DePaul University

Photographic Nuance: Paul D’Amato

Mateo Felipe

LSP 110: Photographing Chicago

Professor Rachel Herman

18 October 2022
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In Paul D’Amato’s photograph, “Shorty-B” [fig. 1], an observant man is pictured holding

a cane and cigarette in front of a window with a little girl in it. It is a single-colored image with a

filter of some sort overlaid (D’Amato). Once viewing the picture, my eyes were immediately

drawn to the paint splatter on the wall because of how the light pink contrasts with the

graffiti-covered, gray wall and its large spread across it. Afterward, I am drawn towards the man

in the photograph, who we assume is named “Shorty-B”, after the photograph’s title, because of

his prominence. Upon some research, I confirmed that “Shorty-B'' is the man within the image

and a member of the Chicago-based street gang the Bishops. The Bishops were founded in Pilsen

near 18th and Bishop and have Latino members primarily. An innocent, little girl is spotted in the

window behind the man, leading the viewer to assume that she is either related to the man or a

neighborhood resident. The scale and positioning of the camera are attributed to this to

ultimately convey the concept that the man is assuming a protective role over the little girl,

whether it is directly or indirectly. Despite the many aspects of the image that could be indicated,

D’Amato’s positioning of this intimidating vigilante ensures that he is the focal point. This

photograph allows a viewer to be attracted to many parts of it because of how the image is

entirely in focus. Due to the image’s asymmetry, this is further exemplified. Regarding coloring,

the light pink tint is most likely due to the specific film used to photograph this piece, yet it

creates a highly nostalgic and vintage feeling to it whereas leaving it unfiltered would make it

much more difficult for the period in which this piece was taken. The photograph has a slightly

increased contrast because of how deep the shadows within the man’s pants, between the wall’s

crevices, and the graffiti wording on said wall. Overall, this photograph depicts gang life from a

rather vigilante stance rather than the stigma of being violent without reason.
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Paul D’Amato utilizes his photography as a catalyst to depict disenfranchised

communities in Chicago, Illinois, while still blossoming intimate interactions between a

photographer and their subject. The motives and inspirations of Paul D’Amato’s work require a

thorough understanding of the people he seeks to document. Specifically, how the intersection of

culture, ethnicity, and socio-economic status manifest themselves into dynamic factors that

impact the everyday lives of the people that make up Pilsen and Little Village. Therefore, to

understand Paul D’Amato’s work, an intimate understanding of not the environment but the

people in it is required. After all, the people in the community make up these neighborhoods, not

the other way around. These neighborhoods contain the most significant Mexican populations in

the Chicago land area and became a port to such due to waves of immigration that began in the

1950s. This was largely guided by promises of work, which explains the working-class nature of

these urban neighborhoods and further contextualizes the current resistance to gentrification they

face. Under this context, it is clear that Paul D’Amato’s interests stem from exploring the

resilience of the members within these neighborhoods. Indeed, his work throughout this period

of documentation becomes more intimate as time passes. Though the perspective he holds will

forever be that of an outsider, his work depicts more intimate settings as he becomes a friend to

some of the members of the community. He goes from people in simple areas like streets and

parks to celebrations and weddings, with all of this being a product of the aforementioned factors

that impact the community.

In D’Amato’s collection, Barrio: Photographs from Chicago's Pilsen and Little Village,

the primary concept being conveyed is how these neighborhoods in Chicago such as Pilsen and

Little Village are the victims of capitalism's side effects. D’Amato asserts that as a nation, we are

made to feel that these socioeconomic problems are intractable because they are profoundly
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ubiquitous— society should feel shame for not taking initiative. It casts doubt on everything the

United States is said to be proud of (Mossless). Although D'Amato's images provide a

contemporary account of life in an American city at the start of the new millennium, they also

seem detached from particular historical events. In D’Amato’s collection of photographs entitled,

We Shall, the images are punctuated by noteworthy racial and socioeconomic events, such as the

failure of the public housing experiment and the election of the country's first African American

president, but for the people who live on Chicago's West Side, not much seems to have changed.

In this region, the income and poverty gap is the widest although not always the most obvious

(Harris 8). D'Amato's photographs relate to the ups and downs of uncertain economic times. His

images reject giving us all the answers and embrace a beautiful yet sad complexity that lets us

encounter things an audience might not fully comprehend. They invite us to use our imaginations

to engage with the questions, narratives, and feelings they arouse (D’Amato). Although much of

D’Amato’s imagery features African-Americans and Latino-Americans due to their respectively

dense neighborhoods, D’Amato’s art does not serve to immerse outsiders into these

communities. While remaining conscious of how racial identity in a community is reflected

through photography, D’Amato still maintains much of the interpersonal connection he develops

with his subjects as he travels to these new and familiar neighborhoods. The idea of D'Amato's

photographs is to generate awe in viewers— a feeling that causes you to lose all sense of self for

a brief period (MonkEL). Besides surprising his audience, he enjoys capturing rare moments that

are not solely socially based in context, but those social concepts inevitably make themselves

apparent in his work. Desire is a heavy influence on much of his purpose for photography that

should not be ignored in the attempt to remain politically correct (D’Amato 6).
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Paul D’Amato’s work has, in a way, normalized people of color as subjects in

photography without having to encroach on their cultural background and utilize it as the main

premise of his art. Though, arguably, D’Amato’s active stance in portraying these marginalized

communities from the point of view of a white man emphasizes a problematic “savior complex”,

it is essential to understand how much of his work is solely created out of personal inclination.

