Independent Lens

Through a Lens Darkly

For the last 170 years, pioneering African American photographers — men and women, celebrated and anonymous — have recorded the dramas and aspirations of generations. Through a Lens Darkly traces their spiritual transformation from slavery to economic mobility and social stability, and shows how these photographers helped their communities reclaim self-worth and humanity.

Coming to Independent Lens: The Kill Team

30s

American soldier Adam Winfield attempted to thwart war crimes even more heinous than Abu Ghraib but was then himself charged with premeditated murder. At the core of The Kill Team is a moral quandary: whether a soldier is duty-bound to risk life and limb to stop fellow soldiers from committing atrocities.

  • Coming to Independent Lens: Through a Lens Darkly: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Coming to Independent Lens: Through a Lens Darkly

    S16 E8 - 30s

    Illustrating the power photography had and still has in shaping America’s views of race, Through a Lens Darkly traces 170 years of history -- from daguerreotypes in the days of slavery to more modern times — of African Americans in front of, and behind, the camera.

  • Through a Lens Darkly: Family Photo Albums: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Through a Lens Darkly: Family Photo Albums

    S16 E8 - 1m 44s

    In this excerpt from the opening moments of the Independent Lens documentary Through a Lens Darkly, we see how African American family secrets and histories can be explored through the family photo album, in what it chooses to represent by what is absent, and what is hidden.

  • Through a Lens Darkly: Gordon Parks: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Through a Lens Darkly: Gordon Parks

    S16 E8 - 1m 47s

    In this excerpt from the opening moments of the Independent Lens documentary Through a Lens Darkly, the groundbreaking African American photographer Gordon Parks is explored. A hero to many modern photographers, Parks “felt the need to use humanity to get people to become aware of how people suffered.”

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