EVERYWHERE BEAUTY IS HARLEM: A Visual Tribute to Photographer Roy DeCarava

Calkins Creek, 2023
Imprint of ASTRA BOOKS

I have several friends whose full, professional lives have nevertheless led them to become remarkable photographers, unrelated to their main careers. Their specialties range from capturing planned events, to patient wildlife photos, to those who combine candid and intentional photo captures with observed/gathered artifacts to form creative collages with emotional depth. I admire and appreciate the "eye" and skills of each of these. The same is true for this photographer I never met.

EVERYWHERE BEAUTY IS HARLEM: The Vision of Photographer Roy DeCarava is the award-winning recent picture book profile of a twentieth century master of the camera, Roy DeCavara, who also completed a full day's employment of one sort or another. Working day jobs offered other times and opportunities to drop a roll of film in his camera, then follow his eye and heart, capturing the beauty of everyday life in his home, Harlem. The text relies on an artful blend of minimal but informative text by author Gary Golio, blended with inspiring excerpts from DeCavara's writings and interviews. Each quotation is sourced in back matter, but they are so seamlessly blended as to lend a sense of co-authoring this gloriously illustrated biographic homage to a brilliant artist. DeCavara's works revealed not just his skill with the techniques of using black and white film to isolate candid images, but also his talented eye for the moment, the magic, of life. He saw what anyone could, but he showed us what we were missing.The opening text is one of those DeCavara quotations that sets the tone, literally, with this:

"It doesn't have to be pretty to be true,

but if it's true it's beautiful.

Truth is beautiful."

The DeCavara  body of work is primarily black and white, emphasizing light and shadow, rarely using a flash. His remarkable images were often primarily dark with the brilliance of situational, minimal light finding its/his target. His approach elevates the magic, the beauty of a subject to impressive heights. Work by gifted and multi-awarded "artistrator" E. B. Lewis  is also often dense and dark in background with intentional and stunning lighting lending luminous attention to the heart of each scene. In this case his approach enlivens iconic Harlem locations and frames experiences as if to animate those original moments from the photographs for which the Harlem photographer is best known.

In times when film is unnecessary and rarely used, when cameras of excellent quality are in the palms mod so many hands, His concluding quotation, from back pages, urges us to find what we love in every day life and celebrate it in the moment:

"Unexpected treasures are waiting to be seen,

if you just take the time to look."