The lens of a camera looks, somewhat eerily, like a human eye. It’s no wonder that so many people are uncomfortable in its clutches—flushed, squirming, and cycling through a range of edgy half-smiles, lusty smirks, or inscrutable masks as they search for a face to present to the world.
The eye of a camera is unyielding, omniscient. It does not condemn, disapprove, or disparage. Neither does it love or spew adoring accolades. It simply mirrors what it sees, buoyed by the skill of whoever ultimately clicks the shutter.
In this era where image is everything, we give the lens all the muscle—the pivotal power to decide how we are perceived, and, consequently, who we are. That power has often been feared and misunderstood. Some cultures believe that when a camera takes a picture, its saps the subject of his or her soul.
These photographs prove it can be otherwise. The boisterous souls of these astounding women are fully and unflinchingly on display, giving voice to their studied silence, resulting in their shimmering midnight hue. Even the sharp edges of the page can’t contain the sway of their spirits.
Sporting all manner of gorgeously convoluted crowns, these women speak of the multiplicity, panache, and power of Black women’s hair. With voices confident but sometimes quavering with memory, they also tell the perplexing history of their heads. The unceremonious shearing of enslaved women’s hair, taking away the only other thing that said their names. Tortuous hours succumbing to the hissing teeth of the pressing comb, in order to look more like the silky-tressed white standard.
And history trails them into the now. Young African American girls being sent home from school because their intricate cornrows confound and can’t be controlled. The budding executive dismissed from a promising job interview because her cascading locs are suddenly against company policy.
These women are from everywhere: Chicago, South Africa, and Senegal. Each woman was gifted a style that was her own—one that she has rocked out in the world, or one she’d most definitely be willing to. They were asked to speak out loud about their hair, how it has wounded and blessed them. Their words, quoted in the book, are as varied as their Black lives.
Yes, the crowns here are rambunctious. They are fierce, with tint both fiery and chill. If you gaze at them and then slam your eyes shut, they will still be there. The portraiture is so alive, so undeniably real, that you can almost reach out and plunge your hands into those glorious, uproarious naps. You can almost smell the heady combination of spiced oils shimmering in the coiled or braided strands.
But it would be a mistake to believe that Crowns is that keenly focused, that it is simply a devoted homage to what is arguably the African American woman’s most visible and controversial trait. It is a study of the myriad ways the Black woman struts through the world, the obstacles she confronts and shatters, the inevitable and indelible mark she leaves wherever she goes.
It is not just an elegantly wrought look at the crowns the woman wears. It is the glorious story of the woman who wears them.
This piece comes from a book of photographs by Sandro Miller titled Crowns: My Hair, My Soul, My Freedom, which will be published in December 2021 by Skira. The book also features a crown of sonnets by Patricia Smith, who is the winner of the 2021 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. A selection of sonnets and photographs is here.
Patricia Smith (she/her) has been called “a testament to the power of words to change lives.” She is the author of Unshuttered (Northwestern University Press, 2023), Incendiary Art (Northwestern University Press, 2017), winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, an NAACP Image Award, and finalist for both the Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize; Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah...