I think it was a natural follow from that that I should use my camera to speak for people who are unable to speak for themselves.
The photographer begins to feel big and bloated and so big he can't walk through one of these doors because he gets a good byline; he gets notices all over the world and so forth; but they're really - the important people are the people he photographs.
Photography was my choice of weapons.
I do find a certain fascination with the unpredictable. The transitory years we wade through are what they are- what we make of them.
And now, I feel at 85, I really feel that I'm just ready to start.
I bought my first camera in Seattle, Washington. Only paid about seven dollars and fifty cents for it.
But I do feel a little teeny right now that I'm just about ready to start, and winter is entering. Half past autumn has arrived.
I had known poverty firsthand, but there I learned how to fight its evil - along with the evil of racism - with a camera.
Success can be wracking and reproachful, to you and those close to you. It can entangle you with legends that are consuming and all but impossible to live up to.
I was there less than a year before I was assigned to the Paris bureau. I spent two years there and, in fact, before I even went on the staff I was sent to Europe to do assignments which they wouldn't normally do for a young photographer just starting out.
Washington, D.C. in 1942 was not the easiest place in the world for a Negro to get along.
But I was very disappointed that I didn't get a chance to go overseas with that group, might not have gotten back but I wanted very much to go because there's not much of a record of the exploits of the first Negro fighter group.
You know, the camera is not meant just to show misery.
I'd become sort of involved in things that were happening to people. No matter what color they be, whether they be Indians, or Negroes, the poor white person or anyone who was I thought more or less getting a bad shake.