We Are All Local - Unknown

One day a few years ago, not long after Jamie began working with me, he was looking through contact sheets, familiarizing himself with my work. He found this photograph. I can't say it was one I had ever even looked at, much less thought about printing. Jamie said he liked it and was able to talk about why and his thoughts got my attention. We set out to scan and edit it.

At this point, I had no idea who the person in the photograph was or where I made it. For the longest time I thought it was taken over at Berzilla Wallin's house, during one of her homecomings. But her granddaughter, Lana Robinson, said she didn't know the woman and reminded me that Berzilla's house was log. 

It was a bit of a mystery to me. It was a singular negative - the negatives before and after it from two different situations where I knew the people or the place. I copied it to my ex wife thinking she might know who it was as the other images were of our home or with her good friend, Becky. She had no idea.

By now I had grown to like the image - the quietness of it, the easy posture, the far-away look - and see how it could easily fit with a current project I'm working on. But the project is particular to place and theme and how to include an image from an unknown origin of an unknown person I know nothing about.

I talk a lot about photography providing us with memories of our shared and personal pasts and I think that is so. But with this photograph, my memory fails me and I'm left wondering who is this person? who came into my life for 1/125th of a second and has never entered my mind again until now; and not as a memory, but only as a beautiful image.

We Are All Local - Belva

Last week after posting the image of my mother from 1942, there was a comment from a woman named Lana Robinson. I didn't know her, but have noticed over the last couple of years that she is a regular reader of my blog posts. In her comment she mentioned she was the baby in her family and her mother was Belva. I've only known one person in my life with the name Belva and that was Belva Cutshall, who was the daughter of Berzilla Wallin, one of my favorite Madison County people.

Lana moved  to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1971, which explains why I never met her since I didn't move here until 1973. She thought we had maybe met at Berzilla's or her mother's funerals, but I have no memory of it. 

In 1979, I was working on a Photo Survey grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The idea was to do a year-long look at the county and present the work in an exhibit at Mars Hill College. The entire project is now housed at the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. 

I didn't know Belva well. We would see each other at family decorations, or events where her mother and brother, Doug Wallin, were singing. But my memory of her is formed by this photograph I made at the Marshall Bypass in 1979 as part of the grant - genuine, easy to be around, direct and colorful. 

Photography has opened many doors for me. It has taken me places I wouldn't dream of going and introduced me to amazing people I never would have met otherwise. So, it fascinates me that forty-two years after meeting Berzilla, who was eighty-three when I met her, I find out her granddaughter, who I don't know, reads my blog. I think this speaks to how communication has changed during that time period; the technology has changed us. But also, I think it shows us how photography provides us with not only memories of our shared and personal pasts, but also offers opportunities to engage in the future.