William Gedney's Eastern Kentucky Photographs

One of the things I’m most fond of is seeing how other photographers and artists work. If I see a picture of an artist in their studio or workspace, my attention is usually drawn to the background where I find myself looking at bookcases, work tables, and other “stuff” in their creative space. I also truly enjoy behind-the-scenes snippets of how they work and how things come together. In that vein, I wanted to share a bit about a book project I’ve been working on for some time now. It’s far from complete and very much an early draft. I have no publisher and real idea of the market interest in a book like this. There is still a good deal of text to write for the book. Nonetheless, I think it would make a wonderful book, so I plan to move forward.

I had never seen a William Gedney photograph before beginning classwork at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies. Gedney’s work is archived at Duke’s Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. One of our classes visited the archive and I was immediately taken with his photographs. What’s most striking to me about Gedney is that he went to eastern Kentucky at a time when most of the pictures being made there were being used to highlight and call attention to poverty. What’s more is that he only made two trips there in 1964 and 1972, spending a total of 29 days in Kentucky. Yet many believe, as do I, that this is some of the strongest work of his career. He quickly became a part of the Cornett family and worked amongst them with a meticulous, quiet familiarity shown in the photographs he made there.

In the early 1960’s, Appalachia saw a flood of photographers, news crews, and filmmakers (think Charles Kuralt’s Christmas in Appalachia circa 1964) come into the hills and hollers as part of the War on Poverty campaign. By and large, they formed a disparaging visual narrative of the place I was born and raised. Yet somehow, William Gedney transcended that tendency and instead made photographs of grace, beauty, and simple existence all the while capturing the real environs of his subjects. There must’ve been something about his spirit that caused him to see what others did not, would not, perhaps could not.

William Gedney died on June 23, 1989 at 56. In his lifetime, he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for photography (1966-67), a Fulbright Fellowship for photography in India (1969-71), a National Endowment for the Arts grant in photography (1975-76), and several other grants and fellowships. He had a show at the New York Museum of Modern Art (1968-69) as well as more than a dozen other exhibitions. What surprised me about this is that Gedney never published a book. Four years after his death, in 1993, Duke University became the repository for 51.3 linear feet of Gedney’s work. Margaret Sartor, a photographer, writer, and teacher at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke, was approached by the library and asked to put together an exhibit of Gedney’s work. In 2000, Sartor and Geoff Dyer coedited What Was True: The Photographs and Notebooks of William Gedney, which quickly sold out and is now out of print.

As years passed and my fascination with Gedney and his Kentucky photographs grew, I began spending time in the archive going through boxes and boxes of work prints, notebooks, and book dummies. It was here that I came across hand-sketched thumbnails (below) of an early draft for a book of his eastern Kentucky photographs. There were several pages of sketches, several of which listed the corresponding negative and contact sheet number, and it became clear that this was a book he wanted to make. He split the book into two parts – 1964 and 1972 – and included 80 photographs. Thanks to his notes, I was able to identify and locate 73 of the 80 pictures in the archive at Duke. The entire Gedney collection is currently being re-digitized and I hope to be able to identify the remaining seven pictures later this year. Including some of these sketches in the book will be a fascinating addition.

While working on this, I ordered and sequenced the images according to Gedney’s sketches and notes and created a couple of 11" x 17" contact sheets to study and understand his process a bit better. I also created a mock cover and used it to wrap my copy of Andre Kertesz: Paris, Autumn 1963, which incidentally is very similar in makeup with how I’d like to design the Kentucky book. It measures roughly 7.5" x 9.5", 80 pages, and was published by Flammarion in 2013.

I've consulted with Margaret Sartor, who was kind enough to invite me over to dinner earlier this year and along with her husband, Alex Harris, helped me think through some of the processes needed to make this book come to life. She has been instrumental in my learning about Gedney’s work. Lisa McCarty, curator of the Archives of Documentary Arts at Duke, has been incredibly supportive of this project and seeing it come to fruition.

So, if you’re a publisher, love the work of William Gedney, and want to see this book made, please drop me a line. I’d love to talk with you.

