Aaron Blum’s Appalachian mythology

10 January 2018   •  
Written by Fisheye Magazine
Aaron Blum’s Appalachian mythology

What would myths and folktales look like if they were photographs? With his The Prevailing Winds of Hills and Heritage series, Aaron Blum gives this question a very personal answer. Exploring the land and the culture in which he was born, the West Virginian photographer engraves an anthology of his own Appalachia.

The amber air of Appalachia is dense. The atmosphere is doused in legends, local traditions, and stereotypes from the outside. Stretching along the namesake mountains, Appalachia is a cultural region of the United States. It is what photographer Aaron Blum calls “the place where the prevailing winds whisper old stories to those who know how to listen”.

Blum belongs to the ethnic group of the Scots-Irish, the region’s first European settlers. “I am an eighth-generation Scots-Irish West Virginian and my wife is a twelfth”, he tells us, “so I have a deep family connection to this place and its culture.” After graduating from West Virginia University, Blum moved from his hometown to Pittsburgh. That is when he began to feel a profound attachment to his land, and an urge to dig into his roots and the myths that kneaded them.

Aware of the stereotypes that weigh on his homeland – 20th century yellow journalism depicted Appalachians as isolated, ignorant and violent – and of the idealized bias of his own perspective, Blum’s representation of the region is intensely symbolical. The shots are carefully crafted to condense the multilayered spirit of each object. Not only does Blum use an analog camera but he also deeply researches the subject before capturing it.

From "Born and Raised" © Aaron Blum
From “Born and Raised” © Aaron Blum
From "Born and Raised" © Aaron Blum
From “Born and Raised” © Aaron Blum

With the vision of a documentary, The Prevailing Winds of Hills and Heritage is rather a personal composition. Blum shoots real elements, but he arranges allegorical poses, waiting for the natural light to match with the slow pace of the atmosphere. In his study of mythology, Roland Barthes dismisses the relevance of truthfulness as a criterion to judge myth, and Blum also places meaning over verity. To him, photography itself cannot aim to be truthful – the simple act of framing has a selective bias. Storytelling, rather than documenting, is Blum’s photography’s real aim.

Matching the “feel” and the “look” is at the core of Blum’s approach. Photography allows him to craft his own mythology, his personal representation of the Appalachian identity. “In one aspect (photography) is a mirror for me to see myself and in another it allows me to understand cultural markers of a very misrepresented and misunderstood place” Blum tell us. While folktales usually exist orally, Blum’s intent is to add a visual record to such traditions.

All Blum’s series focus on Appalachian identity, but The Prevailing Winds of Hills and Heritage zooms specifically on the region’s storytelling traditions. The opening picture of the series is one of a children’s fables book, with a pressed flower resting on it. Blum composed this picture as the figurative entry point into his photographic anthology of Appalachia. “The book is a very old book of my mother’s, she collects very old copies of books especially children’s fables” Blum tells us, “And she often used pressed flowers as a bookmark”. Striped by a beam of warm sunlight, it is an apologue of folkloric narration and idyllic memory.

From "Born and Raised" © Aaron Blum
From “Born and Raised” © Aaron Blum
From "Born and Raised" © Aaron Blum
From “Born and Raised” © Aaron Blum

From "Born and Raised" © Aaron Blum

From "Born and Raised" © Aaron Blum
From “Born and Raised” © Aaron Blum
From "Born and Raised" © Aaron Blum
BethChicken 001

From "Born and Raised" © Aaron Blum

From "Born and Raised" © Aaron Blum
From “Born and Raised” © Aaron Blum
From "Born and Raised" © Aaron Blum
From “Born and Raised” © Aaron Blum
From Born and Raised © Aaron Blum
From "Born and Raised" © Aaron Blum
From “Born and Raised” © Aaron Blum
From "Born and Raised" © Aaron Blum
From “Born and Raised” © Aaron Blum

Images from “The Prevailing Winds of Hills and Heritage” © Aaron Blum

Explore
Ruinart: creativity and innovations
Ruinart: creativity and innovations
A champagne rooted in artThe Ruinart house of champagne was founded in 1729, during the rise of the Age of Enlightenment. In Europe...
09 October 2019   •  
Written by Lou Tsatsas
Adobe x Fisheye : visual trends of 2019 (1/5)
Adobe x Fisheye : visual trends of 2019 (1/5)
Fisheye Magazine has focused on two of the four visual trends of 2019, spotted by Adobe Stock: “disruptive expression” and “a return to...
22 March 2019   •  
Written by Fisheye Magazine
Alexis Vasilikos: "Balancing act"
Alexis Vasilikos: “Balancing act”
"We don’t necessarily need to identify with what we do. I like this freedom more than anything", says Alexis Vasilikos, a greek...
25 January 2019   •  
Written by Anaïs Viand
Fisheye 29 : under the cover
Fisheye 29 : under the cover
The young Charlotte Abramow – only 24 years old – has no limits and keeps succeeding in everything she undertakes: personal projects...
21 March 2018   •  
Written by Fisheye Magazine
Our latest articles
View all articles
Readers picks #355
Readers picks #355
Alexander Kaller and Stephen Sillifant, our readers picks #355, both escape the frenzy of our world to produce peaceful images – a...
30 August 2021   •  
Written by Fisheye Magazine
British seaside, round animals and Céline Sciamma: Max Miechowski's Chinese portrait
British seaside, round animals and Céline Sciamma: Max Miechowski’s Chinese portrait
Trained as a musician, British artist Max Miechowski turned to photography after a long trip to Southeast Asia. Portraits...
25 August 2021   •  
Written by Lou Tsatsas
Instagram selection #312
Instagram selection #312
Through portraits or landscapes, the artists of our Instagram selection #312 never stop experimenting. All of them seek new textures and...
24 August 2021   •  
Written by Joachim Delestrade
The labourer who turned mud into silver
The labourer who turned mud into silver
With Zilverbeek (Silver creek), Lucas Leffler explores the myth of a worker who made his wealth from the mud that lined the bottom of a...
23 August 2021   •  
Written by Finley Cutts