PHOTOS THAT GET UNDER THE SKIN `IMAGES' SHOWCASES INSIGHTS, ART OF BLACK PHOTOGRAPHERS.(BOOKS)

Byline: SARA SILVER

Billie Holiday smokes a cigarette outside her dressing room at Carnegie Hall. Martin Luther King Jr. is confronted by police at the funeral of a civil rights worker. James Brown kneels over a microphone at the Apollo Theater.

A nude, female Christ figure stands in the center of a five-paneled series called, ``Yo Mama's Last Supper.''

The subjects of these photographs are well known -- especially the recently controversial depiction of Christ -- but their creators are not.

``Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers'' is a book accompaniment to an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art that runs through …