CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/5/2023

Pride Month Staff Pick: ‘Eric Hart Jr.: When I Think about Power’

“Every day of my life I’ve been called my father,” photographer Eric Hart Jr. writes in When I Think About Power, his first major monograph, published by Damiani. “And while I’ve watched my face mature into a replica of his, watched my beard fill in the same way his sits, and grew to a height tall enough to see him eye to eye, there are certain characteristics I could never seem to match. The stride in his walk, the tone of his voice, but most importantly, the pride in himself. The type of pride that exudes a certain confidence, a certain power. Growing up as a queer black man in Southern America, power hid from me. Almost like a game of hide and seek. I searched and searched. Followed the tracks of others. Tracks that led me to pews of judgment, in between sheets of temporary satisfaction, and ultimately to a place of always questioning who looked back at me in mirrors. It wasn’t until this search led me to photography that I began to understand this person. Through photographic expression I have begun to find my own tone of voice, my own stride, my own power. This collection is an expression of my journey."