Albert Chong
ON PORTRAITS

The poignancy of old family photographs a visual record of a moment in time, if we can transcend the nostalgia, that moment in time and its connected realities of infinite worlds, cosmos, lives are all connected to the idea of time. That these are records of infinite facets of that particular moment. That particular moment is important to the conciousness of the lives experiencing it. A proof, other than memory, or the words of a witness, proof that recalls, the white Sunday dress that you wore to the photo studio when you were four. Yes the one with the red bow. The modern day descendant of the old photo studios with the fake oppulent backgrounds, is a poor substitute with no imagination. The Sear's portrait is probably the most common form of commercial portrature especially in regards to babies and children. Even my own sister who I was living with when I was going to art school for photography followed her instincts and took her baby for a Sears baby picture. She was probably circumventing the artiness of my own baby pictures. But even though we have been handed the technology to spontaneously and instaneously produce our own physical memories that are a plethora of color snapshots. The formal traditions of a photo studio portrait still persists. A grand master of that tradition was James Vanderzee. Vanderzee was a African American photographer who recorded in formal portraiture the people of Harlem, NY, in Birth, in life and in death. He was in fact like an African Griot, the visual memory or record keeper of that community. With these images I'm examining that physical memory. Investigating, interpreting, embellishing and ultimately I hope empowering these images. there are so few images of black people in historical collections of photography, that those that do exists, and depicts the individual in a noble manner are rare.
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