As one of the leading historians of African American photography, Deborah Willis she was born and raised In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is well known for her photos, photographic historian, author and educator. She received the award for “100 Most important People in Photography”. Even as a young girl, Deborah was always wanted to be a photographer because she grew up with her dad being a photographer. Even surviving cancer, she managed to get a BFA at Philadelphia College of Art in photography, art history MA in City College of New York, and studied culture at George Mason University. She enjoyed several subjects within the arts, but she is well known for her photography that contained cultural environments and african american families. Deborah Willis had several different exhibitions in which her most popular, consisted of her photographs that represented the most powerful moments in african american history. One work in particular, was her book Posing Beauty. This book had African images starting in the 1890s to the present. Another series called, Envisioning Emancipation, of her work consisted of back americans in the ending of slavery. Willis was able to illustrate these two ideas capture touchy subjects within photograph form. To add to this, Willis’ work includes narrative quilts with…show more content… Willis’ series of the beauty of black women was my favorite. As a photographer, the way you capture individuals can either strike the viewer as powerful or weak. In her images, I love the high contrasts of stark black to a plain white background. I also enjoy how she captured different types of african american women. Included in this series are young, old and successful. All women included in her photographs have made a huge impact and tribute to the development of American history from the 1800s to the
