'Through A Lens Darkly' Explores Black Photographers & Social Emergence Of African-Americans

The One Film You Must See This Weekend!

“A picture is worth a thousand words” is quite a popular saying. And now, a new film explores how black photographers and communities used the power of photography for social change.

Inspired by Deborah Willis’s book, “Reflections in Black," "Through A Lens Darkly" examines the power of photography in the black community and how some white photographers have historically demeaned African-Americans through racist imagery.

During an appearance on HuffPost Live Thursday, the film’s director Thomas Allen Harris, producer & writer Don Perry, and photographer Lola Flash discussed the visually compelling docu-flick.

“The camera was used specifically to show black people in a very particular light in order to justify their lack of rights, their enslavement, their less than humanness,” Perry explained during the interview. “We were only three fifths human at the time of when photography came into being. And so, what we see today in terms of the use of images really has its use of antecedence at a much, much earlier period in time. And that’s really a part of what “Through A Lens Darkly” attempting to show.”

Check out more of HuffPost Live’s segment on “Through A Lens Darkly” in the clip above.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot