As It Was Give(n) To Me
Stacy Kranitz
For the past thirteen years, Stacy Kranitz has been making photographs in the Appalachian region of the United States. The result, As It Was Give(n) To Me, is her first monograph. It presents a intimate perspective on the Appalachian region.
Stacy Kranitz (born 1976) makes photographs in the documentary tradition. Kranitz was born in Kentucky and currently lives in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee.
The United States have a long tradition of social documentary photography. It refers to a socially critic genre of photography dedicated to showing the life of underprivileged or disadvantaged people. At its best, it aims to draw the public’s attention to ongoing social issues. One of the main examples is the photographic practice of the Farm Security Administration (FSA). It employed photographers such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks. They were hired to document rural poverty during the Great Depression (1929 – 1939).
Walker Evans portrait of Allie Mae Burroughs (1936), which is also in American Photographs, and Dorothea Lange’s photograph of Florence Owens Thompson (The Migrant Mother, 1936) both had a big impact. They became icons of poverty during the Great Depresson. The problem is that the people photographed are no longer regarded as individuals, but merely as illustrations of the social problem. In the case of poverty, people are reduced to only their economic identity. But they are so much more. Afterwards, Burroughs and Thompson, were not happy with the pictures. They considered the pictures to be untrue and believed they had been photographed under false pretenses. This feeling was reinforced by the success the photographers had with these photos.
At the moment the gap between rich and poor in America is widening again. Poverty is again an issue in the States. And several photographers pay attention to it. In American Geography, Matt Black shows poverty and what it does to a person. Very much in the tradition of the FSA and photographers like Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. In River’s Dream Curran Hatleberg focus on the community. He shows the hopelessness of life for young people who decide to remain loyal to their community.
In As It Was Give(n) To Me Stacy Kranitz takes an even broader angle. She wants to document a complete region: Appalachia. And not only the poverty, but as many aspects of life as possible. The history, the natural beauty of rolling hills and smoky mountains, the inhabitants, rural family life, the Native American tourism. And yes, also poverty and drug and alcohol abuse. Through this broad perspective, she wants to paint a “fair” portrait of the region that’s not only focused on poverty.
What helps is that she lives in Appalachia. She creates images from the perspective of a participant-observer. Not only her methodology is participatory, she appears several times in this book. Each chapter ends with a photo of Stacy Kranitz role playing a character, shot by one of her friends.
The Appalachia is an area devastated by the coal industry, which took valuable resources from the land and left his inhabitants impoverished. Inhabitants who are often typecast as down-and-out or undignified. Rather than reinforcing these stereotypes, Stacy Kranitz also wants to show other sides of life in Appalachia. As the narrative of As it Was Give(n) To Me unfolds, the book provides an intimate perspective on a region forced to transition away from coal extraction as its dominant source of economic stability.
As It Was Give(n) To Me is a hefty book of over 300 pages. The book is broken down in five chapters: Arrival, Exploration, Extraction, Mutiny and Salvation. The photos are not cheery and As It Was Give(n) To Me is not a cheery book. Dark undercurrents like memorials for fallen miners, black lungs, Confederate flags and meetings of Ku Klux Klan surface regularly. The photos are interpersed with text passages. It are excerpts of the weekly column “Speak Your Piece”, published in the Mountain Eagle Newspaper in Whitesburg, Kentucky, from 2009 to 2021. They provide more background to the pictures.
Does Krantiz manage to avoid the inherent problems of documentary photography? As the title already tells us, Krantiz acknowledges the subjectivity of her book, like any documentary book. And although her photos are beautiful, her visual language is conventional. Due to the broader perspective, the book also loses some of its power of expression. It seems that a great deal of effort has been made to make a book not about poverty alone. But that this has not been entirely succesful. Nevertheless, a highly recommended book.
As It Was Give(n) To Me
Photographer: Stacy Kranitz
Publisher: Twin Palms Publishers
Published in 2022, 1st edition 3000 copies
Clothbound hardcover, foil-stamped front and back covers
23 x 29 cm, 304 pages, 225 four color plates
Shortlisted for the 2022 Paris Photo – Aperture First Photobook Award