A Natural Order of Relationships
July 13, 2012 8:06 PM Subscribe
Lucas Foglia's new book, A Natural Order, is a collection of photographs he took in off the grid communities in Appalachia. Foglia is the son of "back to the earth" parents who farmed, and continue to farm,on Long Island. But the communities he pictures are a step beyond that. You can view some of the beautiful, yet occasionally disturbing, photographs here. Note-a few show nudity.
It is also worth looking at his other collection,Front Country, which shows communities where change is occurring in the ranching and mining areas of the American West.
I love the photo of them using an old Toyota to plow. And the bear carcass looks disconcertingly human, as they always do.
posted by Forktine at 8:19 PM on July 13, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Forktine at 8:19 PM on July 13, 2012 [1 favorite]
Yeah, there's something about the muscles of his arm and shoulder aiming the bow that makes you feel that's what a back's for. Interesting set. I wonder how he got to know the communities --- they appear to be a mixed bunch.
posted by Diablevert at 8:25 PM on July 13, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by Diablevert at 8:25 PM on July 13, 2012 [2 favorites]
Wow. Wow. The photos are exquisite and fascinating. Thank you for posting this, Isadorady.
posted by isogloss at 8:30 PM on July 13, 2012
posted by isogloss at 8:30 PM on July 13, 2012
Interesting too that he didn't seem to visit Short Mountain Sanctuary. Maybe they weren't radically off-the-grid enough for him, but they're pretty much back-to-the-land, in their own little fey faerie way.
posted by hippybear at 8:31 PM on July 13, 2012
posted by hippybear at 8:31 PM on July 13, 2012
Looking at the photos, I can't help but think about how these kids are raised vs urban kids. Just who is the richer and who is the poorer for their experiences? I value education and despise deliberate ignorance, but dang if there isn't a lot of that going around downtown, too.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:17 PM on July 13, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by BlueHorse at 9:17 PM on July 13, 2012 [2 favorites]
These are 100% terrific, thank you so much for posting them here. After the profusion of terrible "street photography", and bad, pseudo-ethnographic rubbish out there, the simplicity of these photos really shows how to do it right.
posted by smoke at 9:21 PM on July 13, 2012
posted by smoke at 9:21 PM on July 13, 2012
The photograph of the girl at the blackboard (37) is astonishing. It's like an x-ray of a certain kind of American cultural moment... and the REM quote just makes it more extraordinary.
Some of the photographs look like they could have been taken a thousand years ago-- the huts in the forest in particular.
posted by jokeefe at 9:56 PM on July 13, 2012 [2 favorites]
Some of the photographs look like they could have been taken a thousand years ago-- the huts in the forest in particular.
posted by jokeefe at 9:56 PM on July 13, 2012 [2 favorites]
Bear Poisoned by Neighbors is my favorite.
Does the carcass just lay there intact losing its hair because animals can smell the poison? Or, like humans, does the entire animal kingdom dislike bear meat?
posted by dongolier at 10:34 PM on July 13, 2012 [1 favorite]
Does the carcass just lay there intact losing its hair because animals can smell the poison? Or, like humans, does the entire animal kingdom dislike bear meat?
posted by dongolier at 10:34 PM on July 13, 2012 [1 favorite]
I love how it shows the point where conservative religious groups and back to the earth hippie types intersect. And both at their most virtuous, somehow.
posted by BinGregory at 10:35 PM on July 13, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by BinGregory at 10:35 PM on July 13, 2012 [2 favorites]
wow. lovely and disconcerting. definitely loved the homeschool blackboard, and the little hut with animal skins on the ground. looked comfy.
posted by windykites at 3:27 AM on July 14, 2012
posted by windykites at 3:27 AM on July 14, 2012
jokeefe: i think 37.jpg is staged, so i really dont know what to think.
