WENDELL: "Artworks" is made possible in part by the Citizens of Baltimore County and by the Ruth R. Marder Arts Endowment Fund, The Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Endowment for the Arts, The E.T.

and Robert B. Rocklin Fund, The Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation Arts Endowment in memory of Ruth Marder.

♪ ♪ Hi, I'm your host, Wendell Patrick.

Welcome to a new episode of "Artworks" on Maryland Public Television.

Come join us as we explore "The Art of Photography."

I sit down with influential and dynamic photographers, cinematographer and director Kirby Griffin to discuss his creative process and how Baltimore, Maryland has shaped his lens on the world.

After that, we'll take a look into the works of photographers, Griffith Davis, Will Wilson and Nabil Harb.

Join me for "Artworks: The Art of Photography."

♪ ♪ KIRBY: I think one of the things that made me strong is the idea or the fact that I'm not a perfectionist and I don't strive to be a perfectionist.

Like I don't, I'm not trying to make my image or my background as perfect as possible.

That's an approach I like to, uh, well, I do take naturally with filmmaking and, uh, photos.

♪ SINGER: It's high tech like the beat maker.

♪ ♪ Reflections in turmoil like the ♪ ♪ words on my loose leaf paper.

♪♪ KIRBY: I want my audience to feel something from it, you know what I mean?

There's so many times I've done stuff and I'm just like, I may catch it on the back end.

Like, damn, I wish I would've cleaned that up, but maybe not.

Now, when you mention something about the music software being everything is so clean or crisp and everything just sounds the same, it's like it takes away, it diminishes what someone like RZA did with Wu-Tang early on when it was like, yo, these drums is dusty as hell.

And it's like, yeah, I know that.

WENDELL: Mm-Hmm.

KIRBY: You know what I'm saying?

Like, yeah, they not the, they not the cleanest drums, but that's what makes this song what it is, you know what I'm saying?

WENDELL: Right.

KIRBY: That's what makes it special.

WENDELL: Well, I think Kirby's artistry in general, photography, cinematography, filmmaking, it, it's, it extremely personal.

Um, anytime that I've ever been in front of Kirby's photography or, or films, I find myself standing very still and, and paying, uh, very close attention.

DRUMMER: 1, 2, 3, 4.

WENDELL: I had the pleasure of being a part of the hip hop exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Uh, that exhibition was done in conjunction with the St. Louis Art Museum, and, uh, and we both had work there.

It was a wonderful experience to, to be a part of that show.

But, uh, Kirby's piece that he created with, along with Nia June and APoetNamedNate, uh, I stood and watched that three times, like three times in a row.

Really just paying close attention to as to how personal the, the work is.

Like, it really, it really feels when you, when you look at Kirby's work like it's, it's, it's relating to you directly.

KIRBY: I got started with photography, if I'm really going from the beginning, uh, it's a good brother and teacher, back in my high school, I went to Douglass, Douglass High School over west.

It's a brother named Mr. Kizik, and they brought Mr. Kizik in like the last semester of school, which kind of, which, which, which, that frustrated me because that was the first time I had found something in school that I enjoyed.

I wasn't ever into sports like that other than like boxing or wrestling, I never cared for any types of ball games, so there was nothing in school for me.

Um, and Mr. Kizik popped up and he said he had a new photography class, and it sounded cool.

At that time, 2006, photography wasn't like, now everybody got a camera.

It wasn't cool yet.

Like we was just, camera phones was just like really becoming a big, a big deal at that time.

And I remember him, me and Mr. Kizik specifically bonded over a film called "City of Gods."

We went to Service Photo, which is still up there on Falls Road, a few hundred dollars got me a old vintage Cannon, a 35 millimeter, that was it for a while, it was like after school ended, that's, I had the camera, but I wasn't using it.

It wasn't until 2011 when the DSLRs came out specifically, that Cannon T2i, which changed the game.

That's when it really started.

It was 2011, the DSLR era.

That's when it was like, oh, I don't have to spend all my family's life saving and go to school for this.

We can just go run around the streets and figure this out, man, that's what we did.

WENDELL: Like, your, your image is like, it, it's, it's really like, it's more than an image, it's, it's really a, a, a feeling... KIRBY: I appreciate it.

WENDELL: And an aesthetic in it, and, and I can tell that it is curated with care and thought and, uh, you know, like so many other people, I just, I really appreciate it.

KIRBY: I'm very running gun, even with my photography, like, I come from a very good rugged style of filmmaking, and it's the same way with photography.

Um, I understand the idea of trying to set up a, a specific frame and shot.

I'll set up a specific shot, but I'm still gonna move around to find this, to find these angles that I need.

I'm not really, I'm never that, that particular about it.

Um, photography has been interesting because my perspective into it was, was strictly from the perspective of a, a cinematographer.

