Andre D. Wagner’s Eye for the Photo-Ready

There is a moment I often recall that defines, for me, the ambition and affection that live in equal measure within the work of Andre D. Wagner. We were sitting together in a car, waiting at a stoplight, somewhere in one of the Carolinas, in 2019. A publication had come up with the idea of pairing a writer and a photographer for a week to explore a region of the country, then use whatever was gathered, between them, to tell a story. Wagner and I had never met before doing this assignment together. We’d done fairly well taking turns at the wheel, but on this particular day he had assumed most of the driving duties, a fact I must admit because it makes the moment in question more spectacular.

In the few seconds before the light changed, a group of young Black boys rode up alongside us on motorbikes. They sat piled two per bike, some with their shirts off, delighting in the gentle warmth of autumn on the horizon. Wagner, with one hand on the wheel, getting ready to drive off when the light turned green, aimed his camera toward the kids. And they, previously indifferent to our presence, became even more lively for the camera, throwing their hands up, smiling wide. It was a split second. It felt slow only because the camera existed within it, a vessel that freezes time but which, when in action, can also slow time.

I love the image that resulted from that interaction. I remember talking to Wagner about it, and him sharing something with me that I’ve thought about ever since: the idea that Black people are often photo-ready. Photo-eager. We’ve already got fly, we already believe ourselves to be fly: why shouldn’t someone want to take our photo? The boy holds on to the bare shoulders of the slightly larger boy on the front of a bike before it peels off. Why wouldn’t someone want to take their photo? The person listening to music through headphones and dancing in a universe made by and for them and no one else. The person crossing the street carrying shopping bags, wearing sunglasses, a bandana, and a shirt with the words “BLACK JOY” blazoned across the front. When you point a camera at a Black person on the street, Wagner told me, the response, in so many cases, is one of embrace—of wanting to become a part of the archive, the archive of what the foolish might call the mundane, but we know better.

Wagner is exceptional at capturing tenderness. Looking through his photos, I feel aware that tenderness is not something you extract from others; it’s not something that operates as an exchange. People have to offer it to you. The photographs of his that I’m most deeply moved by show moments of profound, quiet interpersonal intimacy, the kind of interpersonal intimacy that you might take for granted if you are sharing it with someone you feel certain might love you forever. My favorite example shows a couple standing in front of a MetroCard machine in New York City. The photo was taken in 2020, and it seems like the world is shocked into a kind of stillness. The face of one subject is somewhat obscured, turned away from the camera. The other person, her eyes narrowed, leans her face into the towering, curly Afro of her partner, who rests a hand on her rear end. It looks as if she is slipping into a dream. I love this photo of the couple for their expression of affection toward each other, and I love how that affection presses up against the world—the stillness of the world, the distance of the world. Maybe they’re going places. Maybe they aren’t. Maybe the sidewalk has become theirs, their own universe, which no one else can access.

I love Wagner’s photos of these tender human interactions, because they provide more questions than answers, which is a gift of the still image. You don’t need to know anyone pictured; you don’t need to know their stories. You can project whatever you imagine onto what you’re being offered. This, I think, is what Gordon Parks meant when he said that the content of a photograph should be determined by “the heart, not the eye.” The eye sees an image; the heart sees a story.

Perhaps there’s another truth tucked under the truth of camera-readiness that Wagner shared with me that day: we always look kind of cool, our angles are deeply known to us, and we walk into the world waiting for someone to illuminate them. We don’t have to be told that we are fly, but it doesn’t hurt to get some confirmation, by way of a camera pointing in our direction. In another favorite photo, a young Black sailor blows smoke into the air. He is wearing the attire of someone who has just finished naval basic training—a white sailor’s suit. He’s looking straight ahead, a slight smirk on his face, the smoke largely obscuring the faces of his peers next to him. The smoke is as much a character in the photo as the man himself. It’s like a magic trick, the smoke brings the subject further into focus. And it’s such a nonchalant gesture, something you might see every day on city blocks. But you’ve not seen this specific person, in this specific corner of the world. You maybe haven’t seen someone who knows he is fly, even fresh out of a military program that strives to make you shed that which makes you unique. It is beautiful, this photo. It captures all of our flyness, in opposition to a world that tries to dull its shine.

This is drawn from “Andre D. Wagner: New City, Old Blues.”