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Appalachian Lives
This collection of eighty photographs focuses on present-day Appalachia, a region that “progress” has placed under siege.
This once poverty-stricken, mountain backwater has been invaded by four-lane interstates, cable television, Wal-Mart, and mobile homes. The people have largely abandoned log cabins and country stores and now shun overalls in favor of T-shirts that blaze advertising logos.
Over a period of twenty-five years Adams has traveled back to his home state of Kentucky with his cameras to document the lives of people there and to enrich and challenge outside perceptions of Appalachia.
His previous books― Appalachian Portraits (1993) and Appalachian Legacy (1998), both published by University Press of Mississippi―established the grace, intelligence, and wit with which Adams depicts life, as well as the candor and straightforward honesty he evokes from his trusting subjects.
Adams photographed many of these faces several times during his career. Appalachian Lives depicts how time and the outside world have affected the people dear to him. The boys of Appalachian Portraits now have become the young men of Appalachian Lives . Old homesteads have changed hands. The elderly in earlier photographs have died, yet their features glow in the faces of descendants.
In her introduction Vicki Goldberg says, “Adams looks at a difficult subject with an artist's eye. At their best, the complicated and ambiguous pictures in this book are an uncommon blend of humanity, reportage, and art, an Appalachia most of us thought we knew seen through eyes that tell us that maybe we didn't know it so well after all.”
Just as his photographs portray the richness and complexity of Appalachians, Adams's accompanying text explains how he attains the level of trust that allows him to continue photographing these people. He tells why the region continues to fascinate him. His reflections give context to the images and a sense of the lives lived outside of the photographic frame. His honesty about his interaction with his subjects, their sometimes-wary reactions to him, and his personal history in the region infuse the photographs with an intimacy that only an Appalachian insider such as Adams could achieve.
This once poverty-stricken, mountain backwater has been invaded by four-lane interstates, cable television, Wal-Mart, and mobile homes. The people have largely abandoned log cabins and country stores and now shun overalls in favor of T-shirts that blaze advertising logos.
Over a period of twenty-five years Adams has traveled back to his home state of Kentucky with his cameras to document the lives of people there and to enrich and challenge outside perceptions of Appalachia.
His previous books― Appalachian Portraits (1993) and Appalachian Legacy (1998), both published by University Press of Mississippi―established the grace, intelligence, and wit with which Adams depicts life, as well as the candor and straightforward honesty he evokes from his trusting subjects.
Adams photographed many of these faces several times during his career. Appalachian Lives depicts how time and the outside world have affected the people dear to him. The boys of Appalachian Portraits now have become the young men of Appalachian Lives . Old homesteads have changed hands. The elderly in earlier photographs have died, yet their features glow in the faces of descendants.
In her introduction Vicki Goldberg says, “Adams looks at a difficult subject with an artist's eye. At their best, the complicated and ambiguous pictures in this book are an uncommon blend of humanity, reportage, and art, an Appalachia most of us thought we knew seen through eyes that tell us that maybe we didn't know it so well after all.”
Just as his photographs portray the richness and complexity of Appalachians, Adams's accompanying text explains how he attains the level of trust that allows him to continue photographing these people. He tells why the region continues to fascinate him. His reflections give context to the images and a sense of the lives lived outside of the photographic frame. His honesty about his interaction with his subjects, their sometimes-wary reactions to him, and his personal history in the region infuse the photographs with an intimacy that only an Appalachian insider such as Adams could achieve.
- GenresPhotographyNonfiction
98 pages, Hardcover
First published May 8, 2003
About the author
Shelby Lee Adams
11 books14 followersShelby Lee Adams was born in 1950 in the Appalachian Mountains of Eastern Kentucky. He now lives there as well as in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts. Appalachia is not only Adams’s birthplace, but the subject of his photographs as well. His images, focusing on the lives of the people of Appalachia, have been shown in one-person exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art; the International Center of Photography, New York; Light Work, Syracuse, New York; and the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York. His work is also included in the collections of many major museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, among others.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 22, 2020
Awesome book. Shelby knows how to capture the essence of an individual with his cameras.
December 27, 2021
I have wanted one of Shelby Lee Adams' books for a good few years now, and I was lucky enough to receive Appalachian Lives for Christmas. I obviously need to buy more. Fascinating in every way.
April 1, 2013
Excellent.
To begin with, I enjoyed the introduction by Vicki Goldberg. Her analysis of the pages to follow clues the reader in on where to look and how to focus in approaching Adams' work. I particularly appreciated the sense of inclusion of the subjects in the creative and evaluative process as considering specific photographs of them.
The photographic reproductions were of good-to-excellent quality. One was segmented to two different pages, but considering that this was but one instance, the reader can be forgiving. The artist's composition, technique, and choice of subject matter are exemplary. Though some readers may find the photographic material difficult to deal with, this is more a reflection of our (the viewers') internal screening and monitoring system than on anything coming from the subject's side of the lens. Adams' description of his setting up for various shoots was particularly helpful and illuminating. His reflections on use of multiple light sources revealed a sophisticated approach to dealing with photographic ingredients needed to bring out the best in a shooting layout. Some of the details he includes regarding the realities of setting up an on-site shoot are surprisingly candid, and occasionally humorous.
There is little question that his work is some of the more thought provoking and sociologically pertinent available in the past twenty years.
To begin with, I enjoyed the introduction by Vicki Goldberg. Her analysis of the pages to follow clues the reader in on where to look and how to focus in approaching Adams' work. I particularly appreciated the sense of inclusion of the subjects in the creative and evaluative process as considering specific photographs of them.
The photographic reproductions were of good-to-excellent quality. One was segmented to two different pages, but considering that this was but one instance, the reader can be forgiving. The artist's composition, technique, and choice of subject matter are exemplary. Though some readers may find the photographic material difficult to deal with, this is more a reflection of our (the viewers') internal screening and monitoring system than on anything coming from the subject's side of the lens. Adams' description of his setting up for various shoots was particularly helpful and illuminating. His reflections on use of multiple light sources revealed a sophisticated approach to dealing with photographic ingredients needed to bring out the best in a shooting layout. Some of the details he includes regarding the realities of setting up an on-site shoot are surprisingly candid, and occasionally humorous.
There is little question that his work is some of the more thought provoking and sociologically pertinent available in the past twenty years.
November 16, 2015
Appalachian Lives by Shelby Lee Adams (University Press of Mississippi 2003)(975.0) is another fantastic book of photographic portraits of the people of hardscrabble Eastern Kentucky by the most dangerous and disturbing camera master alive. It's the first one of his volumes that I've been privileged to own. My rating: 9.5/10, finished 2012.
August 17, 2015
Good continuation.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews