A black woman photographer or a photographer who is a black woman?*

So. While I was taking a break from some other projects (photography and non-photography related), I came across this essay from photographer Lou Noble, who's based in Los Angeles and takes beautiful portraits. (Seriously. Beautiful, no?) The whole idea of being a black photographer (as opposed to a photographer) is something I struggle with a lot, and have written about here and elsewhere. Here's an excerpt of what Noble has to say:

I’m a black photographer. THAT IS SO WEIRD. I’m a black writer. CRAZY.

Owning those labels, wearing those hats, if for only a second, makes me wonder about responsibility.

Do I have a responsibility to speak about a particular experience? Should I, somewhere in my writing, speak up for black folk?

Should my photography talk about the Black Experience? Should I only take photos of women like Janette?

And as soon as I start asking those questions, I realize how limited the idea of a single Black Experience is.

A person looks at me, thinks black.

But my dad’s from Panama. My mom’s from Minneapolis. I was raised and educated in Beverly Hills.

My skin lies to you.

And I’m rather glad of that. I look at the hands typing this, and they bear no relation to a shared experience, to a racial identity.

As it should be. My skin has not determined my fate. Raised in the blender of cultures like I was, my skin means my chances of getting skin cancer are low.
Because that is what it is for.

Both of my parents are black. Both are from Illinois. My grandparents and great-grandparents are from the south (Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, that sort of deal.) I'm black. Always have been, always will be. I'm a woman. Again, always have been, always will be.

But I can relate to what Noble is talking about here. I know I keep bringing up this quote by Julius Lester, but I feel like I finally found someone who was able to put into words something I've always felt but was unable to articulate: “…Concepts have a way of superimposing themselves on persons and the person is obliterated.”

The person is obliterated. I know that when people look at me, they make an awful lot of assumptions about me because I'm black and because I'm a woman. And while I do not feel that there is a Black Experience that I need to speak about (because there is no one "Black Experience". We're diverse. We contain multitudes. Attending an HBCU showed me that), I do feel I need to give voice to my experience, because too often, people who look like me aren't given that opportunity, feel me? And since I have a voice, and a proclivity for photography, I might as well use them both to explore what it means to navigate the world as a black woman. Because that's what I am.

But I also think it's important not to assume that just by looking at me, with my brown skin and kinky hair, that you know everything there is to know about me and about black women as a whole.

I listen to jazz and watch too much [adult swim]. I'm a tomboy and live in jeans and Chucks but I also like to experiment with makeup. I love reading poetry but spoken word nights kind of make me want to punch someone in the face. I enjoy going to galleries and museums as much as (probably more than) clubs and parties. I'm practically a vegetarian until the days I crave a good burger. I love Karen O and Mos Def and Betty Davis and Charles Mingus with equal fervor. I watch movies with subtitles at AFI Silver and on Netflix and I also enjoy watching blaxploitation movies with my dad when I go home to visit. (And so on and so forth. Plenty of black people are bundles of contradictions like these. People in general are bundles of contradictions.)

I'm not sure if this entirely makes sense. I'm also fairly certain I'll look back on this and laugh at my silly 20-something ramblings on What It Means to be a Black Woman. Yes, being those two things defines me, but so do a great deal of other things. And the same goes for all people.

*Yes, the syntax matters. My apologies for the long title.