Familia Del Mar/Family of the Sea (Livingston, Guatemala), from the series "Tengo Casi 500 Años: Africa's Legacy in Central America"
View
@ Smithsonian American Art Museum
Description
In Familia del Mar, the gazes – of the father concentrating on straightening his nets, the mother who watches him work, and the baby facing the photographer – illuminate emotional relationships within the life of the family. Rather than passively recording interactions he happens to encounter, Gleaton positions his subjects and structures his images to reveal psychological connections, and he adjusts the tonalities of pictures shot in natural light when he prints them in the darkroom. “What you see in a photograph,” he says, “is rarely what really is. We give it meaning.”African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era, and Beyond, 2012
Gelatin Silver Print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase
