Carl Pope
1961–

Carl Robert Pope, Jr. is an artist, working primarily in the mediums of photography and video. His work address issues related to race in America, specifically the social conditions of African Americans. He has also made artworks that address the AIDS epidemic and other social and political issues in the US.

“We understand photography through advertising and through photojournalism, but the most immediate and the most emotionally enriching way is the way that people take pictures of the people they love."

"I am dealing with the unconscious in that I don’t think about what I shoot, I just react to what I see. But I am only reacting to what I see and my thoughts about what I want to see. Before I go shoot I have made up my mind about some of the things I am interested in and what I hope to do. Then when I go out and shoot I have already programmed myself about some of the things I am interested in, but I leave myself open to see what happens. Later I think about what it is I have just seen and photographed and experienced."

“It will not be material assets,” he adds, “that will support us in the unknowable future we are about to face. It will be our ability to make innovative choices that will give us real stability and duration in our evolution as humans at this moment in history.”