as much as i love naked or Amish-garbed appalachian folk, Foglia's Wyoming photography is even better! (its not so "high concept")
posted by dongolier at 3:33 AM on July 14, 2012
as much as i love naked or Amish-garbed appalachian folk, Foglia's Wyoming photography is even better! (its not so "high concept")
posted by dongolier at 3:33 AM on July 14, 2012
The blackboard turned this from "neat. going about halfway from where I am to where they are would be pretty cool." to "I hope they get the mental help they need."
posted by DU at 4:44 AM on July 14, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by DU at 4:44 AM on July 14, 2012 [2 favorites]
Lovely, sensitive, thoughtful and artistically worthy work. Thanks so much for sharing.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:30 AM on July 14, 2012
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:30 AM on July 14, 2012
I love how it shows the point where conservative religious groups and back to the earth hippie types intersect. And both at their most virtuous, somehow.
Doing their own thing, out of everyone else's hair.
posted by AdamCSnider at 6:54 AM on July 14, 2012 [2 favorites]
Doing their own thing, out of everyone else's hair.
posted by AdamCSnider at 6:54 AM on July 14, 2012 [2 favorites]
These are shockingly good - thanks so much.
posted by Jody Tresidder at 7:54 AM on July 14, 2012
posted by Jody Tresidder at 7:54 AM on July 14, 2012
Evocative and haunting. I am flushed with nostalgia, aware of the road taken.
The photographs let an outsider see intimacy in context, without having to put the loose ends together.
posted by mule98J at 10:17 AM on July 14, 2012 [1 favorite]
The photographs let an outsider see intimacy in context, without having to put the loose ends together.
posted by mule98J at 10:17 AM on July 14, 2012 [1 favorite]
Forktine writes "I love the photo of them using an old Toyota to plow. "
The part I don't understand is if you are going to use an engine to pull your plow why not setup a plow that doesn't require you to walk behind it. Especially since that truck should have more than enough power to pull multiple mouldboards. Maybe the truck was an emergency stand in for a preferred draught animal.
posted by Mitheral at 10:21 AM on July 14, 2012
The part I don't understand is if you are going to use an engine to pull your plow why not setup a plow that doesn't require you to walk behind it. Especially since that truck should have more than enough power to pull multiple mouldboards. Maybe the truck was an emergency stand in for a preferred draught animal.
posted by Mitheral at 10:21 AM on July 14, 2012
Yeah I have to say of all the decisions made the truck made the least sense to me. A 16 horse diesel tractor would basically run for a million years with parts you could repair with even the worst welding skills. But maybe they just have the one field and the one crop and it's something like that watermelon that needs uber wide spacing and not much care. You sure won't see the Mennonites plowing with a truck; they'd use a team of horses or a tractor.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:55 AM on July 14, 2012
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:55 AM on July 14, 2012
“Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.”
“Good heavens!” I cried. “Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?”
“They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”
“You horrify me!”
“But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.”
—
- The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, SIr Arthur Conan Doyle
posted by markkraft at 3:28 PM on July 14, 2012 [4 favorites]
“Good heavens!” I cried. “Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?”
“They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”
“You horrify me!”
“But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.”
—
- The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, SIr Arthur Conan Doyle
posted by markkraft at 3:28 PM on July 14, 2012 [4 favorites]
These are quite well done. I browsed through this with more interest until I got to "Lee Goes Hunting", and got the full "*there's* the ardent racist separatist with heavy artillery I've been expecting from this adventure". Undoubtedly, that's not the reason there are precisely zero non-caucasians in all of these photos, but I'll hazard a guess it's the reason in many of them.
posted by kjs3 at 12:03 PM on July 15, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by kjs3 at 12:03 PM on July 15, 2012 [1 favorite]
Photographer Eric Valli also did a series like this: Off the Grid.
posted by homunculus at 2:03 PM on July 15, 2012
posted by homunculus at 2:03 PM on July 15, 2012
homunculus- thanks for that link. I looked for it when I first saw these photographs and couldn't remember the photographer's name.
posted by Isadorady at 9:41 PM on July 15, 2012
posted by Isadorady at 9:41 PM on July 15, 2012
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posted by hippybear at 8:18 PM on July 13, 2012 [1 favorite]