All three vertical photographs – William Gedney Collection, Duke University David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. All other photographs and content - ©2015 Roger May

Why a Confrontation Between Photographers and Locals Turned Ugly in Appalachia

On Monday, March 23, in McDowell County, West Virginia, photographer Marisha Camp and her brother Jesse found themselves confronted by an angry and hostile group of folks, who accused them of taking photographs of children without permission. The Camps, who were on the road gathering material for a television show they hope to pitch later this year, were detained and threatened with physical violence by these local citizens. After a 45-minute confrontation, the Camps were escorted out of the county by the West Virginia state police.

The story was picked up by local news stations and by national photography magazines and blogs. As is usual when Appalachia is the subject, the story was told primarily by and about one group—outsiders visiting the area. That’s not to say the Camps’s accounts of what happened aren’t valid, but they’ve been given a platform not afforded many of the others involved. The locals have been portrayed as vigilantes, as mob- or gang-like. One national photography magazine titled their story, “West Virginia Mob Reportedly Detains Photographers for Looking Out-of-Town.” Let’s be clear: the Camps weren’t detained for looking “out-of-town.” They were detained, illegally this West Virginian and photographer believes, because parents thought they'd photographed their children without their permission.

Knowing that I am from West Virginia and that I have a professional and personal interest in work being made in and about Appalachia, a friend posted the news story on my Facebook wall. Several other people contacted me to ask what I thought about the situation. After watching the local news story, I knew there was much more to the story. I knew there would be fallout, and feared that locals would bear the brunt of it.

Searching for a greater understanding of the incident and the actions that caused it, I began reaching out to those directly involved. I contacted Marisha Camp on Thursday, March 26, and over the next few days I exchanged calls and dozens of text messages with her and her brother. On April 2, I spoke with Jennifer Adkins, the woman who accused the Camps of photographing her children and threatened them with a gun.

I also contacted journalists and filmmakers who have worked in Appalachia, and a local photographer, to gain as much perspective as possible about what happened that day. I asked them to comment on the situation in McDowell County because none of the reporting thus far attempts to look at the long history of misrepresentation in Appalachia. Sure, this could’ve happened anywhere. But it didn’t. It happened in McDowell County, West Virginia. And although the Camps may not have been intentionally seeking out “poverty porn,” many local residents view photographers, both insiders and outsiders, with understandable suspicion.

“You don’t look like upstanding citizens.”

The Camps had been on the road for months, working their way across the country filming and making photographs. On Sunday, March 22, they filmed a church service in McDowell County. The following day, they decided to collect B-roll footage. “We noticed these three obese kids playing with sticks in [a] driveway,” Jesse Camp recalls. “When we drove by I asked them if they were having a stick fight. They sort of laughed and that was that. We drove on.” On their way from Jolo to Raysal, the Camps parked their Volvo station wagon with Massachusetts license plates at a gas station and crossed the road to photograph some houses and talk with some folks. Soon thereafter, Marisha Camp heard someone yelling across the road and noticed a van blocking in their vehicle. The van’s owner, Jennifer Adkins, was upset because she thought the Camps were photographing her children without her consent, and she demanded the pair hand their cameras over. The situation escalated quickly.

According to Marisha Camp, Adkins immediately threatened them. She opened the door of her van and pointed to what she said was a gun, stating that the Camps weren’t leaving until they handed over their cameras and the police arrived. Afraid and panicking, Camp tried to call for help, but had no cell service. Camp was able to record audio of the incident on her phone. “Have you all looked at yourselves in the mirror? You don’t look like upstanding citizens,” Adkins can be heard saying on the recording. For nearly 45 minutes, the situation intensified. An angry crowd grew around the Camps, despite Marisha Camp showing Adkins’s husband the images on one of their cameras in an attempt to prove that none of the images were of their children.

Local parents were already on edge due to the disappearance of a young child in the area: The same day the Camps were filming the church service in Jolo, less than a hundred miles away in Pulaski County, Virginia, five year-old Noah Thomas went missing. The sheriff’s department received more than a hundred tips, many of which identified suspicious vehicles in the area. (Sadly, Thomas’s body was found on his parents’ property in a septic tank Thursday, March 26, five days after he was reported missing. His parents have been charged with felony abuse and neglect.)

Finally, West Virginia state police arrived on the scene. After assessing the situation, they escorted the Camps out of the area and lectured them about how they “ought to be careful about not making ugly pictures about the people of West Virginia,” Marisha Camp says. Later that day, she contacted the McDowell County sheriff’s department and was told by a deputy, “You’re lucky you weren’t shot.”

