Benny and Arch, 2006[Click on above image for slide show viewing only.]
"Benny and Arch", 2006, Family with Photo Assistant Aron, after making Polaroids and film image above.
Book, "salt & truth," with "Benny and Arch" picture published, given to family in 2012.
Harvard Art Museums Collections, June 2020 Harvard Art Museums Collections, June 2020
Feb. 2020, Polaroid Exhibit, MIT, Group exhibit,William Ewing
Soren Harbel, Jan. 2020, "Probably the Most Important Living Photographer in America - Shelby Lee Adams and his Appalachian People"
SouthBound, Jan. 2019, Current Traveling Group Exhibition, Organized by the Haley Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina.
John Baily , August 2017, Shelby Lee Adams, : Salt and Truth
Finding Heaven in the Holler, Ara Hawkins, March 31, 2017
Hort Collins, Mountain Music, and Photographs, May 2016
Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, NY January 2015
Smithsonian Magazine - March 2010
Lenswork Quarterly, Volume 27: Interview Jan. 2000
Contemporary Documentary Photography in Appalachia
"Portraits and Dreams" (video & book) Wendy Ewald, Letcher Co. KY.
Rory Kennedy - Film made in Saul, KY - "American Hollow"
Smithsonian American Art Museum - 1st portfolio published
"Appalachia:A Self-Portrait,'' Edited by Wendy Ewald, funded by NEA Survey Grant 1978.
University Press of Mississippi
Mike Johnson's "The Online Photographer"
John Wyatt Photographer
"The True Meaning of Pictures" [ 2002 DVD]
Many cultural matrixes are different in how they see and present themselves. But, for one human to assume another is not intelligent enough to decide weather or not his image is good enough to represent himself to others might be a value judgment placed one upon another.
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"The history of photography needs an inside-out approach rather than an outside-in view. To deduce the spirit of the past, we must be willing to compile the hard facts."
Bill Jay
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New Haircut, 1983
Cathy, 1983
Chester, 1992––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Coal Miners
Coal miner, 1993
[photo used in movie, "Fire Down Below," Stephen Segal film.]
Little Leatherwood
Published in "Appalachian Portraits," 1993
[Published in "Appalachian Legacy," 1998]
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The Collins Couple, 1987
Marion Sumner and Wife, 1985[Marion played the fiddler, character role in movie, "The Coal Miner's Daughter"]
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Kelly and Armeldia, 1983
Armeldia, 1993___________________________________________
Roy, 1986
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Johnny and Pauline Gibson Family
Johnny and Pauline lived with their two son's, Merle and Colbert at Roxanne, KY, just about 7 miles from where I grew up. When my grandpa would go to the "saw mill," as we called it then, to purchase wood or have lumber cut, we would see Johnny sitting on the Roxanne bridge and I was told Johnny had been in prison and was a bad man. As I grew up, I always wanted to know Johnny and his family. Later, we became friends and photographed together. Heddie Childers and Pauline were sisters, Hettie introduced me to the Gibson's.
Johnny, 1980 [father]
Pauline, 1981 [mother]
Pauline, 1980
Pauline, 1981, [version II]
Pauline Standing, 1979
Pauline and Merle [mother and son], 1981
Merle, 1979 [son]
Corbet, 1980 [son]
Corrine and Aunt Pauline, 1980_________________________________________________
Art should be disturbing: it should make us both think and feel; it should infect the subconscious as well as the conscious mind; it should never allow complacency nor condone the status quo.
Clarence John Laughlin
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Photo made by Mark Karpenski
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Grandpa Banks' Farm
"From our beginnings, have we not always
had others tell us what we should do and look like?
Dixie Banks Adams [Mother]
In the summers after art school ended I would set up a darkroom in my grandpa's cellar where they kept home made canned food and potatoes, it was a perfect 68 degrees and easily darkened. I learned to develop 4x5 film by hand and did photo exercises daily, photographing family that I could get to pose for me.
