Shelby Lee Adams, an Appalachian study.
Adam's depiction is authentic because he lived his life in those mountains and has developed relationships with the people who still live there over his 30 year career. He has a passion for showcasing a forgotten people, a dwindling lifestyle, a rugged terrain. His prefernce for gritty detail and monochromatic drama creates a haunting otherworldly feel, out of sync with the modern era.
These images have a great sense of emotion. They have the ability to tell a story and leave the viewer asking questions. There are those critical of his work, believing Adams to be exploiting his subjects, or purposefully treating and staging his photographs to make them appear bleak. I have seen people who live their lives in poor rural mountainous farmlands and feel it to be an honest portrayal.
I agree that this is an honest portrayal - I've spent a little bit of time up the hollers myself (although not much). I wonder - do you think the impact of the photos would be different if he had used color instead of black and white? Black and white gives the images a kind of old-timey feel, giving a sort of sense that these people are living in the past. They also can create a sense of bleakness that may or may not be "realistic" in the sense of what the people are actually experiencing -- especially when they harken back to, for example, Dorothea Lange's dustbowl photographs of the 1930s. Do you think they would have a different impact if they were in color? I really don't know the answer - I think it would be interesting to compare them both ways.
ReplyDeleteHis treatments have been criticized enough that recently he has made color images. You can see his color work here. http://shelby-lee-adams.blogspot.com/
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