Donavon Smallwood (born 1994) is an American photographer, living in New York City. His first book is ''Languor'' (2021).

Life and work

Smallwood was born, grew up and continues to live in Harlem, New York City. He studied documentary film and English literature at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

in New York. ''Languor'' (2021) is a book of portraits of people and photographs of nature made in

Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...

, Manhattan during the COVID-19 pandemic, using a

medium format Medium format has traditionally referred to a film format in photography and the related cameras and equipment that use film. Nowadays, the term applies to film and digital cameras that record images on media larger than the used in 35&n ...

film camera. Smallwood says "Its subject is what it's like to be a black person in nature." In 2021 the book won the

Aperture In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...

Portfolio Prize and the work was exhibited at

the Camera Club of New York The Camera Club of New York was founded in 1884 as a photography club. Though the Club was created by well-to-do "gentlemen" photography enthusiasts seeking a refuge from the mass popularization of the medium in the 1880s, it accepted its firs ...

and as part of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize in London.

Publications

*''Languor''. Trespasser, 2021. . Edition of 1500 copies.

References

External links

* 21st-century American photographers Photographers from New York City African-American photographers Hunter College alumni 21st-century African-American people People from East Harlem Living people 1994 births American portrait photographers {{US-photographer-stub