“We love West Virginia.”

“I’m a gypsy, self-admittedly,” Jesse Camp told me on the phone on March 31. “I love traveling every nook and cranny of America. My sister and I have been road tripping forever, man. We’ve been everywhere, all over the South, and 99 percent of the people we meet are cool.”

Jesse Camp says he and his sister had been all over West Virginia. “Logan, Omar, Iaeger, War, Jolo and Bradshaw. You know man, West Virginia is like the most outlaw place. We love West Virginia.”

Marisha Camp echoes her brother, and she’s been actively responding via Facebook to inaccurate claims from McDowell County residents about the incident. “We really love West Virginia, and it was utterly heartbreaking to think about not going back,” she says. “I know not everyone [there] is like that.”

Also upset by the behavior of the police, Marisha Camp wrote a letter to West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, detailing the events. In the letter she writes that she “strongly believes” in combatting “negative stereotypes of the region,” but calls the actions of the police “absurd and about as counterproductive as it gets.”

“It is for everyone's benefit that incidents like this are taken seriously,” she writes. “I would have been encouraged to press charges anywhere else rather than be run of town like a ‘long haired hippie’ and then told by law enforcement that I'm somehow lucky because I wasn't murdered.”

Despite all this, the Camps say they’ve received overwhelming support from residents of McDowell County. Many have contacted the Camps via Facebook apologizing for the actions of a few people and offering them places to stay if they make it back.

“We had no choice but to question their motives.”

Jennifer Adkins was on the phone with a neighbor when her 13-year-old son walked in the front door and told her, “there was a guy out there taking pictures.”

Adkins hung up the phone and immediately called 911 to report the incident. She, her husband and their two sons got in their minivan and drove after the Camps in order to get a license plate number. (As a parent, I understand the fear and concern Adkins must have felt for her children in the moment, especially considering the missing child in the news.) Once they found the Camps's vehicle at a gas station in English, they called 911 again to report the tag information.

“I was floored by their appearance. They looked like bums. I don’t mean that to sound derogatory, but they did,” Adkins told me. “I saw [Marisha Camp] put one of her cameras away and then she started showing my husband pictures from the other one.”

Both Jesse and Marisha Camp deny making photographs of the Adkins’s children. But the family didn’t know what the Camps were up to because they never came to their door to ask if it was OK to talk to their children or photograph them. Therein lies the problem for me, and for Adkins. “I can understand them [the Camps] being scared, but we had no choice but to question their motives,” Adkins says. “I wouldn’t have ever given them permission to take pictures of my kids, let alone talk to them, but they never gave me the chance.”

Adkins admits she threatened the Camps. “I mean, I said I had a gun, but I didn’t. I wanted them to know I meant business and that they weren’t leaving until the police showed up. I told [Marisha Camp] that she could leave by ambulance or by a police car, but she wasn’t going nowhere until I saw that she didn’t have pictures of my boys,” Adkins recalls. Soon thereafter, Adkins says, residents she didn’t even know began to gather around. She says the other residents, who must’ve felt they were looking out for their own, "sort of took over."

I asked Adkins about judging the Camps by how they looked when for so long West Virginia has been the butt of so many jokes about appearance. I had a really hard time with this one. “I know,” Adkins says, “but if I go to New York City, I’m going to stand out and possibly be stereotyped. Anybody who knows me knows that I’m outspoken. We [West Virginians] always get portrayed bad. And we didn’t know what they were up to.”

A few days after the confrontation, Adkins was interviewed by WVVA, the local news station, after they saw her Facebook posts about the incident. Adkins has taken down most of the posts, but I had taken screenshots for my notes. In one post, she wrote, “They are from Mass. and said they were doing a ‘documentary’…. All I can say is they best NOT COME BACK TO RAYSAL!!!!!” Someone commenting on Adkins’s Facebook page posted the Camps’s license plate number, and several commenters also included pictures of the Camps’s vehicle.

“We don’t get to choose who makes work in Appalachia.”

Elaine McMillion Sheldon, a native West Virginian, spent more than three years on and off working on Hollow, an interactive, community-driven documentary project about McDowell County’s past, present and future from the perspectives of local residents. When I reached out to her, she was beside herself about the incident and didn't understand why residents would react as they did. “What is the goal here? I think it's a question of how we want to be seen,” she says. “Do we want to be seen as a threat?”

