Appalachian Portraits (Author and Artist Series)

Rating:
Summary: An askew view of Eastern Kentucky life
Review: I grew up in central KY, just 1 1/2 hours away from Appalachian KY. While the stories and families depicted in these photos are quite true to their nature, it may offer a skewed view of Eastern Kentucky life. Not everyone over there lives in the condition that my dad and I jokingly call "Squalor in the 'holler." However, it happens to be the part that is fascinating. I think the purpose of this book was not to represent Eastern KY, but to represent the intense poverty of the region and to share a glimpse of a lifestyle that most of us cannot comprehend. This book shows what people want to see of Appalachian KY. It's what they are looking for, and it is delivered. That is a place that time has left behind. It's one of the poorest regions in the U.S. due to several certain factors and it is fascinating to see how other folks live. It is a different world over there. If you enjoy thinking about human geography and sociology, this book may welllead to hours of thought.

Rating:
Summary: Praise for devotion to a culture
Review: Shelby Lee Adam's doesn't, as some accuse him of, train his camera on the families of Eastern Kentucky to ridcule or expose them in their poverty or backwardness. Instead, because of his devotion to capturing in an authentic way authentic people, he simply and lovingly captures their reality. Is the poverty easy to look at? No. Is the "backwardness" easy to understand? Not very. But Adam's neither condemns nor condones his subjects; he simply and carefully records. We should all be grateful for that.

Rating:
Summary: Diane Arbus photographs Gomer Pyle.
Review: This book is attractive on several levels. Bluegrass fans will like the heartfelt portraits of ancient, weathered men cradling banjos, guitars, or a homemade Jew's harp. Fans of the Foxfire series of books on Appalachian crafts and survival skills will like Shelby Lee Adams' Ellis Bailey, Yeaddiss, 1989 (posing with a large animal skin); Mary Napier, Viper, 1989 (posing with squirrel trap and skins); The hog killing, 1990; and Chester and his hounds, Delphia, 1992. People who are amazed by photographer Nicholas Nixon's use of a 4X5 camera for ensemble portaits (Nicholas Nixon Photographs From One Year (1983) Untitled 31, The Friends of Photography) will find even more to admire in Shelby Lee Adams' portraits: Leddie with children, 1990; Children at Topmost, 1991; and Banks family portait, Beech Fork, 1987. Fans of photographer Russell Lee and his portraits of po' folks living in homes where newspapers line the walls for insulation (see, e.g., Russell Lee Photographer (1978) by F.Jack Hurley) will find much to admire in Shelby Adams' photographs of the Napier family home. Fans of Richard Avedon's In the American West will like Shelby Adams' The coal miner, Isom, 1988, and other portraits. Overall, though, there is something else busy at work here. Many of the photographs are shocking or chilling. All of the images depict people living in squallor. A weatherbeated young woman poses by a wheelbarrow filled with trash, wearing a misspelled tattoo on her arm reading: BORN TO LOOSE. The woman cradles a beautiful, spic'n'span baby, where the contrasting cleanliness of the baby only increases the shock that is lent by the trash and tattoo. In another portrait, three churchgoers (two men and a woman) pose by their church, smiling, but their smiles seem oddly unnatural. One of the churchgoers wears an incongruous SURF GEAR T-SHIRT. The name of their town (Hooterville) is spelled wrong, and a correction had been inserted by small hand-printed letters. These three people posing by the church have creepy smiles. The woman smiles broadly, but her face is sweaty and she has a gaping hole where a tooth is missing. One asks, are the unnatural smiles real, or did they result from the photographer's time-consuming task of adjusting (tilting, swiveling, swinging, expanding) the knobs on his 4X5 camera? Most overtly chilling are the images of the religeous snake handlers and firehandlers, complete with shark-bite sized scars. Again, oddly unnatural features abound: Holiness Man holds a snake where the man has menacing eyes, and where the menacing quality is not intended. In another picture, Holiness Man places a hand on a Bible, but one of his fingers is oddly and unintentionally twisted. The man?s other hand holds a snake. To conclude, Shelby Lee Adams' pictures take two approaches. The first approach is wholesome, happy families posing in squallor. This approach is also shown in Marion Post Wolcott FSA Photographs (1983) Untitled 34, The Friends of Photography, and in Social Graces by Larry Fink, published by Aperture A New Images Book. Shelby Lee Adams' second approach is portraits with incongruous or unnatural expressions, where these expressions are not intended by the subjects. The fact that the odd expressions seem not intended makes the photographs ever more chilling. Andy Grundberg expressed similar thoughts on Bill Burke?s photographs of people in Kentucky: ?the faces we meet in his pictures seem alien, if not lurid? and ?as viewers we are made into voyeurs? (Andy Grundberg 1990) Crisis of the Real, Aperture, pages 203; 210-214). If Diane Arbus had done a portfolio of Gomer Pyle, the result would be images in Shelby Adams' second style.

