Jack Martinez
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Responding to: “William Appleton and George Martin, Fisher Ferry Road, Warren County, Mississippi, 1963”
In his book, “The South in Color,” William Ferris divides the photographs he takes/captures/makes into three categories, including “Portraits” and “The Farm”. This photo, found under the category of “The Farm,” is of William Appleton and George Martin, two farmers living and working on the Ferris family’s land in Warren County, Mississippi.
Ferris notes that the images he shows are that of the south as he knew it, and it is worth noting that Ferris grew up on a farm his family owned, surrounded by tenant farmers, all acting as part of the tenant farmer system that replaced slavery and sharecropping in the south in the post civil war era. I tell you this just as background for this photo, and though this is the history of the area he grew up in, does not reflect the opinions of Mr. Ferris who has explained both in his book and in several interviews that he “participated in the civil rights movement” and that though he is proud of his southern heritage he does not accept the reality of it’s history (Ferris and Rankin). These parts of history, in relation to Mr. Ferris and the people he photographed, help shape his subjects’ roles in his view, and by extension subconsciously though it may be, the perspective of the shots he takes.
In this photo, Mr. Ferris presents a picture of his the south as he knows it. I can relate to this image through my own perception of the south, as it is a situation I have seen many times in my summers growing up in central North Carolina. In this photo I see strong farmers, working the land by hand with their tools. This method of farming in the time that the image was taken would have been merely considered low tech and low yield. This photo does not include any of the machines that would have been used for the newly mechanized cotton farming system in the south, and instead Ferris chose to capture the tools of a hardworking farming task, an action I infer is a reflection of his respect for the work that these men do.
I also see what appear to be some very tall cotton plants growing around the men, which is a portion of the image that I cannot relate to as well, because the few cotton farms that I have seen in North Carolina don’t grow in the same way. The cotton variety that is grown in the area of the south that I know, Stoneville, is shorter, plants in mechanically tilled rows, and is watered, fertilized, and harvested by large tractors and machines. The type of cotton commonly grown in Mississippi at the time, Deltapine, requires more intensive labor, though it is better adept to the region. This type in labor reminds me of the small pepper, and melon farms near where I grew up in Raleigh, NC. The tools, and manual labor suggest the themes of attention to detail, and artwork, which are the main themes this photo of farming in Mississippi, 1963 shows a boy who grew up in North Carolina in 2017.
The racial themes that this photo interest me as well. In Raleigh,the farmers I have visited are of all races, and I think that is true because raleigh has had a lot of immigration to the area in the last century. Rural Areas however have been slower to modernise, and often still carry traces of the racial segregation that was once very prevalent in North Carolina as well as the south as a whole. Another example of ties to slavery and racial segregation in the south in Ferris’ work, is that he is currently working at The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Center for the Study of the American South, located in the Love House, originally privately owned and donated to the university by a slave-holding widow Julia (“June”) Spencer Love. This relationship shows the deep rooted connections between the Ferris’ study of the American south, as well as, being a native southerner, his personal connections to it.
This time of farming however can be extended to go beyond racial analysis. Farming is in the south a symbol of hard honest labor. The food produced from small southern farmers is that out of a labor of love in their striving to grow the tastiest, freshest food to support their communities, as well as provide for their families. Farming has always connected the people to their land through the food they grow, and Bill Ferris’ documentation of the farmers that make up the south, is his way of explaining the connection between himself, his community and the land they have in common, all the while paying respect to the hard work they do.
Themes in other works:
Tim Barnwell also explores the theme of farming through his portraits in his book The Face of Appalachia. Barnwell sees many of the same thing seems as Ferris when he designs the portraits of the many farmers he met in the Appalachian mountain region of the South. He also uses many similar images such as farmers in their fields, very similar to the image I have been studying, as well as homemade quilts which are seen readily throughout Ferris’ documentation of life in the south. Barnwell however only photographs in black and white, and though I don't know his reasoning behind this, it is of stark contrast to Ferris’ work in his book, “The South in Color”. Both artists in the narratives that accompany their collections mention their respect for the hard work done by the farmers they photograph.
Southern photographer William Christenberry’s work is also closely related to Ferris’s photographs. Booth of these men photographed in the south in a time when because of the higher cost of production and publication, it was not common to photograph in color. Because of also the fact that they both photographed for decades in the south, the theme of change over time is seen throughout their work. Christenberry uses series of photos taken ten years apart to show the renovation and decay of many of the simple structures in the community of Alabama he grew up in. Both of these works show stark changes in the south over the last 50 years, and differ still from the way I see the south today.
I have chosen to respond to Bill Ferris' photo in the style of William Christianberry. My photo response is a photo of a storage shed on the Raleigh City farm. This shed is like many of Christenberry's photos in that is on a farm, and of a structure, raised by the farmers who work this land. there are many differences between the structures, one made of wood, and the other of modern vinyl, but they were both built by hand, and hold the tools for their farmers to make a living, and it's this sense of hard work, and resilience that lives on in the south.
Bibliography:
Mann, Charly. "Slavery In Chapel Hill." Chapel Hill Memories. http://www.chapelhillmemories.com/index/read_article/58?cat=14.
Ferris, William. "Confederate Flag Debate Symbolizes Rapid Change In The South." NPR. June 23, 2015. Accessed February 08, 2017. http://www.npr.org/2015/06/23/416910342/confederate-flag-debate-symbolizes-rapid-change-in-the-south.
Ferris, William R., and Tom Rankin. The South in color: a visual journal. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016.
"Most Popular Cotton Varieties." Most Popular Cotton Varieties for 2016 - Cotton Incorporated. Accessed February 08, 2017. http://www.cottoninc.com/fiber/quality/Crop-Quality-Reports/Cotton-Most-Popular-Varieties/.