Sheldon says residents she talked to in the County are divided about the incident. She was surprised that local photographers told her they don’t agree with the kind of work the Camps were making. Sheldon says: "We don’t get to choose who makes work in Appalachia. We can’t police who makes pictures here, but we should try to educate those who want to come in to document, and encourage a more nuanced story. We all need to stand together as artists, regardless of whether we like a specific artist’s work or not. You can't pick and choose whose rights you support based upon whether you like or dislike their work. All artists have the same legal rights, regardless of the art they create."

“The visual equivalent of hate speech.”

Kate Fowler has worked in West Virginia extensively and was recently hired by the Magnum Foundation in New York. Her film, Nitro, chronicles the complicated relationship between a small West Virginia town and the chemical plants that both provide jobs and impact the environment in West Virginia’s “Chemical Valley.” Fowler also spent a great deal of time in McDowell County working on her film With Signs Following, about the late Mack Wolford, a preacher and serpent-handler from southern West Virginia.

Fowler views the actions of the Camps and the reactions of the local citizens as part of a long, complicated history of photography in Appalachia.

Many in West Virginia, Fowler says, recognize that outsiders who’ve photographed their communities without consent have participated in the “dissemination of classist and bigoted rhetoric—the visual equivalent of hate speech.” Fowler also points out that when a small group of citizens decided to speak up for themselves, “the Internet...mobilized to discredit and to once again, deny the subject’s capacity for critical engagement.”

“No person deserves to be threatened with violence” or held against their will, Fowler adds. But, she says, “We [as photographers] must not presume that our intentions are clear, nor deny the trauma we may invoke through our actions, tools or intentions.”

“Am I supposed to go and knock on each and every door?”

Alan Johnston is a native and lifelong resident of McDowell County, West Virginia. He’s a musician and landscape photographer I met several years ago through Sheldon’s Hollow project. I reached out to him to get a local photographer’s perspective on what happened and he was kind enough to talk with me.

Johnston says he was “genuinely concerned” when he heard about the incident, especially when he considers what it might mean for his ability to work locally. “I really don’t understand what I’m supposed to do,” he says. “Do I tell somebody at the mouth of the holler that I’m taking pictures of barns and landscapes? How will the people in the head of the holler know what I’m doing? Am I supposed to go and knock on each and every door and report to people who I am and what I’m doing?” He notes that he rarely photographs people he doesn’t know, but rather photographs landscapes of McDowell County for his own pleasure.

Johnston recalled a time a few years back when he was out making pictures in the county and pulled off on the side of the road to photograph a horse in a barn. “All of a sudden this woman came out on her porch and started yelling at me. ‘You better not take any bad pictures on this mountain,’ she yelled.”

He staunchly defends his right to make pictures on public property, but confided that there are a whole lot of people “skeptical of anyone doing anything around here.” So it’s clearly not just outsiders that are met with suspicion.

Cultural insensitivity and privilege

Jesse Camp says this could’ve happened anywhere. It’s true. It could’ve. But it didn’t. It happened in West Virginia. And if you’re not familiar with the long history of visual misrepresentation of the region, then close your eyes and think about the first thing that pops in your head when you hear the words “West Virginia.” See what I mean?

Understanding the very real history of misrepresentation in Appalachia—particularly McDowell County, West Virginia, which is often portrayed as a hopeless pocket of rural Appalachia (a depiction I take great issue with)—by no means implies that it’s justifiable to hold people against their will and threaten physical violence. It’s also unreasonable to judge anyone by his or her appearance or how they talk, no matter who they are or where they’re from. But it’s important, although not easy for everyone, to understand where the anger comes from. It’s only through self-awareness that both photographers and local residents can hope to prevent incidents like this.

West Virginia is in my DNA. It’s a huge part of who I am. I’m also a photographer, which is an equally huge part of who I am. Often when these two meet it can be a challenge to find a balance, to reconcile history with the present, to challenge what we’ve been shown with what we know. I’m all too aware of how we’re portrayed, joked about and stereotyped. I’m also aware of how important listening is, and how making work in Appalachia isn’t as much about me as it is about honoring, respecting and searching for home. I’m not saying the way I work is the right way, if there is such a thing, but I am saying I don’t want to be another taker in a long line of takers.