Rating:
Summary: Diane Arbus photographs Gomer Pyle.
Review: This book is attractive on several levels. Bluegrass fans will like the heartfelt portraits of ancient, weathered men cradling banjos, guitars, or a homemade Jew's harp. Fans of the Foxfire series of books on Appalachian crafts and survival skills will like Shelby Lee Adams' Ellis Bailey, Yeaddiss, 1989 (posing with a large animal skin); Mary Napier, Viper, 1989 (posing with squirrel trap and skins); The hog killing, 1990; and Chester and his hounds, Delphia, 1992. People who are amazed by photographer Nicholas Nixon's use of a 4X5 camera for ensemble portaits (Nicholas Nixon Photographs From One Year (1983) Untitled 31, The Friends of Photography) will find even more to admire in Shelby Lee Adams' portraits: Leddie with children, 1990; Children at Topmost, 1991; and Banks family portait, Beech Fork, 1987. Fans of photographer Russell Lee and his portraits of po' folks living in homes where newspapers line the walls for insulation (see, e.g., Russell Lee Photographer (1978) by F.Jack Hurley) will find much to admire in Shelby Adams' photographs of the Napier family home. Fans of Richard Avedon's In the American West will like Shelby Adams' The coal miner, Isom, 1988, and other portraits. Overall, though, there is something else busy at work here. Many of the photographs are shocking or chilling. All of the images depict people living in squallor. A weatherbeated young woman poses by a wheelbarrow filled with trash, wearing a misspelled tattoo on her arm reading: BORN TO LOOSE. The woman cradles a beautiful, spic'n'span baby, where the contrasting cleanliness of the baby only increases the shock that is lent by the trash and tattoo. In another portrait, three churchgoers (two men and a woman) pose by their church, smiling, but their smiles seem oddly unnatural. One of the churchgoers wears an incongruous SURF GEAR T-SHIRT. The name of their town (Hooterville) is spelled wrong, and a correction had been inserted by small hand-printed letters. These three people posing by the church have creepy smiles. The woman smiles broadly, but her face is sweaty and she has a gaping hole where a tooth is missing. One asks, are the unnatural smiles real, or did they result from the photographer's time-consuming task of adjusting (tilting, swiveling, swinging, expanding) the knobs on his 4X5 camera? Most overtly chilling are the images of the religeous snake handlers and firehandlers, complete with shark-bite sized scars. Again, oddly unnatural features abound: Holiness Man holds a snake where the man has menacing eyes, and where the menacing quality is not intended. In another picture, Holiness Man places a hand on a Bible, but one of his fingers is oddly and unintentionally twisted. The man's other hand holds a snake. To conclude, Shelby Lee Adams' pictures take two approaches. The first approach is wholesome, happy families posing in squallor. This approach is also shown in Marion Post Wolcott FSA Photographs (1983) Untitled 34, The Friends of Photography, and in Social Graces by Larry Fink, published by Aperture A New Images Book. Shelby Lee Adams' second approach is portraits with incongruous or unnatural expressions, where these expressions are not intended by the subjects. The fact that the odd expressions seem not intended makes the photographs ever more chilling. Andy Grundberg expressed similar thoughts on Bill Burke's photographs of people in Kentucky: "the faces we meet in his pictures seem alien, if not lurid" and "as viewers we are made into voyeurs" (Andy Grundberg 1990) Crisis of the Real, Aperture, pages 203; 210-214). If Diane Arbus had done a portfolio of Gomer Pyle, the result would be images in Shelby Adams' second style.

Rating:
Summary: Diane Arbus photographs Gomer Pyle.
Review: This is a duplicate of the below review.