Photo made on Grandpa's porch.
Student Work.
[photographer's grandparents]
Grandma went blind in her old age and my grandpa combed her hair every morning on the porch when the sun was out, warming them. Her blindness had a tremendous effect on me, as a child, I tried to understand her darkness and this created in me a desire to become a visual artist who saw the world differently.
Polaroid 4x5 Neg. film.
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School Photo 1958—59
The Caudill Family
Student Work
Polaroid Positive/Negative Film
1979
[Kodachrome to digital conversion - 2016]
Published in "Appalachian Legacy," 1998
[Color Kodachrome conversion to digital 2016]
[Crow and Brice]
University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, Miss.
"Time spent with people making pictures
together, let’s them reckon' their pictures
out for themselves."
Arlie Caudill
As the artist in me distills information, seeing personal and natural gestures, hearing stories and life histories, I more fully understand the person before me. Visual images form and store in my mind. This influences the direction and visceral feel of future photographs to be made. A kindred bonding usually occurs between us as confidence builds. I often invite my subject to contribute to the making of their photographs, sharing and discussing Polaroids as we make photographs is important. I always say be natural, be yourself. I sometimes direct folks to look and search for their own reflection in the lens, we talk, and they often recall events, sometimes something deeper comes to mind, and I then try and capture that moment. This concentration relaxes most people from the nervousness of posing for portraits. Then we may photograph again, perhaps they become absorbed with different thoughts or something very specific in mind, I again expose film. I understand their fortitude, openness and unguardedness, like nowhere else, but in our mountains. This welcoming in “openness” keeps me returning.
Portraits can provide a foundation for the viewer to perceive feeling unencumbered and participate in part with another's life. On our own we might never be interested enough to encounter another’s path. Experiencing specific photographs privately and personally can reveal much about our conscious and unconscious selves inviting us to examine our assumptions and predetermined mind sets.
The intent of my portraits is to inspire an unrestrained awareness and acceptance of mountain people. To view and study our collaborative portraits, mirrors life in harmony and struggle together from varied perspectives. Studying these portraits can introduce us to a more wide-ranging humanity, dissolving differences, overcoming fears, establishing real connections; guiding us to find reception or for some hold distance within our psyche. It is through this personal focusing that some experience empathy, embracing differences in our humanity, discovering the basic needs of all people’s in one’s self. Still only imagining what another's life is really like.
"Melissa and Brice," 1978, on right side, published 1979.
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Documentary, Posed and Staged Pictures
Growing up in Eastern Kentucky during The War on Poverty years was my introduction to photography. In 1964 Lyndon Baines Johnson, U.S. President, came to Inez, Kentucky to launch his poverty program. I was 13 years old then. Many notable magazines and filmmakers came to Appalachia to do stories. Later, my cousin, Hobert Ison shot and killed a Canadian filmmaker for filming on his property without permission in 1967. I was a junior in high school then. This incident affected many of us and became International news.
In my home county for over a decade there were so many visiting photographers and filmmakers they became a cliche. Most photographers worked with small 35MM cameras, some with motor drives. Folks told me you couldn’t tell what they were photographing. A few photographers solicited locals, social workers and teachers to introduce them to subjects. My uncle Doc Adams still ran his medical practice, and the media people would ask him for introductions. He often called me to show photographers around. Most of the media people told folks they would send them copies of photos they had taken, most never did. Several families were embarrassed and shamed by the published stories on poverty they received second hand from church groups sending in recycled reading materials with used clothes.
Despite this, I still wanted to study photography. In 1974, graduating from art school, I purchased a used 4 x 5 Calumet camera and tripod with a Polaroid back. Working in a straightforward manner, my subjects and I felt more comfortable seeing where the big camera was at all times, and also viewing Polaroids, which I immediately gave to them. This created an atmosphere where everyone felt more at ease.
