Join photographers Michael D. Atkins, John Simmons, and George Walker III for this conversation with Frist Art Museum Associate Curator Michael Ewing about their works in the exhibition Kindred Spirits: Intergenerational Forms of Expression, 1966–1999.
About Michael D. Atkins
Michael D. Atkins was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He received a BS from Fisk University and an MFA from New York University. Atkins studied with David C. Driskell, Earl J. Hooks, Martin Puryear, and Stephanie E. Pogue. Atkins studied photography with Robert A. (Bobby) Senstacke and Martin Puryear. He currently resides in New York City.
About John Simmons
John Simmons, ASC, has had a prolific career as both a photographer and cinematographer. He has filmed numerous music videos and commercials for such artists as Snoop Dogg, Britney Spears, Stevie Wonder, and many more. He has collaborated with filmmakers including Spike Lee and Debbie Allen, and has served as the director of photography on more than twenty-five television series.
Simmons was born and raised in Chicago at the height of the politically charged 1960s. His talent as a photographer was identified and nurtured by Robert A. “Bobby” Sengstacke. In 1969 Sengstacke presented Simmons’s work to David C. Driskell, and Simmons received a scholarship to attend Fisk University, where he studied with Aaron Douglas, Earl J. Hooks, Carlton Moss, Stephanie Elaine Pogue, Martin Puryear, and Gregory D. Ridley. With Moss’s support, Simmons went on to study cinematography at the University of Southern California. He has been a member of the American Society of Cinematographers since 2004, and served as its vice president in 2017 and 2018. He was an adjunct professor at UCLA for twenty-five years and continues to mentor up-and-coming cinematographers.
About George Walker III
George Walker Ill is a retired photographer and photojournalist who grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and studied photography under Robert A. (Bobby) Sengstacke at Fisk University.
His work has appeared in national and international publications including Bunte, The Chicago Daily Defender, Ebony, L’Express, Manchete, Newsweek, The New York Times, Paris Match, The Tennessean, and Time.
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