Review - Images of Appalachian Coalfields

Hardcover| 8 x 10 inches | 144 pages | 93 black and white photographs | Temple University Press, 1989 | Builder Levy | $25

Images of Appalachian Coalfields was probably the very first photobook specific to Appalachia I ever bought. In late 2009, I saw Levy's picture of Chattaroy, West Virginia native Nimrod Workman in Coal Country: Rising Up Against Mountaintop Removal Mining, the companion book to the documentary film, and wanted to know more about the photographer who'd photographed in my home town. Chattaroy isn't exactly that widely known (or photographed). An online search about Levy led me to his book, which I ordered right away.

When the book arrived, I sat down and pored over the pages and examined each photograph looking for more pictures from Chattaroy. Then, I noticed several pictures were made at Eastern Coal Company in Stone, Kentucky across the Tug River in Pike County. My pawpaw, Cecil May, was a mine foreman and worked underground for Eastern for over 40 years. I just knew I was going to see him in one of Levy's photographs. Well I didn't see my pawpaw, but I decided to email Levy to thank him for making the work and tell him the story about my connection to Chattaroy and Eastern Coal Company. That email struck up a conversation, which developed into a friendship. Later this month, I'll get to meet Builder Levy for the first time at the 2016 Appalachian Studies Association conference in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, where I'll be part of a panel with Levy and Dr. Sylvia Shurbutt of Shepherd University.

Images of Appalachian Coalfields begins with a powerful combination; a foreword by Cornell Capa, the brother of Robert Capa (yes, that Robert Capa) and an introduction by Dr. Helen Matthews Lewis. The introduction, twenty-two pages long, should be required reading for anyone making work in Appalachia. It's broken out by themes of work, community, and legacy, which sets the structure of how the photographs are presented (in identical sections). Lewis sets up the work with the care and scholarship anyone familiar with her work would expect, ending with, "The current plight of mining communities is strong evidence that the enrichment of the coal producers has resulted in the impoverishment of the region and its people."

The photographs from Levy's first book were made between 1968 and 1982. He started making pictures in Appalachia when he took a 10-day trip to Boone, North Carolina. On his return to New York, he made a detour through Mingo County and stayed with a VISTA worker who introduced him to some local folks. Working slowly over time and returning to the coalfields often, Levy began to build the body of work that would eventually become Images of Appalachian Coalfields.

One of the important things I gleaned from my early conversations with Levy was how important it was to him to give back prints. It's something I started incorporating into my practice because of him. I've given away at least three copies of this book (as well as Rob Amberg's Sodom Laurel Album, which I'll write about later) as examples of the kind of work I want to see more of, that I feel we all need to see more of. This isn't a book any MTV producer referenced as an idea for a new show. Instead, it's a deliberately slow an quiet approach to telling a story with grace and intention.

From the dust jacket: "Levy describes the sometimes mixed reaction he received from miners, foremen, and company guards at various mining sites. By "reading" the images, one senses that he did no simply gain access to witness but fully participated in the daily "mantrips," the comfortable hospitality, the unity of miners surfacing after a long day underground. Images of Appalachian Coalfields forces the reader to confront the life of a mining community, to recognize the faces of struggle, camaraderie, defiance, endurance, and to admire the intense vision of a photographer whose love of subject pays homage to the human spirit."

I've selected some of my favorite spreads from the book and included the caption information.

Spread one, pages 42 and 43. Left: Loaded coal cars in the mines, drawn by animals or men years ago, are now moved or "hauled" by motorized vehicles called "motors." (One of Eastern Associated Coal Corporation's mines; Boone County, West Virginia, 1982) Right: Several years after he was photographed, Andrea Kosto was killed by a large piece of slate that fell as he was trying to locate an obstruction under the loading tipple. (Sycamore Mining Company; Cinderella, West Virginia, 1971)

Spread two, pages 50 and 51. Left: Workers emerge form the mine at shift's end. (Wolf Creek Colliery; Lovely, Kentucky, 1971) Right: Since the late nineteenth century, Black miners have been among the leaders in the struggle to defend and expand the rights of all coal miners. (Old House Branch Mine, Eastern Coal Company; Pike County, Kentucky, 1970) [Editor's note: although not originally identified in Images of Appalachian Coalfields, the miner's name is Toby Moore. He appears on the cover of Levy's third book, Appalachia USA.]

