Customer Reviews

Appalachian Legacy: Photographs

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I grew up in rural Kentucky in an area where conditions were very similar to those in the Appalachian region. My first viewing of this book disturbed and angered me. I asked myself how someone could make a coffee table book out of subject matter which embarassed me because of where I grew up! I knew and grew up with people no different than this and didn't like seeing what I was seeing. It was a bittersweet sensation. It was a paradox for me. On the one hand, I have beautiful memories of growing up in rural Kentucky. On the other hand, I've never been able to figure out how people could live like this. After reading the narrative, searching my soul, and talking with my wife, I realize that these people aren't dissatisfied with life! They live hard lives but still enjoy life just like my family did. We rarely had two dimes to rub together but I was always happy. Life was good. Now this book has a home on my coffee table and I look at it with fond memories and affection for the people who live there.

This book inspired me as a photographer, and human to look beyond the obvious. The people of Appalachia are represented in startling frankness. Through the eyes of Shelby Lee Adams we are allowed a glimpse into the lives of individuals who are so often stereotyped by the media. While the photographs stand on their own quite beautifully, the text serves to tell the story of each of the families or individuals depicted. Shelby Lee Adams writes from the point of view of someone who has shared the lives of the people photographed. The book was thoughfully designed and the photographs are large. This is not just a picture-book by any means, the writing style and content make this book a gem.

Mr.Adams provides a REAL look at the people of Appalachia. His photos capture the sorrow, joy, desperation, but most of all the pride of these mountain folks. His subjects are real and "in your face". Although some of these pictures show some of the worst poverty in the United States, the people display a simple strength and love of their land and heritage. Shelby Lee Adams is a master at combining all of these traits and producing a photograph that makes you come back time after time to look. I have worn the pages out in my copy and still find something new in each photo every time I go back. Thank you Mr. Shelby and keep the excellent work coming.

Shelby Lee Adams is wonderful photographer. I am from Kentucky, and although the photographs are not typical of most people of the area, they definitely document part of the dying culture of Appalachia...people like the ones pictured do exist!
Some feel that Adams' photos are demeaning to the subjects. I don't feel this way at all. Instead, I feel that he is portraying his subjects as something interesting and worth documenting. Anyone offended by the photos has their own bias against the subjects.
The pictures in this book are also among the most interesting photos I have ever seen. Every time you look at one of Shelby Lee Adams' photos, you see something new and interesting about it. I highly recommend this book. This guy is my favorite photographer!

A very, very impressive book with a careful view on people that do deserve their place in history and somehow find a way to keep on their sunny side of life. The writings in this book indeed complement the realistic photography in a respectful way, and at no stage did I have the idea that anything or anyone was depicted in a derogatory or otherwise negative manner. Instead, it showed REAL people that may differ from the ones that you encounter in many other environments, but without the obligatory glamour and gloss that society forces onto us.

Today is a great day to stop making judgements.

One rainy afternoon this spring while walking the streets of the French Quarter,I discovered Shelby Lee Adams in the fine art gallery of VICKIE BASSETTI.Not only his portaits but a collection of his books.I was blown away! For me his portraits of the Appalachians ARE haunting.One might want to look away from such poverty,dirt,and assumed saddness..but I found, just the reverse.I wanted to look closer,to feel the importance of the artist Adams,and the story he was showing through the lens of his eye.And to realize THIS IS AMERICA !
I say THANK YOU MR. ADAMS for the quality of your work and the artistry of your portraits that gives dignity to a world most AMERICANS rarely choose to see.

Anybody really interested in understanding this book should check out a documentary called "True Meaning of Pictures," in which Adams and several Appalachian scholars and art critics debate his pictures in more depth than anybody can do at Amazon.

For my part, I think that for all his great skill as an artist, when you boil it all down, Shelby Lee Adams is a disingenuous and irresponsible photographer who doesn't have the social conscience he says he has. Adams defends his work by saying that these photographs are not meant to be documentary photographs, but "art" and therefore do not have to portray reality. (In fact, the people he portrays are essentially models -- none of these shots were taken spontaneously or "in action." As you can see in the documentary, their postures and expressions were considerably manipulated by Adams.)

