The True Meaning of Pictures

Shelby Lee Adams

­­­­­Photography is a tool that can be used to manipulate people’s views of the world. When faced with a photograph we do not get to choose what we view or how we view it we are forced to see what another shares. In this way photographers have the power to represent an idea or misrepresent one, and weigh the balance in their preferable favor.

            Shelby Lee Adams studied Appalachia, a very rural area whose inhabitants live very primitively and as we might describe it today as old school, or hicks. He has a great interest and admiration for his subjects and it is apparent in his approach and final prints. He spent much time hanging out there, enjoying his subjects company and learning more about them. Adams always made sure they approved of and liked the photographs that they had modeled in, sharing them after completion and asking for acceptance of them. One can shoot a subject how they wish but if that subject does not like the manner in which they were approached it doesn’t matter what you thought you captured because ultimately you have failed for what you shot in reality you completely missed and misrepresented. You have to understand your subjects and misunderstanding leads to misrepresenting. He had a genuine pride in them and photographed them very environmentally and expressive at times.

            In the photograph of the young girl being framed through the screen door I feel is beautifully composed. Not only is this her living space but also the raggedy old door further exaggerates her beautiful youth. The old man in the back seems to express that one day she to will grow old here and that ultimately youth comes from others who hold age. The run down environment is where these people have their home and I think Adams composed them with aesthetic within that special place. I found it ignorant of the older woman who had moved away from the area to be so upset by the photograph, ashamed of her roots. I think that is a personal problem and has nothing to do with the photograph at all. One doesn’t gain pride from the economic value of their upbringing but because of them being happy with who they are and appreciating what nurtured them to become the person that they are. I think that woman as a viewer has very irrelevant biased untrained eyes and is not seeing the picture for what it really is, or is offering. For many people see many things in one image.

            The photograph of the family around the hog I love! The controversy of it makes it that much more interesting. A lot of hogwash, ha, hogwash, was brought up about it because they don’t necessarily practice that anymore and the specific animal that had been butchered was specially butchered for the shoot. But that I feel is the point. They are getting together as a group of people to express something about who they are and by purposefully modeling it shows community within the participation, and pride in the expression of cultural practices whether they are continued to be done or not.

            Overall I think Shelby Lee Adams project was very successful. Photographers need to be conscious of what they see but also about trying to place our eyes on other people’s lives and anticipating about what audiences will think what about what we have photographed. And how much information is necessary to be given aside form the photographs, none, a lot?

Shelby Lee Adams

I like that he named the documentary The True Meaning of Pictures because it raises that constant question of what does a picture mean? And is it acceptable to have a definition be flexible, changeable, and if so is it allowed to be a definition. Or maybe we should just accept that pictures cannot be defined but shown and then an attempt at explaining them is what we do.