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“The Philadelphia Weekly Newspaper August 18, 2004,” Raymond W. Holman Jr.’s compelling portraits of African –American children and adults engaged in everyday activities are among the best in the show. Holman catches people at ease and imbues them with dignity. His Mountain Dew, a child eating on the stoop in a graffitied dead-end alley, is a simple and direct depiction that evokes the vulnerability of the young and the inescapable harshness of some parts of the city. As a symbol, the boy is the personification of constructed urban life.
Heather, a shot of a young girl with ebony skin and a white bow in her hair, also reaches a level at which fact, fiction and symbol mix. Holman’s eye for detail is true, and his pictures unfold slowly as the details mount, revealing a story and a personality. Speaking of details, Holman’s barbershop photo, Big Ray, is a knockout of stripes, grid, patterns and textures.”
A.M. Weaver, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions Noyes Museum of Art, “ For the past eight years, Raymond Holman has directed his photographic gaze toward documenting the lives of black men. There is a candor to his images, evident that his subjects allowed entry into very private and personal space. In many of Holman’s images a solemn quietude and effortless quality suffuse the works, testifying to the rapport he has had with his subjects. He holds the acclaimed photographer Roy DeCarava in high esteem, whose work has been described by Tom Beck, as “constructing stories through straight photography and serial imagery; his style is somewhere between the photographic style of Ketesz or Brassai and the documentary style of the Photo League.” Like DeCarva, Holman’s approach to photography is to serially build a relationship among works that posses a refined narrative quality.”