Spread three, pages 68 and 69. Left: Lee Holt's doorstep. (Chattaroy, Mingo County, West Virginia, 1971) Right: Donna Muncy. (Crum, West Virginia, 1970)

Spread four, pages 80 and 81. Left: Charles Blevins' collection of musical instruments, mining tools, Indian gourds, and army weapons hangs on the wall of his Red Robin Inn, a small roadstop. (Borderland, West Virginia, 1971) Right: Retied miner Nimrod Workman, noted activist and writer and performer of mining songs, gave his support to this project, introducing me to miners and finding me a place to stay. (Chattaroy, Mingo County, West Virginia, 1972)

Spread five, pages 110 and 111. Left: View from Highsplint bridge. (Harlan County, Kentucky, 1974). Right: Williamson, "Home of the Billion Dollar Coalfields." (Mingo County, West Virginia, 1972)

Long out of print, you can pick up a used copy of Images of Appalachian Coalfields relatively inexpensively online from a number of sites. I highly recommend this book.

Review - Faith, Serpents, and Fire: Images of Kentucky Holiness Believers

Hardcover| 9.5 x 9 inches | 128 pages | 88 black and white photographs | University Press of Mississippi, 1999 | Scott Schwartz | $25

"And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Mark 16:17-18, King James Version

As far back as I can remember, well before picking up a camera, I've been fascinated by the serpent-handling faith. This religious tradition has long been ridiculed and used as an example to highlight the Appalachian backwoods stereotype. I've wanted to photograph these services for a while now and though I'm far from the religious upbringing of my Appalachian childhood, I look forward to photographing in this community at some point. Why? I'm simply fascinated by an obedience that would call one to take up a serpent as an act of worship. I'd like to photograph these services as a celebration of faith and tradition.

It's important to not just view this book as a serpent-handling album. Schwartz goes much deeper, writing at length about other pentecostal holiness practices, which are equally as fascinating to me: speaking in tongues, foot washing, and singing are just as much a part of this book as serpent handling. And Schwartz is surprisingly reflective about his time spent documenting these practices (from 1992 to 1994). He writes, "I think about how pervasive the music is, about how every cell in your body is shocked by a spiritual presence, about how the handling of serpents and the anointing are seamless. The music and the Holy Spirit are at one. Where does the music stop and the spiritual anointing begin?"

I picked this book up at the 2013 Appalachian Studies Conference in Boone, North Carolina. At the same time, I was reading Dennis Covington's fabulous 1995 book Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia (which Schwartz lists in his bibliography). One of the more striking passages from Convington's book is below, and as a photographer, I've mentally substituted 'photographer' for 'writer' and found it to be especially true:

"I believe that the writer has another eye, not a literal eye, but an eye on the inside of his head. It is the eye with which he sees the imaginary, three-dimensional world where the story he is writing takes place. But is also the eye with which the writer beholds the connectedness of things, of past, present, and future. The writer's literal eyes are like vestigial organs, useless except to record physical details. The only eye worth talking about is the eye in the middle of the writer's head, the one that casts its pale, sorrowful light backward over the past and forward into the future, taking everything in at once, the whole story, from beginning to end."

Before I continue, I should let you know that if you're expecting technically superb, sharp images from Schwartz's book, you'll be sorely disappointed. What the book lacks in technical merit, it more than makes up for with the supplemental text and depth of the work in its entirety. I appreciate the level of detail in the captions, too. Each caption includes an exact date and location.