Granted I had a, a photo camera on my hand first.

I didn't really fall in love with cameras until I was filming, so I was, I was like fully into being a filmmaker and doing cinematography, and then got back into photography and brought that perspective with me, which I cherish a lot more my photography aspects, and I, I treat that way more sacred.

Like, I, I mean, I make my living as a filmmaker, so there's times that I'll shoot things that I'm not necessarily into.

And I can't do that with photography though.

Like if with photography, if I'm not into it, I, I, yeah, I can't do it.

Aside from a, a great angle or great lighting or just capturing a specific moment, it's like actually just having the moment as is to kind of reflect on preserving those moments is, in my opinion, that's, that's, that's the most powerful aspect of it.

WENDELL: I notice in the pieces that, that you've worked on, whenever I see them... KIRBY: Mmm.

WENDELL: I see a lot of folks that I know from the Baltimore community in them, which is, which always puts a smile on my face... KIRBY: Right, right?

WENDELL: I think it's, I think it's amazing how you always include so many people from the area as a part of your work.

KIRBY: Right, that's intentional as, uh, my sis Angel Kristi Williams would say it's like, everything we make here is always a love letter to Baltimore.

Like anything we make in Baltimore, in turn is a love letter to Baltimore.

♪ ♪ DOROTHY: My dad, Griff Davis was born in Atlanta, Georgia during segregation, or Jim Crow Era.

He was born in 1923, and he passed away in 1993.

He started photography in high school in Atlanta, and that's where he met the professor or the teacher who taught him about photography.

And then he became like the, uh, student campus photographer.

And, um, that's kind of how he started.

He was a Buffalo Soldier in World War II in Italy, with the 92nd infantry of US Army, and he was the photographer for the infantry.

He always said that's what spared his life, essentially, that he was the photographer.

In any case, when he came back to finish his studies at Morehouse, he took a class with Langston Hughes, who was the visiting professor at what's now known as Clark Atlanta University.

And they struck up a friendship.

And then when my dad graduated, he needed a job, and Langston Hughes was working with, um, "Ebony," he was doing stories for "Ebony" at the time, and one day he was at a World's Fair where John Johnson, the owner and publisher of "Ebony," was asking him, "Do you know anyone I can hire because I'm looking for a roving editor for 'Ebony'?"

He said, "Oh, yeah, I got the right person for you."

And then my dad was hired and became the first roving editor for "Ebony."

ZORA: "Ebony Magazine" was a monthly periodical that was published about African American life and lifestyle for so many African American families, it was a reference point for everything that was great about being in the Black community.

DOROTHY: He covered all kinds of stories like Nat King Cole's honeymoon, I think it was 1948.

Probably the most famous photo, although nobody knows about it, is the one of the first meeting between then Vice President Richard Nixon and Martin Luther King Jr. and their respective wives, Coretta Scott King and Patricia Nixon in Ghana during Independence Day celebrations in March, 1957.

That photograph was featured in "Tampa Bay Times" January, 2020 when I opened an exhibition at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, and it was the first time that it had been publicly published.

The reason is that at the time, Martin Luther King and Coretta had just finished the, um, bus boycott, and so the U.S. government did not really want that photograph to be publicized.

And it just so happened that dad grew up with Martin Luther King in Atlanta, they were, you know, Atlanta boys, right, and, uh, they went to college together at Morehouse, so it was a real personal and professional moment.

CELESTE: The uniqueness of this photographer was that he had this connection in two very different lives, and one was his connection with politicians; politicians here in the United States, but also in Africa.

He was very close with the government in Ghana, in Tunisia, and he was very well respected there and parallel with this, he had a very close relationship with poets and writers, and actors who represented the top of intelligence in the Afro American culture.

Typically, people who have these artistic connections are not very much connected with politicians, and so this opened his horizon to photography journalism that is unparalleled by any different journalist.

DOROTHY: As someone growing up with a photographer father, it was a pain in the neck because every five seconds is another photograph, right?

So I now understand he was using me and then my brother as subject to figure out the lighting and the this and the that.

So he did take me to different settings, and I did meet a whole lot of different celebrities, I guess you would call 'em, or historical figures, but I didn't know that they were historical figures.

I just thought, oh, that's dads and mom's friend.

That's it.

ZORA: There's a photograph of a Sidney Poitier with Griffith Davis standing next to him, and what's so magical about it is that it is the presence of two men of African descent standing proudly and powerfully in their craft.

So you get an idea of the influence of Griffith Davis, because at that point, Sidney Poitier had an acting career and was being recognized as a great actor.

BANCROFT: The winner is Sidney Poitier.

ZORA: And there he is, side by side with Griffith Davis.

It was a great moment to capture.

CELESTE: His work was very pioneering.

I think that now is the perfect time to bring it back to our attention.

