A Photographer’s Search for the Magic in Everyday Life
Shawn Walker, a founding member of the Kamoinge Workshop, documented the lives of regular people and liberated his subjects from stereotypes and invisibility.
As a young man growing up in Harlem, Shawn Walker was shaped not just by what he saw at museums, but also what he heard in clubs. “I grew up as a jazz kid,” Mr. Walker, 77, said. “I heard all the avant-garde players, major influences like John Coltrane and Lee Morgan… Jazz takes something ordinary and changes it. Jazz was the background music to my life.”