Roy Decarava 1919 - 2009

Roy DeCarava worked as a  freelance photographer for magazines and commercial, but he consciously approached photography as an art, not as a form of journalism or documentary history. He was trained as a painter, printmaker, and commercial illustrator and with his photographs often had the composition and gravity of painting. Roy was drawn to photography by “the directness of the medium,” and soon found himself communicating the themes and ideas of his paintings photographically.

DeCarava and a poet, Langston Hughes, would collaborate on publishing a book titled, The Sweet Flypaper of Life, documenting the lives of Harlem residents. Between he and  Gordon Parks are often considered the foremost African American photographers of the 20th century. Roy DeCarava died October 27 at the age of 89.