Who are YOU to be making photographs at Black barber shops?

Well let’s see…

I’m interested in much more than the perspective I get from my own limited vantage point in this world, and photography has always granted me the opportunity to expand my feelings, my experiences, my views. I'm curious by nature. 

I like the way photographer Larry Fink put it: “Photography is a license to enter into worlds that are not your own. That’s the thrill of it all — the nature of pictures and how what they illuminate lasts for a long, long time, longer than the impulse that drives you to make the picture.” When asked what that impulse feels like, Fink said, “It’s like being in love.”

Over the years I’ve done self-assigned photo projects about: identical twins (I’m not one); people who live in Appalachia (I don’t live there, though I grew up in central Kentucky); Ugandan orphans (not even close); and yes, Black barber shops (again, far removed from my own experience). I’ve heard my share of who are YOU to do this work?

I know full well that it’s important for people to be able to tell their own stories, to have control over their own narratives, to feel empowered by their own circumstances. I would never want to intentionally skew those stories or overshadow them with my own. It’s important, then, that I try to approach such projects with a sense of detachment, because if I were to begin with a fixed idea before really knowing the people or the places, nothing about these projects would feel honest. It could, in fact, feel downright exploitive.

I choose my projects carefully, and I’d like to think I treat my subjects with respect. My keen interest in learning more about them fuels my desire to immerse myself in their worlds as best I can. I try to approach the give and take of photographing subjects more as a collaboration, a dance, if you will. Traditionally, there’s been an implied understanding that the person holding the camera has more power and influence than the person looking into the lens. I try hard to do what I can to level the playing fields, relying on the trust that I’m able to build and relationships I try to establish.

This is a topic that could be discussed at length, and I’ve barely scratched the surface here. But it is something I think about quite a bit when I find myself drawn to photographing a community that is so unlike my own.

Here are some of the photographs I made at several Black barber shops in Kansas City, the city I called home for nearly 40 years. These old, iconic shops are part of what makes KC so lively and vibrant. They are meeting places for many Black men in the neighborhood, places where politics and sports are discussed and debated, where some men nap, where they watch TV together, where they bring their young sons or nephews for their own haircuts. Once I was welcomed in and got started, I became interested in the sense of place in these barber shops, the details, the shops’ long histories. I became especially interested in - no surprise! – the young boys who were brought in for a haircut or the teenagers who came to just hang out. I was grateful that these guys let me spend time schmoozing and taking pictures.