Without a true understanding of the long history of takers in Appalachia, it can be hard to understand why locals reacted the way they did. The Camps deny both their privilege and a lack of understanding. They stated to me several times that they’ve been living out of their car, wearing the same clothes over and over again, and doing so with little to no money. But there’s nothing that pisses underprivileged people off more than privileged folks blind to their own privilege. Does that make the Camps bad people? I don’t think so. Does being threatened, blocked in, called names, yelled at and held hostage until state police arrived seem warranted? Again, I don’t think so. The Camps are likable people and I’ve found nothing in the time I’ve spent communicating with them that would lead me to feel otherwise, but I can raise concern over their cultural insensitivity.

Does that mean they can’t make work in Appalachia? Absolutely not.

Privilege can be tricky. I know this all too well. But photographers should be aware of it and sensitive to it. Marisha Camp was quick to counter my mention of this via text. “I’ll bet that lady [Jennifer Adkins] makes more money than me.”

This isn’t a situation in which it’s easy to either support the photographers or support the community. It’s much more complex than that. What would’ve happened if the Camps had knocked on the door of the Adkins house? What would’ve happened if Jennifer Adkins had simply left after seeing no pictures of her children had been taken? If the Camps were more apologetic and disarming in their responses, would the situation have escalated?

This isn’t just a place in a road trip documentary. This place is my home. It’s true that we can’t police who does and doesn’t make work in Appalachia. But when I reflect on this situation, I’m reminded of a saying by my granddad, “Enough is enough and too much is nasty.”

Thanks to Marisha Camp, Jesse Camp, Jennifer Adkins, Elaine McMillion Sheldon, Kate Fowler, Joy Salyers and Alan Johnston for their time in contributing to this article.

(This article first appeared in PDN on 21 April 2015. A condensed version appeared in the July 2015 print issue of PDN.)

©Roger May, 2015. All rights reserved.

Looking at Appalachia | Michael Sherwin

Michael Sherwin is an Associate Professor of Photography and Intermedia in the School of Art and Design at West Virginia University. Using the mediums of photography, video and installation, his work reflects on the experience of observing nature through the lenses of science and popular culture. He has won numerous grants and awards for his work, and has exhibited widely, including recent shows at the Huntington Museum of Art in Huntington, WV, Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences in Charleston, WV, CEPA Gallery in Buffalo, NY, SPACES Gallery in Cleveland, OH, PUNCH Gallery in Seattle, WA and the Center for Emerging Visual Artists in Philadelphia, PA. Sherwin earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Oregon in 2004, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The Ohio State University in 1999. He has been a member of the faculty at the University of Oregon and Central Washington University. He is also an active and participating member of the Society for Photographic Education and the lead instructor for WVU's Jackson Hole Photography Workshop.

(Editor's note: this is the first Looking at Appalachia post with our overhauled theme, which offers larger photographs. Enjoy the new design and please feel free to share any feedback.)

Roger May: Your current body of work, Vanishing Points, is moving into its fifth year. How have you seen the project evolve since you started?

Michael Sherwin: Initially, I was pretty clinical in my approach. I was making photographs with a very wide angle, attempting to encompass as much of the landscape as possible. I was mostly shooting in places that were designated archaeological sites, and careful to include some evidence of the history in the photograph. As the project progressed into Ohio I felt my approach loosening. I was following the newly established Ancient Ohio Trail, which connects numerous sites via a driving route. Rather than just focusing on the actual sites, I began to acknowledge the journey more and more. I started making photographs that were literally along the road, or of subjects that caught my eye while traveling from one point on the map to another. Many of these newer images are of isolated subjects, or details of a much larger landscape, such as an old stump with shoots growing out of it, a deer blind or prayer hands. I like to think of these as symbols, or metaphors, for the larger conversation. I also like the way these newer images add a fresh narrative element to the series. In turn, the sequencing of images has become really important to me.

RM: I’m particularly drawn to the absence of people in this series. Certainly there are human elements from both past and present generations, but can you tell me about this decision as an element of the series?

