Author, longtime New York Times photographer and Alabama Distinguished Artist Chester Higgins toured Alabama in March, sharing with students and residents how to connect people through the power of photography.
Higgins' portrait work appears in collections in museums from New York to San Francisco. He has received international acclaim for the humanity he captures in each picture.
"Taking a photograph is accidental. Making a photograph is intentional," Higgins said. "What I produce is a sympathetic image of the person. When you look at the image, you have to ask yourself if that image makes you feel sympathetic for that person or that situation. If it does, then I succeeded."
While Higgins was a student at Tuskegee University, his photography journey began with his great aunts and uncles. Higgins was extremely close to his relatives, and said the life experiences they shared with him shaped his own success.
His great aunts and uncles only had two pictures on their walls. Higgins began learning photography from a colleague at the student newspaper so that he could make pictures of his family that would capture their dignity and grace and show them they were "worthy to be on their walls."
Later in his college career, he attended a protest with several other students and saw how the media portrayed the event through photographs. Whereas Higgins saw the group as American citizens petitioning the government, the media images depicted them as violent criminals.
Higgins said this would inform his mission as a photographer.
