Why Photojournalist Dee Dwyer is the Visual Voice for the People
Dee Dwyer is motivated by trying to demystify the “misunderstood”. You’ll often find her photographing in Black and White to capture the nebulous grey areas that are neglected under the mainstream media’s eye. Her latest projects are no exception. The first photo that caught my eye browsing her Instagram was Black women twerking in a circle at a celebration for Women’s History Month in Washington, D.C. Though the white gaze often sharply portrays Black pain and Black joy as distinct from each other, Dee’s uncensored imagery disrupts these specific parameters of the truth, adversities, beauty, and culture of the Black experience.
Born in Southeast D.C., as an artist who’s experienced the struggle of growing up in an underresourced community, Dee is naturally drawn to its core. Witnessing a lot of friends getting ensnared into the carceral system sparked her affinity for empathy. On a typical day, she can be found documenting the lives of people who inspire them by situating their stories from and within her community. It’s no surprise that she was anointed by her neighbors and close friends as the “visual voice for the people.”
“To me, a camera is the most powerful tool in the world because it captures the truth. When I wield my camera, I have the power to document history in real-time”. In the heat of the Black Lives Matter protests that shook the world last summer, Dee’s frontline coverage capturing the mass demonstrations led to her work being featured in The Wallstreet Journal, Vanity Fair, and The Guardian amongst other publications. “I just felt like it was a call to action for me. These protests may have been a phenomenon for different parts of the country, protesting is the norm to DC.” Like embers of a flame within her, this sense of duty that motivated this duty was kindled by her community. “When I’m going out, I’m bumping into a lot of people that I know and appreciate what I do. They’re very protective of me when I shoot and I go out alone. They’ll make sure that I’m comfortable and I feel safe. Naturally, my work is a love letter back to them.”
When asked about which photos and photographers defined the DC protests last year, Dee believes in the strength of collective power over the romanticism of individuality. “As we continue to archive our lives, there needs to be a collaborative gallery of images. I remember browsing Instagram during that time and thinking, ‘oh, that could be the one’, but there are just so many amazing photographers on the frontlines right now. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly who”.
Dee’s experience in covering the protests revealed the claustrophobic conditions black women photojournalists are forced to navigate in their line of our work. “Black women photojournalists face obstacles on multiple fronts. There’s the trauma of interacting with the police who are throwing tear gas and rubber bullets, and then there’s this hunger for racial voyeurism that white photographers feel entitled to”. She vividly recalls two white photographers shoving and elbowing her because they believed she was in “their shot”. Her insights interrogate how voyeurism is also about power and privilege. “Those protests were our moment. Black photojournalists from my community don’t get to disengage and go home to the suburbs. We’re trying to get heard because, at the end of the day, this is our home”.
The danger of calls for diversity is that many black photographers could be typecast into just covering protest photography. “I wonder if they’re going to continue calling on us six months from now. I want to make sure that this awakening has some permanence for the industry. Because of the pandemic, a lot of us were covering protests by default because we were out of work. If anything, this should be a marker of our flexibility. We can do studio, we can do editorial, album covers, you name it. I’ve been in a position where I personally have to call some editors out to make sure they’re paying us and treating us accordingly. They’re reaching out like they’re doing us a favor but so it’s time to put some respect on our names and our cheques”.
As she works on current projects, Dee continues to be guided by a stream of consciousness to achieve her goal of showing the full spectrum of humanity. She has a TEDx talk at the University of Washington called Putting Humanity First in the Media that’s debuting this week. “I have a nine-year-old daughter and six-year-old son. I remember one day she came from school and was excited to tell me that Christopher Columbus discovered America and I said ‘hell no’. It was time for an intervention”.
Years from now, she pictures both her children attending college. She believes she owes it to the next generation who often have to reconcile their lived experiences with the lack of Black history that should be taught in school. “My daughter is a visual artist. She loves to draw and she loves picking up the camera. Both my children are going to be watching the news and turning to their history books for sources of truth/sources of our history. Instead of contributing to misinformation, I can visually show them the truth instead.”
