
          Land of Deepest Shade: An Interview with John McWilliams
          
            
              Rankin, TomTom Rankin
            
          
          Vol. 11, No. 5, 1989, pp. 10-14
          
          EDITORS' NOTE: "Land of Deepest Shade," an exhibition of
more than a hundred photographs by John McWilliams, is currently on
view at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. A book by the same
title--with an introduction by Theodore Rosengarten and more than sixty
of McWilliams's photographs--was published jointly by Aperture and the
High Museum of Art. "Land of Deepest Shade" is at the High Museum
through January 7 when it will travel to museums across the region and
the nation, including the Gibbs Museum in Charleston, S.C.; the
McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina in Columbia,
S.C.; and the Columbus Museum in Columbus, Ga.
          Southern Changes photo editor Tom Rankin discussed
the exhibition and the book with John McWilliams.
          How did you get to the South?
          When I got out of graduate school I kind of wandered around
aimlessly for about three years. I had jobs, but I didn't know how I
was going to deal with my photography and I think what I needed was a
kind of adventure, to take off somewhere. Jim Dow [Boston-based
photographer and Walker Evans protege] and I made a trip south. We

were gone for about a month. I had read a lot about the South, like
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. And Jim knew more
than I did about the region.
          I realized when I went back that I was really dissatisfied with
being up North. I looked around for different things and I eventually
got offered this job in Atlanta at Georgia State University teaching
photography. That was in 1969. I've been teaching there ever since.
          Do you remember your first successful pictures in the South?
          I think the first ones were when I started to go out into the
country and I initially photographed architecture. Those pictures
would lead me into pictures I really cared about, pictures about the
atmosphere, the architecture versus the vegetation. The conflict that
might exist there. And I remember going up to Roswell which is very
different now-I haven't been up there in years, but it was all very
wild then. Nowhere near the development that's up there now. I started
going out and exploring more. I was ranging farther and farther
away. Especially down to the coast. One thing about Atlanta is that
it's not a real magical place. And I think you have to go outside of
this city to really find these places where you get a sense of
history, of something more to the land than just development. When
things got really ridiculous in Atlanta I used to go to Savannah and
stay in this big old hotel. It's no longer there. I didn't know
anybody there. I would wander and photograph. I finally ended up in
McClellanville.
          How did you come on McClellanville?
          I was on the coast and, you know that Robert Frank photograph of
the barbershop? I always loved that picture. And I was looking at a
map and I found McClellanville. I said I have to go there. At that
time it was a sleepy little village tucked away from everything and
Highway 17 was still two lanes. So it still had a very mysterious
feeling about it. I drove into the village and the big live oaks and
the hanging moss was like I've never seen it since. The moss was so
thick that it was like curtains. And it was white. Now you think of
the moss as sort of gray. I'd never seen anything like
that. Never. And I've never seen it since. I wanted to move there. I
made a connection with this village. I'd never found anything quite as
special. There are other towns that are similar, but none quite the
same.
          In your acknowledgments you thank Greg Day for "opening my eyes at
the beginning." Who is Greg Day?
          Greg was an anthropology student at Georgia State. He took some
classes from me in photography. Greg is a very smart fellow. He had
been doing research with basketmakers in South Carolina. He eventually
moved down to Mt. Pleasant where many of the basketmakers live. Just
my dialogue with Greg over a number of years gave me much insight into
the South, the kind of diversity and the underlying currents that one
might not perceive right off, the decadence of some and also the
strong sense of history. Greg was really good at articulating these
things and we talked about it a lot. He and I used to go out and try
to find old plantation sites. There are some pictures in the book from
those times.
          Over the years you have photographed in other places besides the
South. When did you start to see the Southern pictures as parts of a
whole?
          I think back from the beginning when I was working with the 8 x 10
view camera I felt I was capturing a sense of atmosphere and a sense
of light about the region. And I always thought that sometime I would
pull that stuff together and make it into something. And when I had an
opportunity to do the show and the book I realized it was time. I have
fine pictures from Alaska and the British Isles, places up North, all
over, but I realized that I did not want to do a show or a book that
was my "greatest hits" over the years. I think that books that are
merely based on a chronology are not usually successful. And so I
wanted to concentrate on the Southern work.
          Some of the strongest work depicts the South's land-either in a
state of change or completely transformed, usually by man. When did
this work begin?
          Around 1975, maybe 1974. To me the whole involvement with
photographing the South has been an organic recognition. It started in
my own backyard, in my own tomato patch, making nude portraits back
there. Then I moved to the architecture, to ranging out more and more
and exploring and eventually to the land forms. At first the land
forms were pretty much piles and holes. I used to like to photograph
from out of the context of the bulldozers so that they had no scale
reference. This way they have other possibilities. Then as I moved out
I got more and more involved with landscapes.
          The photograph of the tree covered with cotton lint that's on the
cover of the book is central to your work. Did you happen on that sort
of image or were you out looking for them?
          I took that in '75 or '76. I was definitely looking for things like
that. I was on the road a lot and I was specifically looking for those
things. I had the sense of-I almost had a preconceived idea in my
mind-but it wasn't like I thought about it intellectually so much. But
I had this idea of looking out from underneath bridge abutments. And
that strong afternoon, golden light. Somehow being initiated from
these big concrete forms. And somehow trying to make sense out of all
that.
          The book and show begin with a real recognition of 