ZORA: We need to be informed about our history, and sometimes that information is uncomfortable, but it's also important.

So in the case of Griffith Davis, what's so wonderful is that he fills in the blanks.

DOROTHY: He is bringing light to our existence in a multidimensional way, and I think he's like painting us back into the picture.

♪ ♪ WILL: Well, I am an artist and a photographer.

I, I'm the program head of photography at the Santa Fe Community College.

I grew up between, uh, San Francisco, California and, uh, Tuba City, Arizona, which is on the Navajo Nation.

Um, and my dad was Irish and Welsh, and my mom was Navajo.

I think one of the reasons I was so drawn to photography, because when I found photography, it was like this, this language that enabled me to kind of express myself in a way that I, you know, I couldn't, uh, linguistically.

Some of the kind of early, um, forms of photography that I was involved in, you know, traditional black and white.

I was really drawn to that kind of documentary kind of style, you know, 36 shots to a roll.

It was, uh, a different, different time.

Um, you know, now I, I use a digital camera all the time, but I, I am drawn to historic process.

So, you know, in particular some of the images you're seeing in, in, in this show we're made with a process called, uh, wet-plate.

Uh, wet-plate collodion, uh, was developed in 1851 and was kind of the photographic process until about 1880.

So first step of the process is to take this plastic off.

With the wet-plate process, um, it's, it's a bit labor intensive.

You're essentially making your own film.

They call it wet-plate because it has to stay wet, uh, throughout the process, otherwise you won't get a, um, an image.

Step one is you get a, a plate, either glass or black metal, and you pour this stuff called collodion on that plate.

Um, collodion pretty much sticks to anything, and it also has some chemistries in it that when it's combined with silver nitrate, uh, and this happens in a dark room, right?

So you, you pour the collodion on the plate, you take that plate to a bath of silver nitrate, you drop it in there.

Three minutes later, um, a uh, emulsion has formed a light sensitive emulsion.

Um, and so at that point, you have to use a safe light, uh, or do this in the dark, right?

And so you load that plate into a film holder, carry that film holder to the camera, and you know, you've already kind of set up your subject and they're kind of waiting.

Uh, you make the exposure.

And then, uh, with this process, you know, one of the great things is you can take the subject with you back to the dark room, and they get to like experience the actual kind of magic of, of analog photography, right?

And so you have that exposed negative, you take it out of the film holder, you pour a developer on there, and a negative image starts to, to form.

And so you kind of judge that, and then you stop it with water, and then when you put it in the fixer, this amazing thing happens.

And at that point, you can actually turn the light on.

So it kind of does this transition, this magic transition from a negative image to a positive image.

So it kind of becomes this foggy kind of, um, you know, it's not something that you can read.

And then out of that emerges this like beautiful positive image.

And, you know, people are, I think, really moved and fascinated, and every time I see it, I'm just like, reenergized.

I'm like, "Yeah, let's go make some more."

So with, uh, um, the CIPX project or the Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange, uh, which is what it stands for, I'm using a historic photographic process to kind of investigate portraiture, kind of thinking about what photography would be if, if indigenous people invented it, you know, would there be a different kind of set of ideas, kind of protocols in, in relation to, to making someone's image?

It's a fairly kind of intimate process, you know, I think there's a certain level of vulnerability that you kind of extend or offer.

Uh, when I use wet-plate, it enables me to kind of slow things down.

It takes about 30 minutes to, to make one portrait so I can have kind of a, you know, a, a, a slower engagement with an individual in kind of deciding how they want to be represented.

NATIVE: Po'Pay, years ago, you served the people in the Pueblo Revolts in 1680.

WILL: I was also incorporating another technology, uh, a 21st century technology called Augmented Reality with this historic photographic process through the augmented reality technology um, I have been able to bridge like this historic photographic image of her with her performance as, as a dancer.

Um, and I, I've called these "Talkington Types."

[violin playing].

Swil Kanim is a, is a violinist, um, and he, um, did a rendition of "10 Little Indians" and he talks about like that song that nursery rhymes relationship to kind of the history of genocide.

So, you know, you're, you're kind of, I guess, moved by this nursery rhyme almost, but then like kinda hit over the back of the head with, with like, what it's really about, you know?

Um, and his kind of reframing of it, I think is, you know, it's a pretty powerful, um, kind of expression, um, of, you know, indigeneity today.

[violin playing].

I hope that people are really drawn in to, you know, a kind of different way of looking at portraiture.

It's, it's kind of unusual, there's, there's a certain level of uncertainty with, with this portraiture, you know, there's these strange chemical like aberrations that occurs.

In terms of the indigenous folks, hopefully people like are moved by like the diversity, the, you know, agency of the people.

