Debbie Fleming Caffrey

Out of the Shadows, a documentary about Debbie Fleming Caffery, is a wonderful film. It explores the life and career of photographer Debbie Fleming Caffery. Caffery started her career photographing the sugar cane harvests in southern Louisiana, and she soon began taking stunning portraits of sugar cane workers. After taking photographs of the harvests for many years, she was attracted to a small shotgun shack across from a refinery she was photographing. Eventually, she met the owner of the shack, Polly, and began photographing her on a regular basis. Her photographs of the refineries at night were ominous, but the photographs of Polly in her dimly lite home were strikingly powerful, with a tremendous connection between photographer and subject. When she took these photographs to various museums in New York, they were immediately purchased by them, helping to establish her reputation.

After Polly passed away, Caffery joined an evacuation bus chartered by the Reverend Jessy Jackson to rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina from the 9th ward. Caffery was so affected by those survivors that she wanted to document their home, and went to the 9th ward to photograph it. She took an amazing number of images of the 9th ward and the people who remained there. She began to develop an ability to show the soul of her subjects, showing both a sense of loss, but also a sense of hope.

After taking photographs in the 9th ward, she went to Mexico, at first photographing children and the various people she met there, but then starting to photograph prostitutes in the brothels of the town, capturing both their beauty and humanity.

Caffery has an amazing ability to capture the suffering, humanity, and hopes of her subjects, and is a modern day Dorthea Lange, although her subjects seem to be far more human than the icons of Dorothea Lange's portraits. She is truly an amazing photographer.

Shelby Lee Adams

The documentary "The Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams" is both fascinating and disturbing. Adams grew up in Appalachia and has centered his career on photographing the people of the region, most of them extremely poor. The documentary focuses on Adams photographing families he has known for many years. Critics say that he is simply taking sensationalized photographs that perpetuate hillbilly stereotypes. He arranged for a minister to buy a hog that a poor family butchered, recreating events that took place when Adams was young and providing a tremendous photo opportunity. The picture of this family standing in front of the butchered hog, with the hog's severed head in a bucket, at their feet, is stunning. In fact, all of the images in this documentary are stunning. A photograph taken at a funeral, showing what was happening in two rooms at the same time is wonderful.

The hardest part of this documentary was looking at the photographs of the retarded children of a family Adams knows. The images are so disturbing, they are very hard to look at. The critics say that these images perpetuate the stereotype of in-breeding. Although the images are difficult to look at, there is no denying their impact on the viewer. I believe that Adams chose these subjects because of the incredible impact they have, but on the other hand, photographers have always looked for strong subject matter, and showing these images truly does emphasize the poverty and hardship that exists in this region.

One woman featured in the documentary was extremely angry at Adams for taking a photograph of her young sister, hair unkempt, arms folded over a broken screen door. She says it makes her family look like poverty stricken Appalachians, perpetuating a stereotype, but Adams says it was simply a great photograph. I have to agree with this. It was a wonderful photograph, and looking at it, I did not think of poverty in Appalachia, but just that it was a beautiful photograph of a child.

In conclusion, I am sure that Adams choose his subject matter for the impact it would have. But on the other hand, this is a true representation of real families in this region, and a record of their lives. I have to agree with Adams that it is a worthy subject.