"My work has always been about serial obsessions." says portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. When he was in his "artist" period, he photographed more than 700 luminaries of the art world over a 20-year span. Then it was musicians - he photographed them by the hundreds. Later he turned his lens on more than 100 fashion designers, and then he fixated on stars of pornography. His latest image obsession is prominent African-Americans.

Target exclusively has the DVD for "The Black List: Volume 2".

Buy it now!

This distinctive and elegant follow-up to 2008's "The Black List: Vol. 1" follows a similar minimalist path in gathering prominent black figures to reveal something candid and insightful about themselves or their take on the world.  
 

BlackBook.com

Angela Davis & “The Black List”

By Eiseley Tauginas

February 27, 2009

Gov. Deval Patrick is blacklisted — and he is in good company.

This month, HBO will release the second volume in its “The Black List” film series, which features prominent African Americans all over the country who are making history. The Bay State’s governor was one of a select few who made this “List,” which will premiere to local audiences at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester on Feb. 18.

“I was honored to be asked,” Patrick said. “I’m in pretty heavy company.”

Bay State Banner arts writer Robin Hamilton (left) moderates a question-and-answer period featuring Gov. Deval Patrick (third from left) and two of the filmmakers behind “The Black List: Volume Two,” executive producer Tommy Walker (second from left) and director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (right), following the East Coast premiere of the hour-long HBO documentary, held Wednesday evening, Feb. 18, 2009, at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester. (Tony Irving photo)

When Timothy Greenfield-Sanders was taking promotional photographs for Toni Morrison's first opera, "Margaret Garner", back in 2005, the Nobel Prize-winning writer suggested that he shoot a portfolio of black divas. Greenfield-Sanders liked the idea, but he had something broader in mind. He asked his friend Elvis Mitchell, a journalist and critic, to help him think of subjects for a portrait series.

When Elaine Wynn commissioned Timothy Greenfield-Sanders to photograph her billionaire hotelier and art collector husband, Steve Wynn. it took the two very busy men about a year to agree on a day and time. Greenfield-Sanders arrived at the Wynn Las Vegas hotel shortly before their appointment last summer and, after settling into his room, made his way to the 8,000-square-foot ballroom that would be his makeshift studio.

Jim Carroll

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/books/14carroll.html?hp

I photographed Edward Kennedy twice, in D.C. on April 10th, 1990 and in Hyannis Port on October 23, 1998. Both shoots with him were thrilling.

RIP