Alabama Tenant Farmers –Walker Evans (1936) Frank Tingle Family, Mills Hill, AL
(by Amy Phimister) They are not smiling this Alabama family photographed in sepia. There are five shabbily dressed figures on a shabbily built porch. Rocks hold up one section slats are jagged and gap holed dust everywhere heat everywhere a dog on its side mouth open to catch the closed air. The father is absent from the picture. Only his arm resting on a tenuous wooden support shows, yet he is the focal point for four of his children who gaze at him off to their right. They are all shaped by the dirt drained by this life. The eldest daughter dark haired like her siblings, tilts her head as she prettifies herself by running fingers through her hair. There’s an essence of sensuality. She peers at the photographer. She is marked by her part in this history. (http://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-review/alabama-tenant-farmers-by-amy-phimister) |