Consequently, the photographs unintentionally shed light on these discrepancies, yet, many of

the reviews on D’Amato’s work do not explore this topic. As a frequent visitor of the

neighborhood of Pilsen, D’Amato explains that as a white man photographing a historically

Mexican neighborhood, he recognizes that he may not share the disparities or culture. Still, he

has had first-hand experience within the neighborhood. To convey that his characters are neither

accidental nor overpowered by their environment, D'Amato emphasizes their firmness— their

places frequently show signs of wear and deterioration from a complicated social and political

history. D'Amato does not, however, concentrate on overt indications of crime or violence.

(Harris 22). From a personal standpoint, I agree with D’Amato; he has all the right to photograph

these neighborhoods that he either resided in for a while or visited. If it were not for his work,

viewers would not even be able to view these disenfranchised neighborhoods in a way that does

not explicitly explore race or ethnicity, let alone have this conversation. D’Amato told Mossless

Magazine, “I stopped [photographing for Barrio] for two reasons. First, after 14 years, I felt I

needed to move on as an artist. Second, gentrification was starting and homogeneity had begun,”

(Mossless) which was a fascinating way to describe his journey as a photographer. To not capture

the gentrification, whether directly or indirectly, of these historically Mexican neighborhoods

comes across as ignorant on D’Amato’s behalf. As much as D’Amato stresses how unimportant

cultural identity is in the context of his images if he wants to depict his subjects genuinely,
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photographing them amidst the gentrification of these neighborhoods should not affect how his

pictures are shot.

In the cover shot for Paul D'Amato's Here/Still/Now, “Margaret and Marquetta Tisdell,

Original Providence Baptist Church” [fig. 2], Margaret and Marquetta Tisdell pose at the

Original Providence Baptist Church, a neighborhood church in Chicago's largely black-dense

West Side, according to the image title inside the photobook (Jones 2). In contrast to other

current tales that make up Chicago's Black public, the photographs that make up Here/Still/Now

display the quiet moments of Black Chicago residents’ daily activities in manifestations of

individual, familial, and communal commitment. Here/Still/Now’s high visual and

representational goals are not diminished by the subject matter's more simple features and

frequently display similar aesthetic sensibilities and individual tenacity to Margaret and

Marquetta, suggesting the book's self-aware similarities with those of artistic portraiture (Jones

3). D’Amato proceeds to inform the National Portrait Gallery about this piece after becoming a

finalist in the exhibition, The Outwin 2016: American Portraiture Today. D’Amato explains that

the West Side of Chicago is nothing special in comparison to other indigent cities in America as

seen in statistics taken by sociologists and this divergence does not strike him. What strikes

D’Amato is his ability to connect with his subjects from these neighborhoods, capture something

extraordinary, and remind viewers that generalizations of the residents are keeping in the true

beauty of individuality (2016).

In Jörg M. Colberg’s review of Paul D’Amato’s We Shall, Colberg praises D’Amato’s

ability to capture exceptional portraiture because of how the portraits pique the curiosity of its

audience to probe and inquire about the people within it (Colberg). A notable photograph within

the book is entitled, “Shavondra,” [fig. 3] a portrait of an apprehensive, still black woman in
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front of a fence crossing her arms on her midsection (D’Amato 33). Here/Still/Now slows down

the crisis spectacle of Chicago by avoiding the narrative and representational structure

constraints that prevent viewers from getting a more accurate feel of the Black experience in the

city. This navigation is visible in a picture like “Shavondra”, where the relationship between a

Black subject and the boundaries of occlusion is crucially inverted. The risk-taking modes of

self-presentation that are negotiated in the Black portrait moment are highlighted by Shavondra's

penetrating gaze into the camera (Jones 51). D’Amato recounts taking multiple photographs of

Shavondra as he has known her for quite a while and wants to share how his photographs do not

utilize the economic metrics society employs to characterize entire groups. Though D’Amato’s

primary focus was to communicate the solidity of his subject and the obscure interrelation of a

photographer and subject (Mossless), photography allows for interpretation to run rampant and

provoke unintended conversations and concepts. Colberg compares D’Amato’s photography with

We Shall using the analogy of receiving an invitation. We, as viewers, are given an invitation in

the form of We Shall and it is up to the audience to decide how they would like to utilize this

information. We cannot blame D’Amato for invoking conversation when it may have not been

his prerogative, we must determine whether we care enough to engage in said conversation

(Colberg).