Yeah, and I mean, I think on a broader level, I hope that it makes people think about, um, what it means to, to share the portraiture process with someone, slowing things down and, uh, you know, thinking about what it means to, to, to make yourself vulnerable, to make yourself like available to, to this kind of, uh, uh, engagement.

I mean, every time I have one of these kind of engagements or, or work with people in this way, I think it, it, you know, it excites me to make more, and it just kind of propels the, the project forward.

♪ ♪ NABIL: I always like to joke that half the reason I'm a photographer is because I am nosy and I like to get into things, and I am always curious like, what's going on in that building?

What's going on in this part of town?

I may not have an aim.

I, there's maybe not something I specifically want from these places other than to see what's going on.

And I found that having a camera is a really great excuse.

I like living in Lakeland because I'm from here originally, I was born and raised here, but I've always made my work here, my photographic work.

I have a lot of connections in this area that allow my work to be possible.

Um, that's a really important part of my practice, is access to places, for instance, going to, uh, orange groves or old jails that are no longer in use, um, kind of like old parks and places that sort of have this, uh, historical tie to it that I'm really interested in checking out.

"Atmospheres" is a new body of work that I've created.

There's a lot of thinking of movement in history, movement, whether it's the movement of water, the movement of people in cars, like through highways and, and thinking a lot about the relationship between the infrastructure and the water, uh, because that's a big part of Florida for me, and something I've really thought about a lot is how can I let the environment of Florida into my work.

EXPERT: In Nabil's work, we're seeing his memories and his personal history layered on top of all these different places in Lakeland, and we're seeing local history, local culture, but he's also packing in a ton of sensory information into his images as well.

You really feel like you're in these heavy muggy Florida environments when you're looking at his pictures.

You're not just seeing the trees, you're seeing all of the atmosphere.

You're seeing all the particles and all the bugs and all the moisture in the air, and you can feel the humidity and all the activity and density and material that's there in that atmosphere that we're moving through, you know, day to day.

NABIL: "Whirlpool" is, um, yeah, another, I think example of the, uh, the personal political, historical layers that exist just in any of my pictures.

Um, and this one in particular was an image of a tiny whirlpool that's kind of occurring right in this like, hotspot of the sun's reflection in the Peace River.

And the Peace River is a historically, um, relevant area, uh, and, and like water feature in Lakeland, it's a place that historically has been a dividing line.

When the settlers first arrived to this part of Florida, it was a place where the indigenous people were pushed up against originally, and then eventually were sort of kicked to the other side of the Peace River.

So it's been historically used as this border.

It's also a place where a lot of racialized violence had occurred.

Picturing this little like, portal opening up in this river, I just can't help but think to myself like, what's coming through when this river and this water knows so much or have, have, have, uh, been a site for so many things, the awareness of, uh, all these like geographical features and how they touch one another.

Um, because for me, it's like the Peace River connects to Saddle Creek, Saddle Creek is on, is right next to Main Street, Main Street is the street that the gay club is at The Parrot.

And so I can't help but think about all of those things interacting with one another and all the time that's sort of flattened by my exploration of that area.

And in thinking about all of these things at once, right?

A gay club, a gay cruising ground, a, a, a fossil hunting and racial violence, like what do all those things have in common?

The Peace River for some reason.

With Lakeland, it's growing so much, especially during the pandemic, which I think everyone in Florida can sort of like notice that people moved in in droves.

For me, I'm like, okay, but what's lost because of that, right?

We have so many new coffee shops and so many new bars and restaurants in Lakeland that are really cool, and like, I like to eat there and I like to hang out there, but it's also like, all right, but what else?

What used to be here?

Why, why are we not, why is no one curious about that?

Um, and so we're witnessing this really intense like, turnover of culture and industry and identity in this place, um, that I think is really sad.

I, I don't, I don't love it.

Um, I think those of us, you know, who have always been here maybe aren't being as served by some of this turnover as everyone else, you know?

And especially those of us who are from like suburban, rural, less quote unquote, culturally relevant, uh, places.

I think it's really important for a lot of us to, uh, think back on where we're from because an outsider coming in can make all these assumptions.

I'm like, why don't those of us who know what we're doing in these places speak on it?

EXPERT: I think Nabil's work shows that even if you live in a small town or in an isolated location, you might feel like there's not a lot going on, but there is a lot going on wherever you are, if you look for it.

NABIL: If you look at your hometown with these eyes that other people who aren't from this place don't have for this area, you can see things that other people won't.

And so I would hope that maybe a, a larger theme of this work is for people to think about where they're from and think about the history and the magic of that.

(music plays through credits) WENDELL: "Artworks" is made possible in part by the Citizens of Baltimore County and by the Ruth R. Marder Arts Endowment Fund, The Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Endowment for the Arts, The E.T.

and Robert B. Rocklin Fund, The Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation Arts Endowment in memory of Ruth Marder.