"People & Events: Sharecropping in Mississippi." PBS. 2009. Accessed February 08, 2017. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/peopleevents/e_sharecrop.html.
Ferris notes that the images he shows are that of the south as he knew it, and it is worth noting that Ferris grew up on a farm his family owned, surrounded by tenant farmers, all acting as part of the tenant farmer system that replaced slavery and sharecropping in the south in the post civil war era. I tell you this just as background for this photo, and though this is the history of the area he grew up in, does not reflect the opinions of Mr. Ferris who has explained both in his book and in several interviews that he “participated in the civil rights movement” and that though he is proud of his southern heritage he does not accept the reality of it’s history (Ferris and Rankin). These parts of history, in relation to Mr. Ferris and the people he photographed, help shape his subjects’ roles in his view, and by extension subconsciously though it may be, the perspective of the shots he takes.
In this photo, Mr. Ferris presents a picture of his the south as he knows it. I can relate to this image through my own perception of the south, as it is a situation I have seen many times in my summers growing up in central North Carolina. In this photo I see strong farmers, working the land by hand with their tools. This method of farming in the time that the image was taken would have been merely considered low tech and low yield. This photo does not include any of the machines that would have been used for the newly mechanized cotton farming system in the south, and instead Ferris chose to capture the tools of a hardworking farming task, an action I infer is a reflection of his respect for the work that these men do.
I also see what appear to be some very tall cotton plants growing around the men, which is a portion of the image that I cannot relate to as well, because the few cotton farms that I have seen in North Carolina don’t grow in the same way. The cotton variety that is grown in the area of the south that I know, Stoneville, is shorter, plants in mechanically tilled rows, and is watered, fertilized, and harvested by large tractors and machines. The type of cotton commonly grown in Mississippi at the time, Deltapine, requires more intensive labor, though it is better adept to the region. This type in labor reminds me of the small pepper, and melon farms near where I grew up in Raleigh, NC. The tools, and manual labor suggest the themes of attention to detail, and artwork, which are the main themes this photo of farming in Mississippi, 1963 shows a boy who grew up in North Carolina in 2017.
The racial themes that this photo interest me as well. In Raleigh,the farmers I have visited are of all races, and I think that is true because raleigh has had a lot of immigration to the area in the last century. Rural Areas however have been slower to modernise, and often still carry traces of the racial segregation that was once very prevalent in North Carolina as well as the south as a whole. Another example of ties to slavery and racial segregation in the south in Ferris’ work, is that he is currently working at The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Center for the Study of the American South, located in the Love House, originally privately owned and donated to the university by a slave-holding widow Julia (“June”) Spencer Love. This relationship shows the deep rooted connections between the Ferris’ study of the American south, as well as, being a native southerner, his personal connections to it.
This time of farming however can be extended to go beyond racial analysis. Farming is in the south a symbol of hard honest labor. The food produced from small southern farmers is that out of a labor of love in their striving to grow the tastiest, freshest food to support their communities, as well as provide for their families. Farming has always connected the people to their land through the food they grow, and Bill Ferris’ documentation of the farmers that make up the south, is his way of explaining the connection between himself, his community and the land they have in common, all the while paying respect to the hard work they do.
Themes in other works:
Tim Barnwell also explores the theme of farming through his portraits in his book The Face of Appalachia. Barnwell sees many of the same thing seems as Ferris when he designs the portraits of the many farmers he met in the Appalachian mountain region of the South. He also uses many similar images such as farmers in their fields, very similar to the image I have been studying, as well as homemade quilts which are seen readily throughout Ferris’ documentation of life in the south. Barnwell however only photographs in black and white, and though I don't know his reasoning behind this, it is of stark contrast to Ferris’ work in his book, “The South in Color”. Both artists in the narratives that accompany their collections mention their respect for the hard work done by the farmers they photograph.
Southern photographer William Christenberry’s work is also closely related to Ferris’s photographs. Booth of these men photographed in the south in a time when because of the higher cost of production and publication, it was not common to photograph in color. Because of also the fact that they both photographed for decades in the south, the theme of change over time is seen throughout their work. Christenberry uses series of photos taken ten years apart to show the renovation and decay of many of the simple structures in the community of Alabama he grew up in. Both of these works show stark changes in the south over the last 50 years, and differ still from the way I see the south today.
I have chosen to respond to Bill Ferris' photo in the style of William Christianberry. My photo response is a photo of a storage shed on the Raleigh City farm. This shed is like many of Christenberry's photos in that is on a farm, and of a structure, raised by the farmers who work this land. there are many differences between the structures, one made of wood, and the other of modern vinyl, but they were both built by hand, and hold the tools for their farmers to make a living, and it's this sense of hard work, and resilience that lives on in the south.
Bibliography:
Mann, Charly. "Slavery In Chapel Hill." Chapel Hill Memories. http://www.chapelhillmemories.com/index/read_article/58?cat=14.
Ferris, William. "Confederate Flag Debate Symbolizes Rapid Change In The South." NPR. June 23, 2015. Accessed February 08, 2017. http://www.npr.org/2015/06/23/416910342/confederate-flag-debate-symbolizes-rapid-change-in-the-south.
Ferris, William R., and Tom Rankin. The South in color: a visual journal. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016.
"Most Popular Cotton Varieties." Most Popular Cotton Varieties for 2016 - Cotton Incorporated. Accessed February 08, 2017. http://www.cottoninc.com/fiber/quality/Crop-Quality-Reports/Cotton-Most-Popular-Varieties/.
"People & Events: Sharecropping in Mississippi." PBS. 2009. Accessed February 08, 2017. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/peopleevents/e_sharecrop.html.