I truly believe that all art should evoke thought and make you feel something perhaps never felt before. These feelings are more about the personal experience of the viewer than the feelings I generate when I create. However, having viewers lift the veil of prejudice and look at my work with an open heart is always a part of my conscious efforts. I seem to produce photographs that are predominantly consumed by darkness and shadow, elements deeply familiar to my Black heritage. I believe that this richness, this beautiful contrast to what is typical in “balanced” photographic images, can lead viewers to paths other than their own.

We are taught traditionally that the most essential element of photography is light and its proportional relationship with shadow. Yet, I personally find great comfort in my images when darkness is heavier than light. People will typically comment, “Your work is so dark,” or “why is there such an absence of light?” There is restlessness, and a mis-trust in their inquiries. I am unsure as to why, but perhaps it is connected to the same feelings people have about me when we meet for the first time; unsure and not quick to trust, simply because I am dark? To this end, photography, I find, is much like life in that upon careful observation, one finds comfort and even enlightenment in contrasting circumstances.

I believe that we can learn to love and appreciate something because of the presence of its opposite; Wealth and poverty; hot and cold; good and evil; as well as the darkness for the light. My work is dark not because I’m depressed or angry, rather out of respect for the struggle that remains in me living in the shadow of the color black. We can all find community in each other through our feelings of misrepresentation.


My work helps give a voice to the Black Culture in all its darkness and its beauty, even if the influence struggles to reflect this same beauty. Our collective journey through this world in search of paradise will merely be half-true, unless we embrace the darkness we try so hard to ignore.

Donald Black Jr.