Gordon Parks and Zoe Strauss

Zoe Strauss
Beware of Cats, 2005

Gordon Parks is very much like Zoe Strauss. Zoe takes pictures of people she has never met and what she sees in real life. Gordon Parks takes pictures of almost everything. He takes pictures of models, of sadness, and of scenery. He had his start as a photographer for models of that time. Zoe didn't really begin to do photography until she was about 30 years of age. Zoe does not take photos in black and white, but Gordon Parks' early photos were taken in black and white. Like Zoe, Gordon Parks took photos of different cultures. Zoe and Gordon both take pictures of nudes and of architecture.

The content in Gordon Parks' and Zoe's photographs is very similar for many reasons. In the photo American Gothic, a woman in front of the American flag expresses how hard it is to be a woman in the United States, playing the roles of both housewife and worker. Zoe's photo Beware of Cats shows a black woman with a scar down from her belly button, looking into the camera with a blank stare. The backgrounds in these pictures are very different. For Gordon Parks' photo, it is an American flag in black and white. Zoe's photo is taken outside of an abandoned house with door painted with "Beware of Cats" in white paint. The intention of Zoe's photo is to show the woman's pain of not being able to have children. Both photos showed shallow spaces. The background in American Gothic was less in focus to show the woman with the broom and mop, but the background in Beware of Cats was in equal focus with the woman in front. Both are not taken from an angle - they are face-forward pictures. They both show African-American women holding something that represents something about them, such as the broom and mop, or the zipper from the woman's pants that is open to show her suffering.