W.M. Hunt

 #somereallygoodones, #mattblack, ,#thegeographyofpoverty, #theconcernedphotographer, #humanism

Matt Black is a classic photographer, meaning his style is formal, uncluttered and clear eyed,.  He prints darkly and immaculately.  There is also a timeless quality to him and the work.  He is a contemporary “Concerned Photographer” in the tradition of W. Eugene Smith and Robert Capa.  In 1968 his brother, Cornell Capa published a book called “The Concerned Photographer”  demonstrating what he describes “as a humanitarian impulse to use pictures to educate and change the world, not just to record it.” *1. That’s Black.   

In his “Allensworth, California” 2014, a dark, weathered hand rests or holds in place a solid wood post as if the man is staking a claim, his right to be present whatever that entails.  There are clouds, but the scene feels dry and dried out.  The image has an almost lewd handsomeness, intense and sensational.  There is dignity and despair.

Black — what a great name for a photographer — has been following and telling a story for more than twenty years, that began in California’s Central Valley and has taken him on a long road circumnavigating the US, while looking at poverty, migration and farming in the tradition of the best of the Farm Security Act photographers in the 1930s.  “I wanted to find a continuous route that linked all of these towns, which are no more than a couple of hundred miles from each other. And the fact that you can link all of these communities from coast to coast and back again is telling.” *2

To tell this story in a contemporary world, he collaborated with a writer, Trymaine Lee, MSNBC and Instagram reaching for a wider audience than conventional reportage might find.  He is a humanist for today.  

*1 I.C.P

*2 TIME Magazine

©2021

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