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The Candid Frame: Conversations on Photography

TCF Ep. 478 - Sheila Pree Bright

The Candid Frame: Conversations on Photography

Ibarionex R. Perello

Cameras, Art, Photoshop, Visual Arts, Career, Interviews, Photographers, Arts, Photography, Photo, Digital

4.8749 Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2019

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sheila Pree Bright is often described as a "Cultural Anthropologist. Her earliest experience as a photographer began when she spent time in Houston where she began photographing the gangsta rap scene and confronting the dynamic between Hip hop and gun culture. In 2003, she created her MFA thesis photo series, Plastic Bodies, which would later be featured in the film Through the Lens Darkly and go viral on Huffington Post in 2013. Bright earned national acclaim when she won the Center Prize at the Santa Fe Center of Photography in 2006 for her Suburbia series which features images of African American suburban life. In 2008, she premiered her first solo exhibition at the High Museum of Art, featuring her series Young Americans.  In 2014 and 2015, Bright visited Ferguson and Baltimore after the murders of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray to photograph and document the protests. The culmination of these photos would become her series 1960Now which was published by Chronicle Books October 16, 2018. 1960Now series is now in the collection of the Smithsonian African American History and Culture Museum, Washington, DC; The High Museum of Art Atlanta; The Center for Civil and Human Rights, Atlanta, GA; City of Atlanta, Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs and the Pyramid Peak Foundation, Memphis, TN.   Photographer Links:  Listener Intro:   Education Resources:   Candid Frame Resources   Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort.  You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Transcript

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0:00.0

There is currently an exhibit at the Annenberg Space 4 Photography here in Los Angeles, dedicated to hip-hop photography.

0:16.0

Called Contact High, it provides a comprehensive overview of how photography was used to market

0:23.1

and shape the image and character of hip-hop. Though initially defined by the sounds of MCs on the

0:31.1

streets and clubs of New York, it was the photographs that demonstrated that hip-hop was as much

0:37.4

about style as it was attitude.

0:40.8

One of the photographers that helped to define that era was Sheila Prebright, who began her documentation

0:46.2

of the music scene not in New York or even Los Angeles, but in Texas, which provided her a unique

0:52.6

opportunity to photograph an ever-evolving music scene.

0:56.8

At the same time, she was learning the ins and outs of being a working commercial photographer,

1:02.1

which sometimes involved not turning down an opportunity.

1:06.2

And my first photography job was with Burger King.

1:12.4

Didn't know what I was doing.

1:14.0

I was at a function.

1:15.9

And I can't remember how it all reflected,

1:19.5

but I met this guy,

1:21.6

and he said he worked for Burger King,

1:23.1

and he was looking for a photographer to shoot Ariel's.

1:26.0

He said, you know how to do that.

1:27.7

I'm like, yes, I didn't know how to do that, right?

1:30.8

So he says, well, you got a job.

1:33.5

And I'm so naive. And I'm like, oh, okay.

1:35.9

So I went to one of the photographers

...

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