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
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 had known poverty firsthand, but there I learned how to fight its evil - along with the evil of racism - with a camera.
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.
And I think that after nearly 85 years upon this planet that I have a right after working so hard at showing the desolation and the poverty, to show something beautiful for somebody as well.
I think maybe the rural influence in my life helped me in a sense, of knowing how to get close to people and talk to them and get my work done.
People in millenniums ahead will know what we were like in the 1930's and the thing that, the important major things that shaped our history at that time. This is as important for historic reasons as any other.
Many times I wondered whether my achievement was worth the loneliness I experienced, but now I realize the price was small.
I have always felt as though I needed a weapon against evil.
I do find a certain fascination with the unpredictable. The transitory years we wade through are what they are- what we make of them.
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.
I have been born again and again and each time, I have found something to love.
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.
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.