Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A familiar phrase used to say ideas of beauty differ from person to person. For photographers, this phrase is especially true. What interests Texas Isaiah may not resonate the same for Dana Scruggs. Or what Renell Medrano finds intriguing might only amuse Adrienne Raquel. Each photographer perceives beauty differently, but if there’s one thing they share, it’s their love of Black folks as they are, on the other side of the lens. So what makes the perfect image in Taylor Baldwin’s eye?
“I love beautiful decor [and] beautiful colors that just enhance the brown skin. Lighting coming in perfectly on the glowing skin. Things that look super clean. An image that you can enter,” Taylor told THE BLOCK.
Crafting her own image of beauty and sharing it with Essence readers or her Instagram followers alike, Taylor is aiding in the movement of centering Black beauty one photograph at a time.
While some have been studying photography their whole lives, Taylor found her love for digital photography after the birth of her daughter, which she accredits to the shift in her college career from marketing to fine arts.
“When I had my daughter, it pushed me into this whole thing,” Taylor said about finding her place in the arts. “First, I was studying Business Marketing, and then I got pregnant in the middle of my first semester. I was 18, pregnant, and then decided I wanted to be an artist. And that is a wild thing to do, I had no idea why I wanted to do it. I guess it just boils down to it being my purpose.”
A purpose that would lead to her photography being published through BET, Refinery29, W Magazine, Essence, TIME magazine and more. With over 20,000 followers on Instagram, Taylor’s purpose has spoiled her well. Since leaving school for business marketing, Taylor shares that she didn’t have time to second guess herself, she quickly learned the ropes and became a force to be reckoned within her fine arts classes, where she admits, she wasn’t taking no for an answer when it came to her work or its meaning.
“I just dove in headfirst because this felt like this is what I need to do,” she recalled. “Failure never really crossed my mind cuz I was so deep in it. I know in my head what I want to see and what I needed to see, and what, as a Black woman coming into the super white place, I would have loved someone to pour into me. And since you don’t want to pour it into me, I poured into myself.”
As one of the few Black students in her classes at Moore College of Art and Design, Taylor’s perception of beauty was often challenged by more traditional variations of art. “Naked people” Taylor reflects, was a large portion of what she saw and was encouraged to recreate to her own capacity while studying in school. But to her, fine arts came in the natural moments that unfolded around her—in the form of community, and more specifically, Blackness.
“I wasn’t intentionally trying to dismantle or change up this whole narrative of fine art,” Taylor said. “I think I just understood that Black women belong and our beauty in how we show up—we’re just so amazing. You can’t tell me that what I’m making is not art, because I’m not handing it to you the way you’re used to it being handed to you.”
A photographer who captures the beauty of the mundane, Taylor’s pictures often depict Black people, particularly Black women, as they are. Shot on both digital and film, Taylor’s art is about seeing and giving realness. Images that invite the onlooker into a world of tranquil serenity with bright and colorful hues that compliment Black skin. Taking inspiration from a plethora of photographers, she’s mainly interested in works that feel current and relevant, and a few just for the sake of archival brilliance, looking at you Carrie Mae Weems.
“I was looking at people like Kaye McCoy, Denisse [of] Chasing Denisse, I was looking at these street style girls that were doing these amazing things in New York and in Atlanta at the time and in LA now. They were doing these amazing things and having a moment on this platform and doing this thing that I was trying to do.
“So it was amazing watching them. I love more of the ‘right now girls’ … who would pick up the camera for the first time,” Taylor added.
For those looking to venture into the artistic world of film, lenses, DSLR and knowing what 35mm means, it can be overwhelming and even, at times, near impossible to know what’s a good image, or what kind of art resonates with you. Taylor’s advice: find something you can step into. Take it literally or figuratively, she creates worlds that Black women can see themselves in.
“that’s the perfect image, an image you can easily enter.”
Taylor Baldwin
In the cultured corners of Brooklyn or in the golden hour behind the Philadelphia art museum you might find Taylor Baldwin, waiting and watching, hoping to capture beauty defined only by her.