In Paul D’Amato’s portraiture collection entitled, Midway, we are introduced to the

Chicago Midway International Airport, the heart of Midway, and its surrounding neighborhoods

of Chicago Lawn, Brighton Park, West Lawn, and Garfield Ridge. The project Midway

specifically examines the ambiguous urban spaces between more distinctive communities in

terms of geographical and socioeconomic status, a concept that D’Amato tends to stray from.

Specifically in, “Judy with Lawnmower,” [fig. 4] this all-encapsulating photograph depicts the
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working middle class with Midway Airport simply as a backdrop. D’Amato’s intricate strategy

of stopping residents and requesting a portion of their working time exquisitely summarizes his

erratic and unintentionally thought-provoking creative decisions. The proximity creates an

interesting contrast as D'Amato sees the Midway region as a place of transition. A mixed

community of immigrants, homeowners, and other aspirants striving to move up in the world

under the shadow of airplanes bringing passengers to distant locations and freight trains

rumbling through switching yards (Kay). Many of those photographed are a part of the

disenfranchised communities who have never flown in an airplane, despite being able to hear

every plane take off from the runway (Franco). As this collection explores impending

homogeneity and commercialization, the assimilation of Midway’s residents who long for the

American dream continues to grow with the concept that, “Midway is a metaphor and it’s a state

of mind” (D’Amato).

Paul D’Amato’s work, regardless of its intentional or unintentional conversation-inducing

effect, remains a successful and empowering impetus for Chicago neighborhoods and

communities. There is no denying that critics and viewers as a whole see D’Amato’s work as

solely portraits of strangers— humans are prone to wanting the whole story, even if it is fully

their interpretation. Race will always play a factor in the lives of people, especially in such a

segregated city like Chicago, and its substantial role is no different in photography whether it is

overt or not. Though the debate can be held on whether D’Amato’s photography is rather

whitewashed and problematic, to achieve a deeper understanding of interpersonal connections

and race consciousness, one must set aside preconceived biases. Every piece by D’Amato

reflects the profound and deep-seated relationship he holds with his subjects, truly being a
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primary example of how those relationships behind the camera can make or break the intended

or unintended story conveyed to an audience.

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Works Cited

Baldwin, Rosecrans. “We Shall.” The Morning News, 9 June 2014,

themorningnews.org/gallery/we-shall.

Colberg, Jörg M. “Review: We Shall by Paul D'Amato.” Conscientious Photography Magazine,

Conscientious Photography Magazine, 30 Jan. 2018, cphmag.com/review-we-shall/.

D'Amato, Paul, and Stuart Dybek. Barrio: Photographs from Chicago's Pilsen and Little Village.

University of Chicago Press, 2006.

D'Amato, Paul, et al. Here/Still/Now. Kehrer, 2017.

D’Amato, Paul. Judy with Lawnmower. Photograph. 2018, https://pauldamato.com

D'Amato, Paul. We Shall. Photographs by Paul D'Amato. DePaul University Art Museum, 2014.

Franco, Daisy. “Paul D'Amato on the Best Color Photography Darkroom in Chicago, Teaching at

Columbia, and His Midway Project.” Columbia College Chicago Wordmark, 1 Sept.

2022,

www.colum.edu/news-and-events/articles/2022/Paul-DAmato-on-the-Best-Color-Photogr

aphy-Darkroom-in-Chicago,-Teaching-at-Columbia,-and-his-Midway-Project#.Y13HyC-

B1MQ.

Harris, Gregory J., et al. “We Shall: Photographs by Paul D'Amato.” Via Sapientiae, 2013,

via.library.depaul.edu/museum-publications/1.

Jones, C. A. Still in Action: Blackness, Portraiture, and Photoliberation in Paul D'Amato's

0RW1S34RfeSDcfkexd09rT2Here/Still/Now1RW1S34RfeSDcfkexd09rT2, The University

of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ann Arbor, 2019. ProQuest,

ezproxy.depaul.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/still-action-

blackness-portraiture/docview/2241621189/se-2.
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Kay, Stanley. “Welcome to Midway.” Chicago Magazine, 26 Apr. 2022,

www.chicagomag.com/chicago-magazine/may-2022/welcome-to-midway/.

Mossless. “Mossless Magazine Interviews Paul D'Amato.” VICE, 5 May 2014,

www.vice.com/en/article/8gdm4a/mossless-in-america-paul-damato.

National Portrait Gallery. “Portrait of an Artist: Paul D'Amato.” National Portrait Gallery, 10

May 2013, npg.si.edu/blog/portrait-artist-paul-d%E2%80%99amato.

“‘The Outwin 2016’ Finalist: Paul D'Amato.” National Portrait Gallery, 12 Apr. 2016,

npg.si.edu/blog/outwin-2016-finalist-paul-damato.
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Appendix

[fig. 1]: Paul D’Amato, Shorty-B, 1994

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[fig. 2]: Paul D’Amato, Margaret and Marquetta Tisdell, Original Providence Baptist Church,

2013
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[fig. 3]: Paul D’Amato, Shavondra, 2005

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[fig. 4]: Paul D’Amato, Judy with Lawnmower, 2018