Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People

Name: Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2014-08-27
Rating: 6.2

Documentary1h 32m

🍅63%

🍅

63%

Tomatometer

🍿

73%

Popcornmeter

6.2

TMDB

Storyline

The film explores the role of photography, since its rudimentary beginnings in the 1840s, in shaping the identity, aspirations, and social emergence of African Americans from slavery to the present. The dramatic arch is developed as a visual narrative that flows through the past 160 years to reveal black photography as an instrument for social change, an African American point-of-view on American history, and a particularized aesthetic vision.

Trailers

Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People trailer thumbnail

Details

DirectorThomas Allen Harris

ReleasedAug 27, 2014

StatusReleased

Original languageEnglish

Budget

Not disclosed

Revenue

Not disclosed

Parental guideNot rated

Studio

K Period Media

Reviews

5 reviews · 4 critics

4 fresh · 0 rotten

Zeba Blay

RTShadow and ActSep 14, 2022

A history reaching far back into the past and shining a light on those who paved the way for everyone, all of us, to affirm our own identities through the images we take of ourselves and each other.

Drew Hunt

RTChicago ReaderFeb 20, 2015

This ambitious and heartbreaking documentary tackles no less mammoth a subject than the African-American identity as it exists in photographic imagery.

Ann Hornaday

RTWashington PostDec 11, 2014

A fascinating, visually stunning, emotionally devastating documentary by Thomas Allen Harris.

Ray Pride

RTNewcitySep 23, 2014

Thomas Allen Harris' lush, lovely, loving Through a Lens Darkly chronicles the role of photography in a 170-year history of the lives of black Americans. A teeming abundance of stirring and often brilliant imagery by African-American artists.