Important Life Information: Carrie Mae Weems is an African American photographer and she was born on April 20th, 1953 in Portland, Oregon. Before photography, she originally studied modern dance and she got her first camera at age 21. She started her first photographic project in 1978 and she was influenced by another African American photographer, Roy DeCarava, who documented the Black experience. She called herself "the image maker". In the late 1900's and early 2000's she started to experiment with video technology. She has one child named Faith C. Weems.
Style: Her work I feel like is more documentary photography. Her early work displayed work and familial themes like her first major collection called " Family Pictures and Stories" which documents her own family. Another collection that documents family is her very first project called "Environmental Profits" which documented life in Portland.
Philosophy: Some of the major ideas that Carrie wants to highlight is racism and sexism. Those themes are shown in some of her collections like "The Kitchen Table Series" which she wanted to depict sexism. "From Here I Saw What Happened and Cried" is another collection and this collection depicts racism.
Influences: Carrie was influenced by many photographers and poets. One photographer is Roy DeCarava another African American photographer who documented the Black experience. Another photographer is Ming Smith who is another female African American photographer.
Smiling
Serious
Untitled-Part of collection "The Kitchen Table Series"(1981-1982)
Untitled-Part of collection "Colored People"(1989-1990)
Compare and contrast: For the first set of pictures, my picture had a blur effect for the background because there was a lot of distractions in the background but Carrie's picture had a door and a wall in the background. For the second set of photos I had my friend pose against the wall because it was a blank wall and it had no distractions but for Carrie Weems' photo it looks like she just had the little girl quickly pose and then she took that picture.