I think it’s helpful to refer to one specific photograph in explaining the process of making photographs with my subjects. I have selected here, “Brice and Crow on Porch with Puppies, 1992, Buck Lick”.
Brice and Crow on Porch with Puppies, 1992, Buck Lick, KY
For the most part my approach to photography has been classified as documentary or straight photography. I think of my work as personal, autobiographical and creative. Visiting with several families often over a period of years making new portraits most every year, I also call my work collaborative. My subjects may ask to be photographed in a location personal to them, sometimes holding an object important to them for example, a pet, a child or baby. Because I often portray my subjects straightforwardly, one may say my photography is staged. But staged implies that something is arranged or altered ahead of time or planned for repetition, as in a play, performed and sometimes rehearsed. My subjects and I select environments they want to be photographed in, their homes or on their porches with minimal change to the environment. I ask my subjects simply to relax, think about something important to them and be natural.
My work is spontaneous, making several images each session searching for a natural and communicative composition. In portrait making a revealing portrait shares some kind of connection and exchange between the photographer and his subject, that often can’t be repeated. A well-performed play can be an incredible experience, yet fabricated in parts. I’m trying to express myself with my people authentically. How one utilizes light and the moments photographed contributes to the liveliness and vigor of the humanity photographed. I see lighting as a tool likened to an artist paint brush which can reveal and portray varied states, assisting us in making images in a more personal space of the subject’s choosing.
In my approach I tend to let people pose themselves, then I might make some suggestions from my observations. Some define that as formal because the subject is aware of the camera. To have one's subjects aware of being photographed is more engaging and relies upon cooperation. I ask them often to be thinking about something important in their lives and look into the lens finding themselves. Posing makes some timeless images, but can also portray the superficial, like models assume awkward positions when in the studio and directed. I ask my subjects to settle and be natural as much as possible and I repeat, be still and let yourself look into the lens.
In the example of Brice and Crow, we find Crow stoically sitting at home in a porch swing. He never moves in any of his pictures, you might say he is formally posing himself. Brice was different in each picture, more spontaneous and freer to express himself as you see in his smiling face. Add in the puppies who can’t be posed or staged, and you have a mixed composition. Individuals see the same photographs differently.
For me selecting a subject you are drawn to is often someone you identify and empathize with. There has to be some basic connection to make a good portrait with anyone. One could describe that as finding and sharing common ground. To discover and know your subjects, becoming friends, is a rewarding enrichment.
Crow and Brice are uncle and nephew, living in the same holler where we were all raised, along with my parents and grandfathers before me. We lived in Johnson's Fork, a part of Eastern Kentucky spanning three different generations, seedlings from our grandfathers, who all farmed, plowed the hillsides and bottoms with horses and mules. We shared many experiences. Still, hurtful differing opinions are perpetuated by those from a different class who are ashamed of those who live in the hollers, but both are still part of the region’s culture. Perhaps in the past, in times when more participated in farming and plowing the hill sides, we were more tolerant. We knew we needed each other, and needed the land, to feed ourselves. The holler farms, and subsistence living, demanded everyone's cooperation, if we were to survive and prosper.
We all grew up seeing and experiencing exploitation, especially of those who are really poor. The holler people tell me how they are manipulated today by their own, taken advantage of and abused. As a mountain culture many have poor self-esteem, not just those without, but those successful as well, in part because of all the media’s attention is embarrassing. So, when some work hard and are moderately successful they respond critically when they see a photograph of some of their own humbly portrayed. They say the photographer is exploiting us, not knowing the photographer’s intentions or the subject’s situation. Denying recognition of the persons humanity photographed, just remarking judgmentally how others may see them, the new Appalachians. I seek to photograph a deeper portrayal-- of one’s soulfulness and expressiveness that reflects generations of mountain people from times past into the present.
When I exhibit and share my work with most audiences, I recognize there is legitimate interest. Nationally and internationally my work has been collected by over 60 museums and private collections. When attending art school I was advised, don’t make your focus on the poor, there is no money in it. Prosperous and educated people who purchase my prints are interested in seeing that my work is preserved and continues. Some may be interested in the history and tradition of documentary photography and others are interested in the aesthetic and humanistic vision my images engage. From different cultures, economic backgrounds and beliefs photo enthusiasts share their experiences. From volunteering in the Peace Corp, working on Indian reservations, in ghettoes, their own life experiences and with people in general, many photo collectors communicate and share engaging human stories.
What income comes from print sales, that money partially funds my next trip back home to the hollers of Kentucky and I help those in need that I can. This has always been a labor of love not a profit-motivated venture. My photography encompasses a view reflecting part of our culture that many are not familiar with, and have not often seen. Some may say we are getting rich selling pictures of poor people. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is my calling. Until we see our “own” more clearly and with compassion our poor will remain the same.
Traveling into the hollers I am seeking out the authentic. From my 40 years of field work it seems to me if neighbors cared more for neighbors, people’s lives would be better. Prejudice exists in one form or another throughout most cultures.
One never really knows another's thoughts and internal life, which in part is what fascinates me about making portraits; we are always guessing. We get close making photographs, yet so much is still unknown. Psychology has become important to my portrait work because of my encountering some distinctive people. Human behavior: how we think, look, feel and act is infinite in its complexity as is how we affect each other.
As a high school student, I traveled with my uncle the country doctor visiting his patients in the hollers and I learned a lot about people. Fragile folk need more time, care, recognition and encouragement. Mountain people often want their families photographed together including all members of the family and I have always understood this.
I want to grasp and express something from the heart with my portraits to help bring society together. If we could support those unseen in overcoming their often-self-imposed exile, we could make progress. The recent drug epidemic in the region is a problem that needs more attention and action legally, socially and geographically. I’ve found that family pictures are important to our people. Placing my subjects’ images in my photo books with their families and distributing copies in the hollers builds self-confidence, but they also need much more community support and engagement.
Ideals of how others think we should look and be and live within a larger society, are possible but not always desirable here. Having grown up with Brice, his uncle Crow and their larger family, they exemplify the natural primal part of our authentic culture, accepting themselves as they are. Today a more modern media savvy view is growing. It has been my intentions all along to photograph our unique authentic mountain people with their fullest cooperation before they disappear.
—Shelby Lee Adams
Reedited Feburary 2024
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Today we are suspicious of "Truth," because we recognize that what is called truth is often only a tool in the hands of those in power [the media], and is often determined by their beliefs and tailored to their requirements.
[Howard]
Arlie, 1977
1982
Rachel Riddle
Buck Lick
Published in, "Appalachian Portraits," 1992.
Buck Lick
Published, "Appalachian Legacy," 1998.
I asked Crow once what he did that made him happy. He smiled and said the following: When it’s a really hot day and I can afford to, I like to get myself a quart of moonshine, a loaf of light bread and a big roll of bologna, I cut with my pocketknife. I find myself a big rock on the mountain in the hot sun and just lay down and sip on that shine, eat and just sweat, until I go to sleep.
—Crow Caudill
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| Crow with Tomato Cans, 1994 Buck Lick ____________________________________________________________________ --------------------------------------------------- |
Back to the Old Home Place
Published in "Appalachian Legacy," 1998.
—Shelby Lee Adams
"This is a great picture. Brice now has a 4-wheeler so he doesn't have to walk everywhere any more. Still got the same great smile and the "chaw." I think he has a crush on me...He grins like a possum when you see him!"
—Valerie Kay Adams, 1st cousin to Shelby
Brice holding magazine open to Brice and Crow's photo from 1992.
That September, we celebrated our 40 year friendship.
All photographs and text copyrighted - © 1973-2023 Shelby Lee Adams, legal action will be taken to represent the photographer, the work taken out of context, subjects and integrity of all photographic and written works, including additional photographers published and authors quoted. Permissions - send e mail request with identity and project descriptions.