place and
history, reflective of an old South. But by the end you recognize and
deal with a much newer, different South. Where are the connections?
          Being in the South at that time I found things were changing
rapidly. You would go to these places and it was just startling
sometimes. The land was being completely transformed and changed. You
really didn't have to look very hard to find the juxtapositions of new
with the old, the scarred land of development and that sort of
thing.
          There's a photograph I have to ask you about. It's the image taken
in a prison where a black man is looking through the bars of his cell
and a white man in a shirt and tie sits on the electric chair. How did
that come about?
          When I was out traveling around I made a point to swing by
Reidsville State Prison which is way out in the country west of
Savannah. As I was driving around the prison outside of the barbed
wire I could look in and see those twisted bar bells. I felt like
photographing the prison was a really important thing. If you look at
it intellectually it can be a metaphor for what our society
represents, what is important, what is taboo. Our society is reflected
in the prisons.
          So I had won the Governor's Award in the Arts in 1975 or '74. So I
called up Governor Busbee's office and said, you've given me this
award, it establishes my credibility in the state, so therefore I want
you to get me into Reidsville so I can photograph. They bought that. I
had to write my reasons. And I had to go for an interview at the
Commissioner's office. A few months later-I had given up-this deputy
commissioner called me and said can you go in a couple of days. So he
came and picked me up and we stayed for three days.
          And they let me photograph anything I wanted to. And I went all
over, working with a 5 x 7 view camera. I wanted to deal with it as
landscape. And the one of the guy sitting in the electric chair came
from a kind of situation where a lot of times people just don't know
what you're doing. And they don't know you're taking their
picture. And it's funny how you can just mask it with activity. He was
sitting there in that chair, being real macho. He was an
administrator. He was sort of there while I was photographing. There
were two people with me at all times: the deputy commissioner and
somebody from the prison. And so this guy was there with me, he was
sort of haughty and acting real macho. It was a long exposure,
probably about a half minute. And it's one of those things where I
knew it was a good picture. I started talking to him while I was
making the picture so he wouldn't move. He didn't move. All the odds
are against you making such a picture, but somehow you can do it.
          You ended up buying land and building your own cabin in
McClellanville?
          I always kept coming back there. To me it's one of the few 

places
that is relatively wild. When I was doing the landscapes that deal
with analogy and irony I was really trying to make some sense of the
landscape outside myself. It was not so personally motivated, other
than that it was something I recognized happening in front of me. And
I wasn't alone in this. There were other people doing landscape
photography that were interpreting it in different ways, but basically
dealing with the same thing I was dealing with. But going back to
McClellanville, there's something very personal about that. About the
wildness of that landscape. The mystery.
          The title "Land of Deepest Shade" and the epigraphs for your book
come from the nineteenth century hymnal, The Sacred
Harp. How did you settle on that?
          I originally titled the book "Promise Land." But there was a lot of
resistance to that title, mostly because Aperture was publishing a
book that was very close to that title about Mexicans crossing the
border into America. So I started thinking about alternative
titles. And Kelly Morris (editor of the book and curator of "Land of
Deepest Shade") suggested I look to The Sacred
Harp. I had heard sacred harp singing when I had been with Kelly
in the past. Different functions that Kelly has had would always end
up with singing from The Sacred Harp. I was
familiar with it for a long time. And we discussed it. We re-read some
verses. And as soon as we read over "land of deepest shade" I knew it
was really important. Because it deals with the idea of light and the
sense of heavy shadows in the region, with the potential to reveal
things. So then we started thinking about the epigraphs. We went over
The Sacred Harp together and separately and came
up with a bunch of verses that we thought might be appropriate.
          What is Kelly's relationship to shape-note singing, to The Sacred Harp?
          He organized a sacred harp sing in Grant Park in this old
church. He invited me to come down there and said we'll sing "Idumea,"
the hymn that contains the verse "land of deepest shade." So I went
down there one Saturday morning and it's a thing that lasts all
day. They get pretty worked up. There are a lot of older people
there. Young people too, but a lot of old people. This is a tradition
that is fading. But these people came from all over to attend. And it
was wonderful. There was a leader of each hymn and that leader beats a
rhythm with his or her hand. And they start singing the notes -Do, Re,
Mi and so on-and sing the notes. And once they have gone through that
and everybody had gotten into it, then they would go into the
verses. It brings down the house. It's all part-singing. Just
beautiful. I had my kids with me and I really love that kid of
singing. I used to sing choral music and I love choral music. And this
is the root of it all.
          Land of Deepest Shade ends on the water. After
a strong series of pictures of land and of man's intemperance with the
land, what are we to make of the watery ending?
          I spend a lot of time on the water, on my boat. When I got out of
graduate school one I spent a year as a boat carpenter in Rhode
Island. I love boats. I love working on them. There is something about
building a boat where you really understand what's involved. You know
every nail that goes into it. It sort of gives you a sense of
confidence about what you can do with it.
          I was down in McClellanville for Hurricane Hugo and photographed
immediately after it. Obviously, Hugo has had an enormous impact on
the coast. And on me. I know it will affect how I see in the
future. Right after the storm when I came back to Atlanta is when we
had that four days of rain. And the rivers were starting to flood
out. I went around the rivers at the height of that. I just had this
burning desire to get out there. The rivers swollen, flooding. I don't
know what it all means. But I'm really drawn to it.
          I really want to make photographs that deal with the ocean. And
photograph it from the land, from the water. I want to photograph what
goes into it, what comes out of it. The kind of power that the ocean
has for us in terms of being a source of life. But also the sense of
the cesspool, the dumping ground that it can be. I really want to
explore that.
        