Art & Photography

A consideration of Appalachian photography books has to start with The Appalachian Photographs of Doris Ulmann (1971) taken by Doris Ulmann (1882-1934) in the 1930s.  Bayard Wootten (1875-1969) was another outstanding pioneering woman photographer of the region. She illustrated Cabins in the Laurel (1935) by Muriel Sheppard and From My Highest Hill (1941) by Olive Tilford Dargan. Joe Clark called himself the Hill Billy Sharp Shooter. He published Back Home in 1965. In contrast to Ulmann and Wootten, he was local - from the Cumberland Gap area. Even today our region is beautifully captured by both local photographers and those with roots elsewhere. Builder Levy is a New Yorker whose Appalachia U.S.A. (2013) is only one of his books depicting our region with dignity and professionalism. In contrast, Tim Barnwell – The Face of Appalachia (2003) – portrays Western North Carolina as a native, as does Dean Hill, a life-long Eastern Kentuckian – see Spirit of Appalachian Kentucky (2004).  Inexpensive picture books, especially of the areas that attract the most tourists, are readily available. In contrast the only signed copies available on the internet of The Unforeseen Wilderness (1971) - featuring Gene Meatyard’s photographs and Wendell Berry’s commentary on Kentucky’s Red River Gorge - were recently priced in four figures

-- George Brosi