Let's Look at This

This isn't really a critical examination of a specific photograph, it's not in my "something to look at" series. I intend here to look at a grouping of photos to illustrate the kind of forensic things that can be done, and see how the narratives we invent for pictures work, a little.

John Edwin Mason, an academic out of UVA, Charolettesville, VA, is one of those guys who thinks about photography. His politics are, um, predictable let us say. Not wrong, by any means, but never very nuanced. He is also one of those academics who will tell you at length how critical context is to understanding photographs, and who will in the next breath prove his point by eliding as much context as he can from a photo so he can tell you a simplistic story about it.

He recently shared this photo, by Jack Delano, from the FSA archive:

John makes the completely accurate point that this is a dance posture that appears in a widely reproduced cartoon of "Jim Crow" and speculates that Jack Delano may have asked the prisoner to pose (but John knows perfectly well Delano did not, as we shall see.) He quotes from Delano's memoir, noting Delano's excitement and later feelings of guilt, and theorizing at length about them.

A follower cropped out the face of one the men who is clapping, the bald fellow in the foreground here, and remarks "His face says it best" which we will revist.

Let's back up a little.

Delano's memoir was written more than 50 years after this photo was taken, and as such is a little suspect. He refers to the prison camp as "the county jail" repeatedly, which it isn't, and he describes his experience photographing the dancer as "snapping pictures as fast as I could" when in fact he's using flash bulbs and some kind of rollfilm camera. While he probably was working as fast as possible, the rate would not in fact have been that fast, at least not in modern terms.

It is in the nature of these things that if Delano had all the details right, it would be surprising.

His testimony as to his excitement at taking the pictures, and the later guilt he experiences, is indeed the best we've got, but we should treat this testimony with a little care, and not as gospel truth.

From the FSA archive we can deduce that Jack showed up at the prison camp with at least three cameras, as off-camera flash holder, and the relevant cords and things. He is kitted out. There are 35mm photos of... nothing. Just prisoners standing around, apparently at the Warden's funeral. Really blah photos. There are sheet film photos (a Graflex or similar, maybe?) and a series of roll film frames. Many of the photos are of this same room, from a couple of angles.

These are some of the sheet film photos. Starting with some views from outside, behind the dancer. There is a paint can on the stove which serves as a reference point. It is difficult to spot in these two photos, but visible. The light in all the sheet film is probably from an on-camera flash holder, slightly above and offset from the lens.

Here you can see the stove and paint can. Note that the stovepipe runs toward the camera. To the right of the frame is a washroom area:

The camera pulls back slightly and swings right, more toward the washroom area:

Two views of the washroom area, where we see men in fact "washing up:"

Here we are back to the stove with the paint can, and then the camera swings to the left to take in the wall opposite the washroom area. Note the articles of clothing hanging on the pillar:

The establishes the general shape of the room, from one end, the end Delano (apparently) entered through. Washroom right, stove in the center of the room with the paint can on it, various beds, hats and cups hung on the walls. This appears to be a dormitory space of some kind, men are relaxing it, perhaps washing up after working or eating (the series does contain what appears to be men eating in a mess hall arrangement, so a post-meal washup is plausible).

Onwards to to the roll film. These are shot from the other end of the room. The stovepipe runs away from the camera, although the paint can is still visible on the stove suggesting that these were likely shot on the same visit. A short interval of days between is maybe plausible. Notice that the light is off to the side, one side or the other. Delano mentions that he had the guard hold an "extension light" here. At a guess, he is replacing flash bulbs in a handheld light thing at every exposure.

The photographer and the guard/light stand switch places, and our bald friend is now lying down on the cot.

Note that our bald friend is not consistently looking unhappy:

Try as I might, I am unable to put these things in any order. Sleeves are not noticably unrolling, background objects are not being moved around, there are no particular tells of time passing. Where there are clues, they suggest very little passage of time, minutes or seconds, rather than hours or days. But the clues are a bit thin.

I rather imagine that Delano approached, shot some sheet film on the way in. The guard offered to get the guys to dance, and Delano switched to his roll film camera, and shot (finished?) a roll of film. It could easily have been the other way around. There may be more photographs of the dancer in the archive, but I can only locate these six. Working with the flash bulbs and the roll film camera I don't see how that takes less than a minute, which feels about right for the sequence we're looking at, but of course it could have gone on for much longer.

We can eliminate the hypothesis that the bald guy was protesting visibly. He was not, the apparent expression — so appropriate and legible here in 2020, and so unlikely in a 1941 prison for black men — is a momentary passing expression rather than a sour glare at the photograrapher. He is at least feigning enjoyment. Indeed, all the men either are enjoying themselves, or are faking it convincingly.

It is tempting to suggest that this was a "welcome moment of respite" or something, but we see in the surrounding pictures that these guys are already on break. They have not been taken from hard labor to perform, they're relaxing in their dormitory space.

Comparing the expressions of the men on the sheet film, with the men during the dancing sequence, it's not unreasonable to guess that they are enjoying the music and the dancing. The guitarist is, evidently, Buddy Moss, a blues guitarist of some note who was serving time for (allegedly) murdering his wife. We may assume the music was good.

We can tell that the dancer was likely not posed, this is an active sequence. Men are clapping, his feet are moving. It is possible that Delano might have called out the pose by name or gesture as a request? Possibly also the dancer threw it in as an expected pose for the white photographer. It's also possible that it's just a dance move. We do not know, and it is unknowable.

The space was cramped, as we can see from the other photos. The photographer is crammed up against walls, trying to get enough space to work. There's not much light inside here, the scenes are entirely lit by flash bulb. The space behind the grates on the wall behind the dancer, which I think is outdoors (?), appears black.

What we can surmise is that the men have entered their dormitory after being outside of it, and are presumably expecting to be locked up. There is visible "washing up" and then the men are sitting, standing, lying around, being photographed which does not seem to delight them. The dance sequence involves a radical change of mood, either they cease to much mind the violent pops of the flash bulb, or are able to ignore them.

Is this some kind of happy negro, jes' ever so happy to be dancin'? Fuck no, he's in prison. Is this a pleasant bit of entertainment for a moment? Maybe. It's entirely possible Buddy Moss was not permitted to play music just any old time. Is it possible that they're pretending to be in a good mood, at the behest of the guard? Yeah, possible.

What this could be is anything whatsoever. What it appears to be is something like this. Photographer and his fixer show up to take some pictures. The guard says hey the guys are just coming back from fixing roads, they'll have a meal and then go on into the dorm to be locked up for the night (possibly with more colorful language) so they collectively decide to shoot that. Delano, fixer, guard shoot sheet film of guys eating, guys entering the dorm, guys washing up. The guys are like 'what the fucking hell' but they more or less hold their peace because, guard.

Guard says hey Billy show these guys a dance, Buddy can play so they do that, and there's some combination of 'what the fucking hell' and 'this is nice' because the photographer, his fixer, and the guard suck but Buddy's pretty good with the guitar and Billy's fun to watch. Smiles and clapping for a few minutes, because prison sucks but this is ok.

Then it's all over, the photographer, his fixer, and the guard fuck off locking the dormitory on the way out, the end. Maybe Buddy plays some more, maybe he doesn't.

In the absence of strong evidence to the contrary, what it appears to be is your best guess at what it actually was.