The Portrait
Visual images form and store in my mind, as the artist in me distills information, seeing personal and natural gestures, hearing stories and life histories, more fully understanding the humanity before me. This influences the direction and visceral feel of future photographs to be made. A kindred bonding usually occurs between us as confidence builds. I often invite my subjects to contribute to the making of their photographs, sharing and discussing Polaroids as we make images. Always be natural, be yourself, I say. Sometimes I direct folks to look and search for their own reflection in the lens, we talk, and they often recall events, sometimes something deep comes to mind, and then I try and capture that moment. This concentration relaxes most people from the nervousness of posing for portraits. Then we may photograph again, perhaps they become absorbed with different thoughts or something very specific in mind, I again expose film. Understanding their fortitude, openness and unguardedness, like nowhere else, but in our mountains, we carry on. The peoples kindness, generosity and sincerity keeps me returning.
Shelby Lee Adams
Cecil Cornett
Cecil Cornett lived in Letcher County, my home county. He had worked with and for both of my grandfathers and my father as a farmer tending crops, logger, truck driver and timber man. He was best known as a woodworker, making rocking chairs, porch swings and chairs. A local bank let him display his work in their lobby. He often laughed, telling me he knew both my parents before they were married, before I was conceived or "hatched," as he liked to say.
Cecil, the Woodworker, 1992
Our relationship was established during my childhood long before I took up photography. By 1992 we had already been photographing for over 10 years. Many trips when home I'd visit Cecil, sometimes photographing, sometimes not. He lived in a beautiful wooden home with a front and back porch, a house his father built in a holler called Line Fork. Whenever I'd drive up to his place he'd stop what he was working on and we'd go sit on his porch and visit.
Cecil's Workshop, 1992, [work print].
When you visit an old friend who knows your family and they are familiar with your picture making, photographing is easier and can engage more depth. It's comfortable to visit and transition into making new pictures. Emotionally you both might respond bonding deeper in friendship and that inspires a new way of seeing. He may have some ideas about photographing himself and you should be open to that. In the photo above Cecil is showing me his workshop with some new carvings he has just made. We decided the wood shop would be a good place to set up and make pictures.
Cecil at front of workshop, 1992 [work print]
The photo above is straight forward and often the starting point. Making a Polaroid, we viewed and discussed together. Many would consider this a straight documentary image and they would be satisfied with this as a final print. For me on this day with Cecil, this was the beginning of a new photograph.
First contact sheet, 4x5 film.
Asking Cecil to go back to doing his usual work, I set up my camera and ran some cords for lighting, then we started making photos. He turned a chair he was repairing upside down placing it on his work table. How he looked through this chairs legs was striking. Seeing a divided composition and exciting configurations, reflecting on Cecil's face and in his eyes was inspiring. Immediately I changed lenses to a wide angle view giving the composition more background depth and information. Then moving my tripod and camera in close to the tables edge. I asked Cecil to lean into the table toward the camera, making a Polaroid for us to study. We then relaxed and experimented making several photos and more Polaroids.
Our conversations went from talking about his old mule in the barn to what jobs my grandpa Adams hired him to work at in his younger days. Cecil explained what carving wood meant to him and he said, "The smells cuttin' wood brings back memories from my younger better days. When I cut into a piece of wood, the wood becomes lively. It's satisfying to me."
The visual problem with the composition was that we needed more light on Cecil's right eye and the round whirly wood pieces in the background were to abstract and needed more visibility. First I moved the camera shifting the rear standard to include more of the background wood pieces with more clarity and focus. Then I powered the strobe light down to illuminate the right side of his face. I also shifted the light to give a more diffused look near Cecil's right eye without showing the strobe light reflecting a hot spot in his eyes. The daylight was still the dominant natural light source. Cecil kept moving his fingers and thumbs, so we had to find a place for them to be consistent before exposing film. I set the camera's shutter to a slower speed to allow for the proper exposure of the daylight background. Last, I tell Cecil to keep looking into the camera lens.
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Contact sheet showing final negative with red dot.
All in all this process takes about an hour's time. My subjects are generally quite cooperative, tolerant and even enjoy my open way of photographing. Most like to make and keep as many Polaroids as they can and they know I will bring them prints when I'm back in the area. It sometimes takes 2 to 3 sessions with someone for my method of photographing to become a fluid process, but it does. I only want to photograph those who really desire having their image made and that I'm also drawn to. Over time every session is different in one way or another, even with the same subject. |
4x5 Polaroid, illustrating need for better subject to background positioning and lighting on Cecil's right side of face and eye.
Cecil, 1983
A side note — In 1996 a location scout for Steven Seagal, when making the movie Fire Down Below stopped by to visit Cecil. The California film people liked the looks of Cecil's place and they discussed a Hollywood location shoot on Cecil's porch for one day. They made an agreement for using his porch, but they had to rebuild his porch with a new foundation to support their equipment. They covered the new materials with black felt, nailing Cecil's old lumber over the new foundation. Everything looked as it did before. The ending of the movie portrays Harry Dean Stanton dancing a jig on Cecil's Porch.
Cecil, 1985
Polaroid showing Cecil in position where background now reveals the full wood circles and his hand and thumb are visible, just enough. The light still must be adjusted to give some visibility to his right eye and side of face. Sharing Polaroids with your subjects communicates quickly as you go along each step.
Cecil, 1993
I remember in 1993 I asked Cecil to let me photograph him with objects that were important to him, something he would want to have a record of. After thinking for a short time, he said, "Let's go around to the front porch." He showed me an old gourd hanging from the ceiling and beside it, a rusty metal gallon sized lard bucket with a birds nest inside." Next to them, hanging from a ten-penny nail, was an old white cloth rag, tied through at the top, containing seeds, a few of which were pushing their way through various holes. Cecil explained that these items had been placed on the porch in the 1930's by his mother after his parents had planted their first garden on this property. "This was my daddy's first luncheon' pail that he took to work in the mines. This gourd was from their first garden, and these seeds my mother hung here from her first flower garden. To this day they have not been disturbed and they'll be hanging here when I die," Cecil said. "This is the best place I can think of that I'd want my picture made."
Interview and photo made 1993, published in Appalachian Legacy, 1998
Cecil, 1995
Cecil [close up], 1990
Shelby Lee Adams, Appalachian Legacy, 1998, University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, MS, published a section on Cecil.
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Leveling—My people look at my photographs of them. They see and feel recognized and accepted for who they are. They do not feel threatened by the power of photography or devalued by it, but more acknowledged. They talk of their oppressions and difficulties as fact. The leveling of self-importance between us brings forth a more emphatic recognition. Perhaps, only those who have suffered can really understand suffering. We acknowledge what we know.
Shelby Lee Adams E-Mail sadams18@nycap.rr.com
