Image as Transformation Dawoud Bey was born in 1953 in the borough of Queens, New York City. Now a world-renowned photographer, he first began to develop an interest in images as a teenager, receiving a camera from his godmother in 1968. The following year, he saw Harlem on My Mind at The Metropolitan Museum of Art â an exhibition widely criticised for its failure to include a significant number of artworks by African Americans. Bey was inspired to develop a new documentary project about Harlem, and took to the streets, producing portraits with residents from the historic neighbourhood. The series premiered at the Studio Museum in 1979, when Bey was just 26 years old. âI wanted to make images that contributed to the conversation about Harlem in visual culture,â Bey writes inÂ