Collecting makes a powerful statement about yourself, how you see the world in beauty, dignity, love, fun, and the humanity of race, class, and culture in this world. Before I go any further, let us understand that race is a human construct designed, along with class, to divide people, predicated on our differences instead of our similarities, of which we have more in common.
What I find in common with collectors is their sense of leadership. Leadership in reference to taking charge in shaping their life. Whether being a seasoned or first-time collector, they approach a photograph with personal or historical importance and a determined understanding of the intrinsic value within the work that speaks to their spirit. With a budget in place, they don’t tap dance around decision-making. They take charge because they recognize the ‘Visual Wellness’ behind the photograph is priceless to the healthy maintenance and celebration of their spirit in life’s journey.
When a person visits your home, you don’t go to the drawer or open the safe and show them your diamonds and pearls. You don’t walk them to the closet to examine your furs. As they are sitting in your living room awaiting a beverage or your engaging conversation, your family pictures on the mantel give them insight to the connection you have with the world and the people you value and love.
Collecting photography says something about you, your soul, your spirit, and whether you own a multi-bedroom home or studio apartment, a villa in the Caribbean, or an estate in the Hamptons, collecting allows you to address your emotional and mental state. The realism of photography is part of its powerful message. I often ask collectors, “Why did you choose this photograph?” Many of them will say, “It reminds me of…” The photographer’s experience, ingenuity, sensitivity, creativity, and imagination are of the utmost importance when it comes to pricing.
There are levels to collecting photography just like there are levels to any other profession. The language is different. You may be saying or thinking you’re buying a piece of art, but in reality, you’re collecting a chapter/journey in an artist’s life. Collecting has valuable windows of opportunity. In a recent conversation, a woman was advised to begin collecting, of which she admitted, “The conversation went over my head.” Today, some of those same photographers works are hanging in galleries or have become part of an institution’s permanent collections, are valued way more than the prices of their previous days and are far beyond her financial reach.
The financial benefit to collecting (investing) in photography are accompanied by the career (status) of your artist and his/her standing in the photography community (industry) through, awards, exhibitions (local and international), books (editions), panel discussions, teaching, instructional workshops, media appearances, name recognition, curatorial assignments, etc., because as time goes by the artists’ whose work you paid for increases in recognition and price.
Collecting photography is like owning real estate. As a signed and dated photograph hangs on your wall, adorning your home, adding value to your life, its monetary value increases because the artist has achieved greater status in the photography industry. Once the photograph you’ve collected becomes twenty years old, it is regarded as vintage, whereby there is an automatic increase in value.
I’ve been in the world of photography for over 50 years. I began by looking at the work of a white photographer’s color images of a young Black family, all blue-black, dark with shiny highlights bouncing off their foreheads, and said to myself, “I can do better than that!” My commitment to photography was reinforced in college as I studied the misrepresentation of Black people in print media. Constant negative narratives about Black and African people as lazy, docile, impoverished, and primitive let me know there was a deviant mindset to educational systems and the media’s white agenda by boasting of superiority. My imagery is a direct contradiction to that mindset!
When I returned from Nigeria in 1984, it took me a while to see how to fit into this industry. When I began contacting galleries, the doors were shut. With the exception of the fabulous Gordon Parks, many galleries would prefer to show images of Black people impoverished, African children with flies surrounding their heads, both Blacks and Africans living in anguish, squaller and turmoil because their white clientele looked at us in as a dysfunctional state of poverty and despair and saying, ‘those poor Black and African people, someone should help them’ when in reality they ignore our culture, traditions and dignity, replacing them with centuries of imperialism, colonialism and enslavement through terrorism and destructive public policies which have devastated the development and growth of African people worldwide, evolving into the Doctrines of White Supremacy aka Project 2025; don’t get me started!
They view these images of our ‘arrested development’ as ‘authentic images of soul,’ how morbid! Yet, even with all of the contradictory information available today on YouTube and discoveries of researchers and historians, their primary views still persist. The psychological research of ‘avoidance and denial’ refers to the understanding that those awful occurrences that happened (and are continuing to happen) during enslavement are in the past, producing prosperity for me today, and have no connection whatsoever to my privileged life.
Our humanity disappears in their eyes and even gets lost in the minds of many African-Americans who are not used to viewing the humanity of themselves with dignity, pride, respect, beauty, love, and humor. Galleries wanted exclusive contracts, control of my movements, along with 50% of my earnings; aka, slavery in another form! I wasn’t a good fit for their primitive narrative.
I didn’t need their mainstream validation. I had socialized and learned from gifted photographers and human beings of all races in America, including diligent artists in Nigeria. As photographers, we have our own language. We can look at someone’s body of work and see the depth of their skill-set. The minute my work was accepted into the Permanent Collection of Photographs and Prints Division of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in 2015, I was good because ‘they understood my stories of humanity.’
Some may say, to acquire these bodies of work, I braved great sacrifices, and although true and challenging, I relished being in these great spaces of the African Diaspora, and on the other hand, being embraced by my wonderful collectors, people who have and are making something of their lives, improving their condition and the lives of others. We don’t talk or haggle over money. Our conversations entail goals, journeys, ambitions, challenges, and achievements. They know who they are! Confident and locked into their identity of conviction, growth, and development. “It’s an honor to be a part of these levels of life.”
Education and exposure make a big difference when collecting photography. Are you in the company of others who collect? Collectors like Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz are collectors of photography. Elton John has a whole house in Atlanta filled with photography. German-American art collector, Artur Walther, is reported to have the largest and highly private collection of African Photography. Actress, Jamie Lee Curtis says, “Most people don’t know this, but my whole life I’ve collected and supported photographers.”
There are countless others whose names you might not know who have photographic prints in their collections, proving solace, relieving stress (something I call ‘Visual Wellness’ ), and adding value to their lives. In my upcoming YouTube channel HowardTCashPhotography Stories I’m going to cover many of these topics.
However, besides their interest the one basic thing they all have in common is ‘commitment.’ Collecting is like building a house, ‘one brick at a time; one photograph at a time’ so don’t miss out!
Blessings to you and your families!
