Ming Smith

Ming Smith is an American photographer. She was the first African-American female photographer whose work was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Quotes “Being a black woman photographer was like being nobody, it was just my camera and me. I worked to capture black culture, the richness, the love. That was my incentive. It wasn’t like I was going to make money from it, or fame - not even love, because there were no shows.” MING SMITH-mingsmithstudio(2002) “introduced me to the idea of owning the images we saw of ourselves”. “What’s going on is much bigger than my work. As an artist, this is the way things always are – they get moved around, people change their mind. My work is here, it’s been here for years. I just have to ride the tide.” “For some reason, shooting right now doesn’t interest me. I was that way with 9/11 too.” “I had wanted to do a project on lost jazz, and all of a sudden I saw what I needed to begin.” “We loved Marilyn Monroe, ate Wonder Bread, lived through the assassination of Martin Luther King." “It’s hard for my son to understand now,” “He was of few words but he said, ‘Well, you could always be an artist’, and it just opened me up.” “but there was no internet and my history books were cowboys against Indians.” “I wanted to capture the spirituality, the humanity of black people, my love for the culture,” “Jazz musicians were celebrities around the world. They were loved, people identified with the music. So why then was [black] culture stereotyped as guys in the hood or poor folks on heroin?” “I didn’t really think about being the first woman,” “I just thought of myself as an artist on my path. I guess in my world I just go for things regardless of the boundaries, because I’ve always had to break boundaries.” “They introduced me to the idea of owning the images that we saw of ourselves,” “I’d spent my life making my art without great success. It made me think, ‘Was I doing this for them, or for me?’” “I’d thought [in the past], ‘One day I’m going to be in one of those shows, right?’ It was a big, big moment for me.” Ming Smith: 'I've always had to break boundaries'-The Guardian Category:Photographers