In this paper, I revisit the thought-world of nineteenth century black photography between two of its most important practitioners: Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass. In the history of black photography, and increasingly in Black Studies writ large, these two figures drive discourses on visuality and freedom. Typically leading with Douglass’ own lectures on pictures, we study both Douglass and Truth as figures who understood the stakes of representation, its utility for abolitionist movement, and its possibilities for black self-image. While its critical to hold Douglass and Truth together, I aim, in this paper, to linger in the differences between their approaches to photography as a realm of thought and practice. I argue that Douglass pursued a comportment of dignity reliant on a gendered presentation of dominance and revolutionary leadership, while Truth, in a different vein, enacted an image-body politic that was intentionally entangled with the visual logics of property and objectification particular to black women’s bodies within slavery. By foregrounding Truth rather than Douglass in this intellectual genealogy of the visual, I want to gesture toward a black feminist vision that can open up the work of photography in Black Studies as we continue to think about what kinds of subjects and subjectivities photographs produce, complicate, and unravel.

在本文中，我回顾了19世纪黑人摄影的两个最重要的实践者之间的思想世界：旅居者真相和弗雷德里克·道格拉斯。在黑人摄影史上，以及在《黑人研究》中越来越多的著作中，这两个人物推动了关于视觉和自由的论述。通常以道格拉斯（Douglass）在图片上的演讲为开端，我们将道格拉斯（Douglass）和真相（Truth）作为人物来研究，他们了解表象的重要性，其废奴运动的效用以及其黑色自我形象的可能性。尽管将Douglass和Truth结合在一起至关重要，但在本文中，我的目标是徘徊在他们作为思想和实践领域的摄影方法之间的差异。我认为道格拉斯（Douglass）追求有尊严的表现，这取决于性别上的支配地位和革命领导能力，而真理（Truth）则以另一种方式制定了形象主体政治，故意与财产和客观化的视觉逻辑纠缠在一起，特别是黑人女性的形象奴隶制中的尸体。通过在这种视觉知识谱系中突出真相而不是道格拉斯，我想向黑人女性主义的愿景示意，这可以开启《黑人研究》中的摄影工作，因为我们继续思考照片会产生什么样的主题和主观性，并使之复杂化。 ，然后解散。