Adams has every right to create the kind of art he wishes, but considering the damage that art photographers have done (and still do) to places like Appalachia through their fixation on "artistic" subjects like poverty and industrial dilapidation, you would think that Adams might have had a little more tact and chosen another subject for his art and a less stereotyped setting than Eastern Kentucky.

As an example of the potential impact Adams' photos can have, one of the images in "Appalachian Legacy" depicts a man holding a knife standing next to his mentally-handicapped son. According to the photographer, this is an allegory of God sacrificing his son Jesus. I don't care where you come from or whether you've ever been to Appalachia: the overwhelming majority of people in America viewing this picture for the first time are probably going to think "this is an ignorant hillbilly trying to kill his retarded son." Unless the symbolic connection Adams wants us to make is made, then this picture is not art but a piece of irresponsible photography. If Adams thinks otherwise, then I think he puts too much trust in the average American viewer.

Adams has never deliberately sought to misrepresent the people of Eastern Kentucky (in fact, he is from the region himself and the people in this book are personal friends of his), but that's what he ends up doing. What I doubt isn't Adams' intentions. I doubt his social conscience and his plain common sense. If he really wanted to make an artistic statement about human resilience and the beauty of Appalachia, there is an enormous amount of photographic leg-room room to maneuver in besides doing staged black-and-white character studies of the poorest of the poor, obviously reminiscent of Depression-era photography. I think the kind of social conscience Adams awakens in other people is exactly the kind that Appalachia doesn't need: sympathy. It needs identification and understanding. Adams' photography has just about nothing to do with the grassroots struggle against poverty and miseducation in places like Eastern Kentucky. What Adams is primarily interested in is the visual effect of light on bodies and walls. As an artistic endeavor, that is a perfectly legitimate pursuit, but Adams should have had more tact than to try to achieve it at the expense of Appalachia.

The fact that many people in Appalachia have been outraged by Adams' books ought to tell you something. Cavalier "artistes" from the East Coast and the legion of disembodied museum curators who come to their defence can boo-hoo about Dwight Billings and other people with a real social conscience who dare to criticize one of "their kind". I'd prefer to trust the people who actually live in Appalachia: they're the ones who have to deal with the issues created by Adams. If Adams was photographing an upscale New Jersey suburb full of folks with degrees from Princeton, I wouldn't think twice about calling his photographs great works of art. But he's not. He's photographing Appalachia, and that requires a little more tact.

...I live in Ashe County, NC hard up by the Tennessee and Virginia line...today at WalMart I didn't see a single person that looked like they were out of Adam's photographs...not one, and we're facing 15% unemployment here in the mountains....Adams strikes me as a guy who studied the 1930s photos of the Farm Security Administration....then picked up a camera and decided to do a modern photo shoot skewed thru the lens of the Great Depression.....the shots are interesting, but I see Adams as a Walker Evans wanna-be.

I am astounded at some of the reviews who said that this book, and it's author, are exploiting the subjects therin. Shelby Adams has gone to great lengths to describe his methods and the families that he photographs - much more transparency and information than I have EVER seen in another documentary photo book. Read it carefully and try to understand it before you come to conclusions....

I was transfixed by the book and could not put it down. Yes, it is disturbing, but y'know, life is like that. This is not a book to be flipped through and returned to the coffee table. This is a book to be chewed and ingested - one that takes some thought and time to experience. If you are ready, come. You won't be disappointed.

I come from relatives that lived in the North Carolina mountains. My great-grandparents built their home from scraps, they lived a life of poverty. Their lives were full of hardships but they lived the lives they chose to live, by their own rules, by their own hands. Coming from Appalachian heritage myself, I am glad this book exists. I look at the images and they remind me of the people I came from. I do not find them offensive or degrading in any manner. I am an artist and photographer myself and I admire the photographer's vision and the time it took to get to know the families involved and to understand their personal beliefs. He has been photographing families since the mid-1970s. Shelby, being of southern heritage himself, remembered visiting the Appalachian people as a child with his uncle who was a doctor. I truly believe he sees the beauty in each face, each scrap-built home, each tattered piece of clothing. He has a deep respect for the people he photographed.