Shelby Lee Adams
[Photographer, b. 1950, Hazard, Kentucky, lives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.]
[My] portraits are, in a way, self-portraits that represent a long autobiographical exploration of creativity, imagination, vision, repulsion and salvation. My greatest fear as a photographer is to look into the eyes of my subject and not see my own reflection.
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I’m pushing you, the viewer, and challenging you… By getting in there with the camera, by creating some distortions, I’m hoping to make everyone think. What is our job here as a human being? Stop making judgments and experience life.
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I photograph people who are in pain, and I don’t want to make that romantic and ideal when they’re suffering. I photograph them looking at the camera in a very straightforward way and present their humanity to you in as straightforward a way as possible… if we don’t explore the dark side of our own selves and our own culture, then we’re not growing.
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