In focus: Anthony Barboza and Candice Yates on honouring Black lives while pressing the shutter

Candice Yates: I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Black History Month than to talk to a pioneer such as yourself.

We know you’ve been photographing for over 50 years. You’ve had such a successful career. Can you take us back to the beginning. What made you want to pick up a camera and start photographing?

Anthony Barboza: I moved to New York City in ’63. I didn’t have good enough marks to get into college, and my aunt knew a photographer there.

[The photographer] Adger Cowans took me to a meeting with the Kamoinge collective. The photographers would put up their photographs and critique them. I didn’t even have a camera. Adger told them they should give me a try.

After that, I went out and I had gotten a job wrapping Christmas presents in the basement at Macy’s. I made some money, and I got a $20 Sunscope. I started taking photos and didn’t stop. In my spare time, I’d walk into Central Park, and I’d take pictures. I couldn’t put it down.

When I moved to 70th Street, right off Central Park, I started using the closet of my studio apartment as a darkroom. Then I was like, ‘oh wow’. It was magical and spiritual.

I learned so much about the visuals. It was unbelievable. What happens is you become one with the camera, you get into another state of mind, which is a flow. Well, they call it a flow, but I call it ‘eye dreaming’, which is why I called my book Eye Dreaming [2022]. Once you pick up the camera and you shoot, you are in a meditative state.

CY: So you got your education from Kamoinge, and you took that and ran with it.

AB: When I discovered what photography could do, I studied and looked at every book and every photographer that was published. I did that constantly. I taught myself, in a sense, a lot of things as well.

When I came back from the Navy in 1968, Lou Draper, one of the members, and I went to Harlem to go photograph. We were called ‘trash can photographers’. We’d wrap the camera strap around our wrists because in Harlem your camera can get taken away.

There’s so much about photography that I learned that became automatic. A lot of people used to crop certain things out of the photograph that they didn’t like. You’ll never find a photograph that I cropped. I had to pay attention to every little thing that’s in the frame.

CY: You also did editorial and commercial work, right?

AB: Being a Black photographer, you couldn’t get much work at all, so I would study photography. The first magazine that hired me wanted to pay me $125 a month to shoot still-lifes for the back of the book. I did it, and then they saw that I could do other things as well. I photographed this whole catalogue and made money. I thought, ‘boy, this is pretty good’.

I did everything I could. Then, I got my first advertisement. An advertisement in those years was $1,500. I had to do a Viceroy ad. And do you know who I used? Pat Evans. She had hair at that time. The photograph was a photographer in the studio with a model there and they were smoking Viceroys.

CY: After you spent some time doing editorial work, you moved on to more personal work.

Let’s talk about your Black Border series, one of the first big personal projects you embarked on in your career.

AB: When you take a photograph of someone, you are taking a photograph of you as well. It’s like a mirror. You are feeling them, and they are feeling you. When I came up with this portrait series, Black Borders, I started to photograph anyone that I could. In 1973, I started taking these photos with plain backgrounds. I was studying Richard Avedon and Irving Penn at the time, and I thought, ‘I’m not going to do that’. But, I came up with this idea of creating a background and lighting according to how I felt about each person I was photographing. When you see some of the backgrounds, they’re like the vanity portraits.

One day, a male model came back and said, ‘If you take some photographs of me, I’ll get you to shoot James Baldwin’. I said, ‘You got a bet’. I did some photographs of him, and he got Baldwin to walk in with an entourage of about six people.

Baldwin had kept me company when I first went to New York. I lived in a hotel, and I read his work. But he wasn’t like that in person. He was very quiet and subdued. He watched everything. I thought to myself, this isn’t the Baldwin that I’ve heard about, but this is the Baldwin that I’m meeting. So, I created the shadow that way for that reason.

CY: One of the first times I was introduced to African American photographers was when I was studying independently. I didn’t learn much about Kamoinge in school.

Then, I realized there wasn’t a lot of work by Black photographers being offered at auction, or found in museum collections. What’s your perspective on the legacy of Black photographers in museum collections, in art auctions?

AB: One time, I was called to an office in the city. They wanted to hire me to photograph some writers. I walked up to the desk and the guy at the desk said, ‘the messenger service is over there’. I said, ‘we’re not all messengers. I have an appointment’. Those things happen a lot.

I started the Black Borders to honour our own. Then, I photographed the jazz musicians to honour our music. I also did some of the hip-hop artists when that started. I photographed the Sugar Hill Gang, their first album and some other ones. I photographed nudes. That was to honour our women. It’s always been about honouring for me. So now Black Dreams/White Sheets is all about honouring the power of us to stay and go through it.

CY: Do you think anything’s changed over time?

AB: Little by little. But it’s still difficult for young photographers starting out. Gordon Parks said, ‘I wouldn’t want to start out now because it’s still difficult in a sense.’

CY: Are there artists working today that you find impressive and inspirational?

AB: There is one, she’s with Kamoinge now: Adama Delphine Fuwundu. And Lola Flash.

CY: Do you have any advice for aspiring photographers today?

AB: A photographer should be sensitive about what their subjects are thinking, what they are feeling. When you’re photographing someone, if you feel the person, they will start feeling you. Don’t jump in too quick — take your time. Everybody’s personality isn’t the same. I had to do what was best for me, but I’m not saying it’s best for everybody else.

CY: I think it’s a good piece of advice to take your time with your sitter and get to know them.

What do you think was the biggest impact of the Kamoinge Collective and their legacy?

AB: When I got into Kamoinge, I was the only person that didn’t have a camera. Today I owe my ‘college’, so to speak, to them. In 2015, we published the book.

CY: Timeless: Photographs by Kamoinge.

AB: I brought it to Schiffer. It was all laid out and published there. Herb Robinson and Vinny Alabiso helped me with the book. We featured not only the group that is around today, but also made sure that the original members had their portfolios in there.

Some of the original members are gone now — Ray Francis, Calvin Wilson, Herman Howard, Lou Draper and Al Fennar they’re gone. We worked our whole life on this, and nobody paid attention until Virginia had their exhibition in 2020, Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop.

CY: The book commemorates Kamoinge’s legacy. I think that’s part of your legacy today as well. You keep them in the conversation and commemorate the work that they’ve done.

AB: We gave so much to each other. It was like a family. We used to say it was like the mafia — once you’re in, you can’t get out. It’s almost like wherever you are now, that’s where you are supposed to be, and everything is supposed to happen that way. Nobody would give me good marks to get into college. I’m glad I didn’t go.