“Detroit Voices,” a solo exhibit of the work of photographer Bruce Harkness, is on display through March 20 at the Black Box Gallery and Coffee Shop, 1034 Monroe St. in Dearborn.
By SUE SUCHYTA
Times-Herald Newspapers
DEARBORN – A solo exhibit of the work of local photographer Bruce Harkness, “Detroit Voices,” is on display through March 20 at Black Box Gallery and Coffee Shop, 1034 Monroe St.
Harkness, 68, who took his first photography class while in high school in Brighton, said he really didn’t apply himself at the time.
“I remember the teacher, Mr. Rice, telling me, ‘You’re not going to do very well.’” Harkness said. “And I said, ‘You know, I can get an A in this class if I wanted to.’ And he said, ‘No, you couldn’t.’ And that was a challenge to me, so, I really applied myself and I found out I really liked it. I tried hard, and I had an ability to see.”
Harkness said his first camera was a Mamiya/Sekor 35-millimeter film camera.
“I’ve had a lot of cameras over the years,” he said. “I’ve always used Nikon cameras.”
Harkness, who was a full-time photographer for the city of Dearborn for 20 years, from 1990 to 2010, migrated to the digital format in 2005, when the city invested in the new technology.
“I had used a dark room for years,” he said. “When we went to digital, it was a revelation. I didn’t have to work in a darkroom and breath chemicals anymore.”
Harkness said the technology has come a long way since the first digital cameras.
“Of course, now there is not a city photographer anymore,” he said.
Harkness said when owner Ray Alcoday moved Black Box Gallery and Coffee Shop to its current location, he asked Harkness if he wanted to do a show with his photos, but the exhibition was delayed when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
The photos now on display at the Black Box Gallery are Detroit themed.
“I lived in the Wayne State area for about 10 years, from the mid-’70s to the mid-’80s, and I was kind of an explorer with the camera,” he said. “I met a wonderful professor from Wayne State in Polish studies, and he was interested in Poletown and my photographs, so, we’ve collaborated ever since, and he found a publisher for my photographs.”
Harkness said University Press will publish about 175 of his Detroit photos in July.
“This particular show is all black residents of the city, and this is Black History month,” he said.
Harkness said his photographs are not emotional or sentimental.
“It’s very straightforward and honest,” he said. “It’s not events where there is a lot of drama. They are just sort of meditations.”
Harkness said he doesn’t have any favorite photographs.
“I don’t enter pictures in shows to get a ribbon,” he said. “They are more like individual little poems, and it is more the people’s lives that are interesting, and the medium itself.”
Harkness said he sees photography as a more serious medium, one that may influence viewers to learn something or to make them think a little bit, and he likes to show detail in his work.
“I like people to be able to look at a picture and find a lot of little different things going on in it,” he said. “You have to think about it and study it a little bit, and see what is in there.”
Harkness said his street photography tends to be spur-of-the-moment, while other photographs might be part of a project, where he met with people and needs to gain their trust to be invited into their homes to photograph them.
He said he also had some of the people he photographed tell him their life story.
“We have 90 hours of oral history interviews with people on the near east side of Detroit,” Harkness said. “That takes planning.”
He said while he is spending some time now scanning and repairing his old negatives, he still goes out with a camera to capture images of the world around him.
“I still go to downtown Detroit, if there’s a Labor Day Parade or something,” Harkness said. “One of my pictures in this show is when (U.S. Sen.) Elizabeth Warren came to the Poletown plant, when she was running for president, and the UAW was having a strike at the same time.”
For more information about the Black Box Gallery, go to blackboxdearborn.com.
To see some of Harkness’ work online, go to ohioswallow.com/author/Bruce+Harkness.