American Folk by Lisa Elmaleh

Public Story

American Folk

Copyright Lisa Elmaleh 2023

Updated Jan 2017

Location Appalachia

Topics Landscape, Portraiture

Since 2010, I have been creating tintypes of musicians who play traditional American folk music in and around the Appalachian Mountains - West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. I travel out to the homestead of each musician, and spend a full day or more with each musician, documenting their likeness, their instruments, and the landscape that they reside in. Each 8x10 tintype plate is hand coated, exposed in a large format camera, and developed on-site in a small darkroom in the back of my pickup truck.

This music guides me visually "“ the portraits are traditional, with historical references, as the music is traditional. I am largely influenced by those who came before me - the Appalachian portraits of Doris Ullman, or the agricultural portraits and landscapes of Dorothea Lange. The tradition of American folk music echoes in the historic nature of the process I am using.

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