William Allen Young is an American actor and director who has starred in over 100 television, stage, and film projects, including two Academy Award-nominated films, A Soldier's Story and District 9. He is best known for his roles as Frank Mitchell on UPN's Moesha, Dr. Rollie Guthrie on the CBS medical drama Code Black, and as Judge Joseph Ratner on CBS's CSI Miami.
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #552 - Chinelle Rojas
Chinelle Rojas has been a self portrait photographer, among other niche specialties like birth and boudoir, since 2010, and logo designer who loves to challenge her creativity with her personal work with her passion project “My Black Self” when she isn’t helping her fellow entrepreneurs make a magical first impression. Chinelle has dreams of being a world traveler alongside her family. Speaking of family, she is a wife and homeschooling (before COVID) mother of three creative souls.
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #547 - Matthew Jordan Smith
Matthew Jordan Smith is an American photographer based in Tokyo, Japan and working between Tokyo, New York City and Los Angeles. He has photographed some of the worlds most famous celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Queen Latifah, Angela Bassett, Tyra Banks and more. His advertising clients include Olay, Pantene, Revlon, Showtime and HBO.
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #518 - Cheriss May & Idris T. Solomon
Cheriss May is a visual storyteller and adjunct professor at Howard University, her alma mater, in Washington D.C. She is the president of Women Photojournalists of Washington (WPOW), and co-chair of the photography committee at The National Press Club.
Idris Talib Solomon is a photojournalist and portrait photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. In 2016, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to photograph Hip Hop culture in Ghana. He is also the host and producer of the Black Shutter podcast.
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #494 - Robert Hale
Robert Hale is one of the West Coast’s leading photographers. His work both as a photographer and as a journalist has taken him on assignment throughout the world. His images are characterized by clarity and simplicity, with an extraordinary eye for light and shadow. Whether animate or inanimate, Robert feels his subjects have an inner essence, and, if handled with patience and sensitivity, this essence will reveal itself. His goal is to allow it to live in prints.
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #478 - Sheila Pree Bright
Sheila Pree Bright is often described as a "Cultural Anthropologist. Her earliest experience as a photographer began when she spent time in Houston where she began photographing the gangsta rap scene and confronting the dynamic between Hip hop and gun culture. In 2003, she created her MFA thesis photo series, Plastic Bodies, which would later be featured in the film Through the Lens Darkly and go viral on Huffington Post in 2013.
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #447 - Endia Beal
Endia Beal is a North Carolina based artist, who is internationally known for her photographic narratives and video testimonies that examine the personal, yet contemporary stories of marginalized communities and individuals. Beal currently serves as the Director of Diggs Gallery at Winston-Salem State University and Associate Professor of Art.
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #422 - Nydia Blas
Nydia Blas is a visual artist living in Ithaca, New York with her two children. She holds a B.S. from Ithaca College and received her M.F.A. from Syracuse University in the School of Visual and Performing Arts. She currently serves as the Executive Director of Southside Community Center, a historically Black community center in downtown Ithaca. She uses photography, collage, video, and books to address matters of sexuality, intimacy, and she lived experience as a girl, woman, and mother. Blas delicately weaves stories concerning circumstance, value, and power and uses her work to create a physical and allegorical space presented through a Black feminine lens. The result is an environment that is dependent upon the belief that in order to maintain resiliency, a magical outlook is necessary.
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #374 - Matt Odom
Matt Odom is an award-winning editorial portrait, commercial advertising, industrial, and sports photographer out of a southern town just a few minutes south of Atlanta called Macon.He holds a Bachelors Degree from Mercer University in Human Services ( he's a people person)
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #357 - Kawai Matthews
Kawai Matthews is an internationally published and award-winning photographer specializing in portraiture for editorial, entertainment marketing & advertising. Her ability to capture the depth of a subject, while delivering quality, awe-inspiring imagery is uncanny and unmatched. Shooting unforgettable moments of flair, confidence, substance and honesty in her subjects, her heavyweight portfolio includes some of today’s most celebrated entertainers.
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #356 - Ali LeRoi
Ali LeRoi is a photographer as well as the Emmy Award-winning co-creator/executive producer/writer of the critically acclaimed comedy “Everybody Hates Chris,” a series inspired by the childhood experiences of comedian Chris Rock. He is a Golden Globe nominee, a 2007 NAACP Image Award winner for best writer in a comedy series, as well as a winner of the 2007 AFI TV Program of the Year Award.
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #351 - Russell Frederick
Russell Frederick is a photographer from Brooklyn, New York whose global world view and compassion for the human condition informs his work.
He produces his photographs primarily with medium format black and white film. For years, he has been documenting the people of the community of Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #263 - Christopher Cushman
Christopher Cushman was born and raised in Detroit Michigan. Growing up in Detroit in the 60's and 70's gave him a unique perspective on people, which is central to and has informed his work to this day. He received his degree in Design and Illustration from Ferris State University. He began his career in photography during the 80's attracted to portraiture as a means to understand the human condition.
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #257 - Jamel Shabazz
Jamel Shabazz has been documenting the ‘Urban Life’ for over 30 years. Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY he picked up his first camera at the age of 15 and proceeded to record the world around him. Jamel has drawn inspiration from the great James Van Der Zee, Gordon Parks, Robert Capa, Chester Higgins and Eli Reed.
Read MoreThe Candid Frame #250 - Thomas Allen Harris
Thomas Allen Harris, an award-winning Director, is the President of Chimpanzee Productions, a company dedicated to producing unique audio-visual experiences including feature length films, performances and multimedia productions. Chimpanzee’s innovative and acclaimed films - Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People (2014), Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela (2005), E Minha Cara/That’s My Face (2001), VINTAGE – Families of Value (1995), - have received critical acclaim at international film festivals including Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, Frameline, FESPACO, Outfest, and Sithengi/Cape Town and have been broadcast on PBS, the Sundance Channel, ARTE, as well as CBC, Swedish broadcasting Network and New Zealand Television.
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