Publisher Lenora Alexander had her work cut out for her when she opened Ansar El Muhammad's photo archives. Her friend and longtime colleague at the Denver Weekly News had amassed hundreds of thousands of files in his two decades shooting for her. Now that it was time to find some images for his obituary and funeral, she was realizing just how much work he'd left behind.
"Nothing took me by surprise except the amount of photos that man has taken," she said on Wednesday, as his funeral service concluded. "He tended to look at his photos and delete them if he didn't think it was a good shot of someone. But the amount of photos that he saved was just amazing. Amazing. And we will keep those photos and we are going to do something with 'em."
El Muhammad died on Aug. 13. At his remembrance this week, his friends and family remarked on the breadth of his impact in Denver, particularly in the city's Black communities. He was more than a photojournalist. He was a father, a chef and a man of faith. But those photos are his legacy, they said, and the void he left behind will be difficult to fill.
El Muhammad found photography as an art of service.
His photos were often candid and almost always contained smiles.
"Ansar was so community driven, and he always wanted to make sure that his community was portrayed as best he could," Alexander told us. "I know that he stood toe-to-toe on those risers with all of the photographers. But he was up there for a different reason. He just wanted to make his community be seen."
El Muhammad was self taught and came into his own as a documentarian when he got his hands on a digital SLR camera in the early 2000s.
He was born Royce Sanders in 1945, grew up in Denver, ran track and graduated from Manual High School, then went to the military during the Vietnam War. In the '70s, he moved with his family to Los Angeles, where he found faith, became a lifelong member of the Nation of Islam and renamed himself Ansar El Muhammad, a name that literally means "helper of Allah."
"Helper" was apt as community service became a major thread in his life. In the mid-'90s, he returned to Denver and began work with Brother Jeff Fard to build a community center in Five Points.
"The cultural center grew out of the killing in our community, the gangs, drugs and violence. So it was put together as a safe place for the community to gather," Fard told us as a horse-drawn carriage carried El Muhammad's casket to that very place. "Brother Ansar represented that servant quality."
El Muhammad gained a reputation for his fried fish and seasoned fries, which he served up at the cultural center. It was also the place where he discovered how a camera could play into his deeper mission.
"That was his entry into service, to be a photographer," Fard said. "When you're capturing someone's image, they're allowing you into their space. To get into someone's space, and to be interested in their space, is a gift that Ansar possessed. And you see that in all of those images."
The trick, Fard added, is El Muhammad captured Black Denver's joy and beauty. While hard news photographers may only show up for bad news, el Muhammad was always present. His eye elevated people, and gave them pride.
"His photography is very celebratory. He highlights the best of our culture," Fard said. "He captured the royalty of those celebrating [joyful] moments."
Former state legislator Wilma Webb, who knew El Muhammad for years, said that perspective was invaluable to his community.
"His presence made our presence known, and we will forever be indebted to him for that," she said.
El Muhammad was good at his job because he knew whom he was photographing.
He didn't talk too much, his friends said on Wednesday, and finding photos of him for the service was another tricky task.
"Brother Ansar, he thought he was slick as all get out, and would never let you take his picture," Fard said from the stage. "But look who was slicker."
They'd found plenty to display during the ceremony. One reason why: He was always part of the spaces where he worked, as much as he tried to hide behind his external flash. He couldn't escape other lenses as he attended and helped organize community events.
"He knew what he was looking at. He knew who he was shooting so many times," Alexander told us. "People come from the outside, and they shoot the same people over and over. But Ansar knew who his father was, who her grandfather was. So that's how he was able to become intergenerational. He could go to any event, people would recognize him. They would welcome him, and he enjoyed that."
Terry Nelson, a founding librarian of the nearby Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library, said his unique access helped continue a tradition of photojournalism within Black Denver. She, and others at Wednesday's service, likened him to Burnis McCloud, a legendary Black photojournalist who covered the city in the early 20th century.
"Absolutely, he had his own style, without a doubt," Nelson said of El Muhammad. "But both of them were crucial to our community, absolutely crucial, because they talked about how we are."
Yes, El Muhammad's photos are undoubtedly in Blair-Caldwell's archives, she added, though he doesn't have his own collection, at least for now.
His daughter, Kelly Murrell, said she was astonished to see how her dad's passion led him to so many more friendships.
"You guys have taught me so much about my father. I knew a lot about him, but I didn't know how many people he touched," she said at the podium, choking up. "There's so much love here for him, and it makes it a lot easier for me. I'm going to miss him."
