Adger Cowans American, b. 1936

Adger Cowans (b. 1936) is one of the first African American students to earn a degree in Photography from Ohio University in 1958, and he later furthered his education at the School of Motion Picture Arts and School of Visual Arts in New York City. Following his graduation, Cowans obtained a position assisting photographer Gordon Parks at LIFE magazine. Cowans later served in the United States Navy in Virginia Beach, Virginia, but continued to work as a photographer. Cowans also has a storied career in cinema as a film still photographer on over thirty Hollywood sets, working with directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Sidney Lumet, and Spike Lee.

One of the most poignant moments in Cowans’ career occurred while living and working in New York City during the early 1960s. Cowans was recruited by James Ray Francis to become a founding member of the Kamoinge Workshop, and along with Louis Draper, they would be the only members with a formal education in the arts. Kamoinge, translating to “group effort” from the language of the Kikuyu people in Kenya, sought to present the Black community with dignity and positivity, which was antithetical to the stereotypical portrayal by the media. He is currently president of the workshop.

For Cowans, the paramount elements of photography, and art at large, are heart and feeling. Cowans describes the act of photographing as such: “When I take a picture, I feel it. When you get that rush of feeling inside of you of “I have it. I felt it’.” Communication of spirit and emotion is essential for Cowans’ practice, in addition to the ability to capture light and shadow. The ritual act of taking a photograph is a kind of spiritual practice to Cowans; he believes that when this ritual is combined with the technical aspect of understanding the qualities of light, photographs become art.