Issue 34: The rural in photography

Photography is overwhelmingly an urban affair. I mean, how could it not be. Its invention is inextricably linked to the industrial revolution, colonial and imperial conquest and the rise of the cities. Bodies of work focused on the rural, especially the rural that is not made into an exotic other, are nonetheless out there if you bother to look.

The nice thing about Ghost service is that it treats this as a post rather than an email. So I am going to use that and create a running list of some of my favourite photobooks and visual stories that engage with the rural realities. Bookmark this and I will occasionally update it. Also, by all means, leave a comment with the suggestions of the work I missed or should look at and I will add it to the list.

▪️Books:

Paul Strand: Tir A'Mhurain: The Outer Hebrides of Scotland - If you can find the original from the 1950s, you'll notice that the photographs are exquisitely printed. The new edition leaves much to be desired. Here is a fascinating story about the making of that body of work and the book itself.

Paul Strand: Un Paese: Portrait of an Italian Village - You can find this remarkable book in online second-hand shops. It's not cheap, but given its importance in photographic history, that's not surprising. Here is a story about it and a selection of photographs.

Danny Wilcox Frazier: Driftless: Photographs from Iowa - This is a more contemporary work so luckily for us there are several videos of him talking about this body of work on the fabulous VII Foundation website (1, 2, 3). He does not shy from difficult conversations so there is discussion about addictions, mental health and rural suicide.

Matt Black: American Geography - I really like this work and I had pleasure of listening to Matt speak about it and I think he gets it. Here is a story on the Magnum website with more photographs.

Raymond Depardon: Rural - This book is just beautifully made and the photographs were different than what I expected from Depardon. Here is an interview with the photographer and another story on the Magnum website.

Larry Towell: Mennonites - I love this book, both for the amazing quality of the photographs as well as for the sheer dedication the photographer put into this project. Here is a bit more about it.

Jean Gaumy: Men at Sea - Talk about dedication! Years in the making, this is not so much about the rural as it is what we might consider the rural work - in this case fishing on the Grand Banks. Here is more photos from this gem of a book.

Rita Ostrovskaya: Jews in Ukraine - I really like this book for its approach and gentleness as it depicts the Jewish shtetls. There is an element of nostalgia here that would normally be off-putting, but Ostrovskaya pulls it off.

John de Visser (and Farley Mowat): This rock within the sea : a heritage lost - John de Visser is a Dutch Canadian photographer and these photographs from the middle of the 20th century along the South Shore of the island of Newfoundland are incredible. Here is a long review by Stuart Pierson (pdf).

Candace Cochrane: Outport: The Soul of Newfoundland - Another one from Newfoundland. We are incredibly lucky in this province that we always had photographers who engaged with rural regions.

Greg Locke (and Micheal Crummey); Newfoundland... Journey into a Lost Nation - As I said, lucky... Greg's a friend and the latest of photographers who deeply engaged with rural Newfoundland. We also published a zine together as a the first issue of Dispatch that you can still get through my website.

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings - She is known as a controversial photographer because of the family photos she made. I am more interested in some of the rural and battlefield landscapes. Here is an interview with Mann from some time ago in The Guardian.

Web stories:

Living with the Land: a series of stories on Magnum website.

Adali Schell: New Paris - This is a New Yorker story on the work of a young photographer documenting his small town in Ohio.

Paige Williams: The Last Generation - Another New Yorker story, this one based in Kentucky.

Reave Dennison: Inside BC's Perilous Forestry Industry - I think it's important to document rural work as much as it is important to document rural landscape. Kudos to Macleans for actually commissioning good photography.

▪️PhD readings

Ruth Beilin is an Australian researcher who used photo-elicitation (interviewing with photographs) method in her research around agricultural landscapes in Australia. The article "Photo‐elicitation and the agricultural landscape: ‘seeing’ and ‘telling’ about farming, community and place" is unfortunately not available as an open source, but if you have access or a friend with access to a university library, you can find it here. She found that using photographs during the interviews helped people talk about landscapes they have taken for granted in more informative ways that also allowed her participants to demonstrate their expertise as they provided descriptions of what they saw in the photographs. Beilin also writes about the importance of creating sequence of photographs that represent landscapes as complex places that bring together vision, labour and relationships developed within those landscapes. Interestingly, she still uses the photographs as mere illustrations to her article and we never get to see those sequences as a potential entry into that research project from a different and not necessarily words-based perspective.

▪️Things I made

One of the things I made is the Ghost based publication (Why are we not calling this a blog when that's what it is?). It has this newsletter that gets mailed to all of you, but it also contains other posts between the newsletters. Check it out.

Also, foto app now has a very nice web-based interface so I have been using it a lot more. (My photos tend not to live on my phone so working strictly with the mobile app was cumbersome.) It's really nice. Check it out. It's free to use for the basic service, but if you pay a small subscription, you get a few more interesting options. I've been supporting them from the beginning so for a VERY small subscription I get everything which is a nice bonus. If you are sick and tired of the other photo app, well... here is your chance to do something about it.

And there is a new episode of Futures Possible. And another one recorded so hopefully back on track in order to finish the whole season of, I think 12. Then I have an idea of what I'd like to do next with it for season 2...

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