TAP PEOPLES's (Photo Rhetoric and Journal)

Dick Gregory

These (3) images were photographed by my 5 year old nephew Braelyn. Like most kids of this era, he’s fascinated with technology, games, and taking photo’s. I’ve been photographing him since he was an infant with my DSLR, and at around 2 years old I handed him the camera so that he could take photo’s around the house. Most of the photo’s then were of nothing, he would just hold the shutter button down because he liked the sound it made. From watching me with the camera he began to mock the motion of putting the camera to his face and looking through the view finder. Naturally most of the images were blurred and out of focus, but every time I seen him he wanted to take pictures of everyone, and at 5 years old he knows how to use the auto focus, and have developed the muscle strength to hold the camera still until he gets the image.  When he was taking these photo’s I was telling him how to go from the view finder to the LCD monitor (which he prefers) then he snapped the first two, and on the final one told me to make a funny face and pose. 

I dropped a black and white filter on these and added a little digital grain. Needless to say, I see photography in his future, and will probably hand one of my dslr’s down to him for his six birthday or some shit. I’ll be posting the other photo’s he took of everyone in the house soon. His perspective and point of view is dope for a 5 year old, and he still has so much to learn technically, but for now it’s all  about having fun and capturing moments. 

The Poe-8

with Amiri Baraka (photographed in Detroit at the Charles Wright Museum 2013)

The bell of the Horn

with Hugh Masekela (photographed in Detroit, MI 2015)