Nathaniel Dunn, African American educator and self-taught photographer, Durham, North Carolina

I became impressed with works by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gordon Parks, Vivian Maier, Dorothea Lange, Elliott Erwitt, Addison N. Scurlock, Joe Schwartz, and several others. These photographers were people who I tried to emulate, by capturing these unique realities in life, through the ability to focus on simple concepts, and by framing these visual and realistic concepts around captivating subjects, such as people, objects, buildings, and views of sceneries.

From Birth into Adulthood

On November 6, 1987, I was born in Orange County, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I was raised by a single mother, Susan, and a maternal grandmother, Rose, in Kinston, N.C. My childhood was spent mostly under my mother’s rearing, but as I grew older, I had decided to live with my grandmother, who was a widow and who worked as a domestic. She willingly labored for a white family after retiring as a detention instructor at Dobbs School. At ten years old, my grandmother taught me how to read and write. She would often tell that learning was a devout practice. Even when completing my daily chores while living with my grandmother, I was taught how to look for details and how to adapt to my surroundings.

My mother, Susan, was adopted into a loving, supportive, well-educated family. She eventually became a mother to four sons, including a set of fraternal twins, my twin brother, Nathan, and me. We lived in a lower-class neighborhood; and along with it, we received a very poor education. Thereafter, I sought how to comprehend the world by finding my own creative skills. It was a sense of learning how to develop and how to gain experience. At fifteen, I put my belongings in a suitcase at my mother’s place and lugged it over to where my grandmother lived.

My Grandfather

I began studying photography around eighteen years old. While living with my grandmother, Rose, I found a box of photographs stowed in the attic. These photos were candid pictures—family and friend portraits, social events, household decorations, and other whatnots—supposedly taken by my grandfather, Thomas E. Dunn. I recall holding my laughter at the sight of my four-year-old mother wearing a Sunday dress, yellow coat, and white knee-high stockings; or, perhaps, I remember feeling mesmerized when I turned the pages of an aging 1960 Adkin school annual, where students flaunted fancy hairstyles and wore solid, patterned clothes.

As I had eventually learned, my grandfather, Thomas, would carry his camera with him around the house or to social gatherings with close friends, and though I have never met him, his photos were like sitting on his lap to hear some of his fondest memories. Nevertheless, I am still intrigued by the fact that I grasped much through his photography work. It was concise and inviting, simple and fun, better yet cheerful and memorable. I discovered my passion through my grandfather.

Durham, North Carolina

During the last few weeks of a shattering summer in 2015, I relocated to Durham, North Carolina. I am reminded of this time because, at first, it seemed broken and unfamiliar; yet despite the loss of my mother, Susan, I still somehow continued to give a little effort in my hopes and dreams. It was an illuminating turning point in my life. The one-hour-and-thirty-minute drive, about 105 miles westward from the Atlantic coast, was a stretch from home that gave me time to put my life into a reeling perspective. It revealed, to me, a new beginning, a longing for manhood, and an eagerness for consequence—this sort of importance that underscored growth and sufficiency.

I studied at North Carolina Central University, formerly known as North Carolina College for Negroes (NCC), which was founded in 1910 by Dr. James E. Shepard in Durham, N.C. This historically black college was built in the Hayti District, a “self-sufficient” community that, according to sources, “owned and operated more than 200 businesses” in the area, such as its own library, hotel, theatre, and hospital. As its history was part of my interest in choosing a college to attend, NCCU ideally became my second home. I developed a warm rapport with many of my peers and faculty members, became familiar with some of the city’s local businesses and street names, and had a deep-loving fondness with its overall flare, which made it easier to get through each day. It was a time when life changed.

Imagination as a Study

I would often observe my surroundings by imagining. As children are taught to use their imagination, I find myself returning to this simple rule to develop and nourish my own creative skills. Whether these skills are part of learning a new concept, exercising a familiar skill, or building from innovative thinking, I strategize by coordinating art and illusion with reality. It is a strategy drawn from art historian E. H. Gombrich’s 1960 published work Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. Therefore, I am constantly thinking of how to use imagination in my photography work. It is one of many important elements.

I currently live in Durham, North Carolina. In May 2018, I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in English from North Carolina Central University. For inquiries, please submit this form; or if you would like to donate, please visit my GoFundMe account. Please follow my Instagram account.