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Whether a photograph is viewed as an artistic work or documentary image, it presents its viewer with a narrative. It tells us a story or presents us with an idea. Its meaning goes beyond what it is we see with our eyes, because it engages our minds. That said, what occurs when we see something that we cannot relate to? That which we have no personal experience from which we can draw upon to understand what we see? Or perhaps only personal experience with stereotypes or social and culture messages from which to relate an image? The result is often what could be described as “otherizing.” That is to say, a sense of what we see as other than ourselves or our lives. Different. Foreign. Other. For more than thirty years, Shelby Lee Adams has presented a unique narrative of the people of Appalachia through photographs that arguably “otherize.” The way in which his photographs achieve this otherizing is multi-faceted and complex. In essence, the otherizing of the Appalachian people in Adams’ work occurs as the result of a conflict between his artistic motivations and the inherent properties of a photograph to act as a document, in conjunction with deep-seated cultural stereotypes of the particular class of people he photographs.
Consider three of Adams’ photographs: Brice and Crow on Porch, Buck Lick (1992); The Hog Killing (1990); The Childers’ Kitchen (1986). In Brice and Crow on Porch, we see that which is most common in Adams’ photos: people on the porch of a ramshackle dwelling, passing idle time. Although obviously in some state of disrepair, the home in front of which the two men, named Crow and Brice, stand is actually far less dilapidated than those of most families photographed by Adams. There are boards from the floor of the porch that are warped and disjointed, no doubt the result of an attempt to build a level structure on hillside land that is hopelessly uneven, and upon them in either...