Schwartz provides some detail about his photographic process in the introduction:

"The photographs were taken with 35mm, 400 ASA film, without flash, in an effort to intrude as little as possible upon the services. As a result, the film was "push-processed" two and three stops. The pronounced grain and the strient patterns of light in these images are the result of this process and of my desire to have the photographs represent the mood of the spiritual experiences. The photographs and essays record the complex and sometimes humorous social interactions that I encountered and provide an intimate glimpse into serpent-handling practices and beliefs, moving beyond the stereotypes of Appalachian snake charmers and fire eaters to illustrate the deeply personal and communal spirituality that is an integral element of the services."

It's clear to me that though Schwartz took a scholarly approach to the fieldwork conducted for this book, much like Covington's journalistic approach to Salvation on Sand Mountain, both men experienced far more than they bargained for. I don't think it was an accident that I discovered these two books at roughly the same time I began researching this community with hopes of making pictures. Together, these books have helped reinforce my interest in the subject and my desire to experience the community firsthand.

Schwartz writes, "Everything seems so natural, yet the media's blitz about a recent serpent-handling fatality paints a much darker and more sinister picture of these people. However, I am drawn by a brighter image." It's usually then, and only then, that the media's attention is on this tradition. It's important to note that this isn't a widespread Appalachian religious tradition contrary to popular belief. However, when there are fatalities, such as Mack Wolford in West Virginia in 2012 and Jamie Coots in Kentucky in 2014, the notion that serpent handling is a common part of worship in rural churches throughout Appalachia is once again perpetuated.

Another passage from Salvation on Sand Mountain:

"It's not true that you become used to the noise and confusion of a snake-handling Holiness service. On the contrary, you become enmeshed in it. It is theater at its most intricate - improvisational, spiritual jazz. The more you experience it, the more attentive you are to the shifts in the surface and the dark shoals underneath. For every outward sign, there is a spiritual equivalent. When somebody falls to his knees, a specific problem presents itself, and the others know exactly what to do, whether it's oil for a healing, or a prayer cloth thrown over the shoulders, or a devil that needs to be cast out."

I think this is a fine addition to any collection of books about Appalachia and highly recommend it.

(Editor’s note: a version of this review appeared on my blog on 14 April 2013. I bought several copies of this book for $5 each at the Appalachian Studies Association conference. Used copies can be found online for a similar price.)

Review - New Deal Photographs of West Virginia 1934-1943

Hardcover| 8 x 9.5 inches | 240 pages | 150 black and white photographs | West Virginia University Press, 2012 | $29.99

(Editor's note: a version of this review appeared on my blog on 2 December 2012. I received a free review copy from West Virginia University Press.)

Between 1934 and 1943, ten photographers: Elmer “Ted” Johnson, Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, Arthur Rothstein, Carl Mydans, Edwin Locke, Marion Post Wolcott, John Vachon, John Collier, Jr., and Arthur Siegel, visited West Virginia as part of Roy Stryker’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographic unit. The FSA’s primary attention during this time was on the northern and southern coalfields, the three subsistence homestead communities (Arthurdale, Eleanor, and Tygart Valley), and two wartime assignments in Nicholas and Mason counties.

What Betty Rivard, a retired social worker and planner for the state of West Virginia, offers in this beautifully presented book, is a collection of images by photographers (whose work I know well) of West Virginia at a time I never knew. I’m fascinated with how others see my home state. None of these photographers are from West Virginia, yet they managed to capture its essence, its livelihood. Perhaps one of the things I appreciate most about these pictures is that they were made at a time when photographs weren’t nearly as a prevalent as they are today (Instagram, Facebook, and the like). Unlike the War on Poverty images of Appalachia, these pictures were made with a different intent, a different tone. I sense a true collective effort to document the people and stories of West Virginia when I look at these photographs and think about the photographers who made them. Rivard notes that, “The photographs in this book offer professional fine art photographs in support of these memories, snapshots, and stories.”

She continues:

“It is beyond the scope of this book to explore why, especially in the past fifty years, the state became a poster child for a culture of poverty. Unfortunately, the media have focused on poverty and exaggerated backwoods-type images as representative of West Virginia. These images have left terrible scars on a number of people who have grown up in the state. They also continue to bring harm through the perceptions that some outsiders have formed of the state and its citizens.”

Rivard does a more than fair job of including images from a variety of the photographers as well as the regions covered. As a Mingo County native, I was somewhat disappointed to not see any photographs of Williamson or outlying areas included in the Southern Coalfields section, given Mingo’s rich coal heritage and importance in the labor movement. But I admit my bias and am including an image below (not in the book) by Ben Shahn made in Williamson in 1935. Logan and McDowell counties are well represented in pictures by Ben Shahn and Marion Post Walcott.

New Deal Photographs of West Virginia is a brilliant book, extremely well edited and designed. The photographic reproductions are sharp and well printed and with every image, the Library of Congress negative file number is included, which makes finding them online incredibly easy. I hope in the few years since this book was published that every county library and school in West Virginia has a copy. It is a treasure, and not in photographs alone. I can only hope for a second volume.

Betty Rivard is an award-winning fine art landscape photographer. She has researched and coordinated three exhibits of FSA photographs of West Virginia and contributed to articles about the FSA Project to Wonderful West Virginia, Goldenseal, and West Virginia South magazines. She is a Social Worker Emeritus and traveled to every county in West Virginia during her 25-year career as a social worker and planner with the state.

Here are a few of my favorites from New Deal Photographs of West Virginia:

1. Wives of coal miners talking over the fence. Capels, West Virginia. Marion Post Wolcott. September 1938. LC-USF34-050260-E. 2. Miner (Russian). Capels, West Virginia. Marion Post Wolcott. September 1938. LC-USF33-030077-M1. 3. Men in Sunday clothes with miners’ clubhouse in the background. Omar, West Virginia. Ben Shahn. October 1935. LC-USF33-006200-M1. 4. Coming home from school. Mining town. Osage, Scotts Run, West Virginia. Marion Post Wolcott. September 1938. LC-USF34-050352-E.

Very special thanks to Elaine McMillion, director of Hollow: An Interactive Documentary, for arranging a review copy of New Deal Photographs of West Virginia.

Appalachia Photobook Friday - Expanded

In 2015, I started sharing photobooks about Appalachia via Instagram every Friday (well, almost every Friday). I wanted to use the photo-based social media platform to share some of the books from my collection and to sometimes deliver some brief thoughts about them. My collection isn't large by any means, but some of these books have had a profound impact on me as a photographer and as an Appalachian.

I love the tangible nature of books. Even today, with digital cameras, iPads, and everything being digital, I still prefer to read the paper, to handle prints, and to spend time with books, especially photobooks. There's something romantic to me about handling a book, spending time with it, noticing something on the third or fourth look that I missed on the first. Photographs live so differently in books that they do online or even on walls. There's something about the pace of looking through a book, being able to put it down and pick it up again that I find comforting and I connect with. Books are an art in of themselves.

In an effort to dig a bit deeper and formulate my thoughts a bit about each of these books, I plan to write a more in-depth, opinionated review here. Like the Appalachia Photobook Friday Instagram posts, I'll plan on publishing a review of each book on a Friday. My goal will be to keep the reviews under a thousand words, give or take, and to make this series available as a resource to anyone interested. In the interest of full disclosure, if books have been sent to me for review or as gifts, I'll state that clearly. I won't get anywhere near as in-depth as Jörg Colberg does over at Conscientious, but I'll be clear about my opinion and thoughts on each book.

I've been excited about the conversations started as result of me posting these books to Instagram. I'm also excited to discover new books, so if you'd like to recommend one, please do.

(Below is a screenshot of how the books appeared in my Instagram feed, but please note that I won't be posting reviews in any particular order.)