MS: I actually made several portraits early on in the project, but nothing I felt strongly about, and not enough of them really to include. Although there are no direct portraits in the series, there are people included at a distance in several of the images, some fishing, some praying and some exploring. You can’t really identify with any of these people; they are merely a part of the larger landscape in which they exist. This was not a deliberate decision. I have always been more comfortable working with landscape as a subject matter and I guess that’s where I focused my energy.

RM: I appreciate how quiet this work is on the surface, but how transformational each individual image becomes when you consider the full weight of Manifest Destiny on Native American population and culture. It struck me that there are many parallels with Manifest Destiny and the extractive industries (mountaintop removal coal mining) in Appalachia, specifically West Virginia. In the name of modernization and American prosperity, people of the region - old and new - suffer the effects of outside industry and influence. Can you talk a little about this?

MS: Progress, in the name of big industry and personal gain, is trumping careful consideration of the historical and cultural significance of the landscape and people of West Virginia and throughout the country. Much like the onset of Manifest Destiny in the 19th century, outside interests in the mineral resources of West Virginia have little to no concern about the quality of life of the people who call it home. I’ve lived all over the country, including nine years in the Northwest, and I’ve never seen a landscape so ravaged and mishandled as West Virginia. This struck me upon moving here in 2007 and even more so as I ventured out to photograph throughout the state. Because of its economic reliance on extractive industries, the state has opened itself up to the worst kind of environmental degradation – mountaintop removal coal mining. Not only does this type of mining have horrendous and irreversible effects on the land, it’s also dispossessing thousands of rural families and destroying communities.

Whether driven by divine right, or money, the products of Manifest Destiny continue to way heavy on our landscape and indigenous cultures. I’ve witnessed this right here in Morgantown, WV, where the population is growing rapidly and unchecked building seems to be happening everywhere in the name of progress. The monstrous Suncrest Towne Center, which inspired the project and was built less than a mile from my house, exists on an ancient Monongahela burial and village site. As an American with Irish-German ancestry I realize I am a product of Manifest Destiny. In a way this series is an attempt to grapple with this legacy and to connect to a previous cultural understanding of the land and spirituality that I more closely identify with.

RM: How important is writing about your work in the editorial process? Can you talk a little about your working process, how you identify locations to make pictures, and how you stay motivated to make this deeply engaging work?

MS: I have kept a journal from the very beginning of this project. The contents include notes about possible locations, itineraries, clippings, contact info, inspirational quotes and musings, and a rambling narrative about my outings. The journal helps me keep all the pieces of the puzzle together, albeit in a somewhat disorganized manner. I often review it to remember a name of a person or place visited or to reread a certain passage. At some point, it might be fun to see the text, or journal, exist in the same space as the images.

It’s a difficult process to identify locations. I do a lot of research online, read books and meet with people to discuss my project. Some of the sites I visit exist in state parks or monuments, which are easy to locate, but many others are intentionally kept from the public. I use Google Earth a lot and make a map of sites to visit with detailed directions before ever leaving the house. Of course, things come up along the journey in talking with people who actually know the landscape. The locals are often the best resource for locations and sites not found on any map. I’ve found that I really enjoy this process of discovery. Much like hiking through a new landscape, or paddling a meandering river, I’m always wondering what’s around the next corner. The project continues to unfold as I progress, encouraging me to keep exploring and sharing my discoveries.

RM: This series deals with many elements, but there is this theme of time that I find intriguing. Reaching back into history can often lead us into uncomfortable territory, yet the beauty of each individual picture seems to lighten those blows. Time is also required to study the pictures, to connect the story of the past to the constructed image we’re looking at when we look at the expanse of the Suncrest Town Center in Morgantown, West Virginia. How do you communicate the importance of time, especially the breadth of time the project addresses?

MS: There’s an unwritten history embedded in the landscape of Appalachia. Layers and strata of time are occasionally unearthed and a story unfolds. I’m really interested in how the land holds secrets and vessels of time unknown. When I visit an ancient site, or designated sacred site, I am very sensitive to this deep sense of time and history. However, nearly everywhere you look evidence of our modern civilization intrudes. There’s a fascinating push and pull between the mysterious past and familiar present at these sites. I feel this duality when I’m working in the field and attempt to translate it in the photographs.

