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Summary on assigned reading for the week....

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Farzana Uddin Professor Ewen/ Harper Media 180- Section 1D02

Frederick Douglas's Camera Obscura: Representing the Antislavery "clothed and in their own form" by Henry Louis Gates talks about the representation of African Americans through photography. It starts of mentioning W.E.B Du Bois a popular historian, who is also a person of color. He once questioned why many people of color do not take careers in photography because these white photographers do not know how to capture people of color on camera, or portray their beauty without ruining the picture, nor were they willing to learn. As a person who loves taking pictures, I know how hard it can be to perfectly capture a certain image. If I were to be a photographer I would love to work with different skin tones and textures. I know that it would take a lot of skills to perfectly capture something exactly as it is without distorting anything. It seemed as if during this time photographers were too biased/racist to capture people of color perfectly on camera. Frederick Douglass desired to be captured as he is on the camera in detail. He wanted to change the portrayal of African Americans. White people viewed people of color as lesser than them, however Douglass went against their stereotypes. He was portrayed as a welldressed educated African American. Douglass used the Daguerre camera obscura to capture African Americans without its stereotypes and it was a powerful invention used to fight racism....