Some of the photographs in the series are more direct and ironic, while others combine the atmosphere of light and time to create a more ephemeral scene. In certain images, the land, with all its mystery and beauty, seems to hold a quiet power in the presence of trivial human artifacts. As permanent as things may appear, our own civilization is subject to the slow grate of time and change. At some point in the distant future our own culture will be defined by the remains we left behind.

RM: As an educator, how do you convey the importance of long-term work to your students? We are inundated with visual imagery these days, yet we aren’t necessarily more visually literate as a culture. How has your experience with long-term projects informed your teaching style and appreciation for similar work?

MS: It’s been really fun and challenging to throw myself into the Vanishing Points project and allow it to evolve over the past several years. This is the first serious long-term project I’ve undertaken and it’s quite different from my previous work, which involved a lot of video, appropriation and experimental installations. At times, it has been difficult for me to accept a project that is so traditional and straightforward in terms of technique. At the same time, however, I’ve rekindled my appreciation for straight photography and discovered a whole bunch of other artists, both current and past, that have similar styles. Many of these artists have spent multiple years, even a decade or more, on a single project, which has been reassuring.

Unfortunately, my students are not given the kind of time I have to focus on a single project. In fact, it’s hard for them to focus on a project for more than one semester. However, when they get to their final semester, I often see a lineage in their content that goes back to their first photographs/projects three years prior. We talk about these early images and ideas and how they relate to what they’re currently working on. In their final semester they are required to create a presentation, which draws on their resources and influences and connects their work and ideas. I remind them that their work will often take on many different appearances throughout their career, but they will eventually see overarching concepts and personal motivations coalesce.

All photographs © Michael Sherwin. All rights reserved.

1. Big Bottom Massacre State Memorial, Morgan County, Ohio.
2. Conus Mound, Mount Cemetery, Marietta, Ohio.
3. Grave Creek Mound, Moundsville, West Virginia.
4. Laundry, Indian Mound Campground, New Marshfield, Ohio.
5. Air Force Museum, Dayton, Ohio.
6. Shrum Mound, Columbus, Ohio.
7. Suncrest Towne Center, Morgantown, West Virginia.
8. Boat Ramp, Greenbottom Wildlife Management Area, West Virginia.
9. Factory, Ohio River, Marshall County, West Virginia.
10. Chickamunga Mound, Chattanooga, Tennessee.
11. Sunrise, Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Chillicothee, Ohio.
12. Dead Fox, James A. Rhodes Appalachian Highway, Vinton County, Ohio.
13. View from the Top, Criel Mound, South Charleston, West Virginia.
14. Fishing, Muskingum River, Lowell, Ohio.
15. Mattress, Natrium Plant, New Martinsville, Ohio.
16. Miamisburg Mound, Miamisburg, Ohio.
17. Mural, Point Pleasant Riverfront Park, Point Pleasant, West Virginia.
18. Prayer Hands, Faith Chapel, Vinton County, Ohio.
19. Rail Lines, Moundsville, West Virginia.
20. Stump, Great Miami River, Hamilton, Ohio.
21. Shawnee Overlook, North Bend, Ohio.
22. Soybean Field, Buffalo, West Virginia.

A Piece of Mingo County

I keep a piece of Mingo County on my desk. There have been many like it, but this one is mine.

Pieces of Mingo County, like this, have been taken away for more than 100 years. This piece is different, though. This piece reminds me of the cost paid by the men and women who mined this coal, who sacrificed in countless ways for their families and communities, and for the toll it’s taken on both the people and places of the Appalachian coalfields and elsewhere. I think about the hopes and dreams and fears and sorrow that hang like coal dust deep in the hollers of “Bloody Mingo.” I think about sacrifice and being sacrificed and I’m reminded of the difference between the two. I think about the natural resource and human extraction, blasted out, hauled away, never to return. And I think about what it is to return and how literally there are parts of Mingo County you can’t ever return to. I think about “Friends of Coal” and know that coal has never been a friend to Mingo County. I think about the wail of the train engines, the thunderous vibration of the tracks as coal cars roll out, taking another few hundred tons from the heart of the billion dollar coalfield, a heart that try as you may, you will never hollow out. Politicians have heralded it, outside interests have swallowed it, and we are all are complicit in our thirst for this nonrenewable resource. I think about my role in this, too. I think about home for me and it’s impossible to do so without thinking about coal.

This little piece of Mingo County keeps me thinking…