Iconic Photos of the South Made New Through Digitization

March 27, 2018
Bayard Wootten

Bayard Wootten

Photographs by pioneering North Carolina photographer Bayard Wootten have been given new life thanks to author Jerry Cotten and the University Libraries’ Digital Production Center.

Convict laborers. Shelby County, Alabama, 1930s.

Convict laborers, Shelby County, Alabama, 1930s. Photo by Bayard Wootten. (Before digital clean-up.)
Click to zoom.

Convict laborers. Shelby County, Alabama, 1930s.

Convict laborers, Shelby County, Alabama, 1930s. Photo by Bayard Wootten. (After digital clean-up.)
Click to zoom.

Bayard Wootten was North Carolina’s most important photographer of the early 20th century. If you re-read that sentence, you’ll notice the absence of the word “woman.” Wootten’s importance is often framed in terms of her gender, but the qualifier is not necessary. Her work speaks for itself.

Over her career, Wootten produced photographs in a variety of styles. She began her career as a commercial photographer in New Bern and eventually traveled all over the Southeastern United States, ultimately producing more than a million images. Perhaps her most significant contribution to photography was the work she did documenting poor rural people during the 1930s.

In a 2011 interview with Our State magazine, author Jerry Cotten said:

She was photographing during the Great Depression and documenting that time period. She was very interested in photographing the common man and woman, both black and white, and this produced some really, really great images — some of her best work, in my opinion. I think, with her having grown up in New Bern, she certainly knew rural life well and appreciated it for its photographic value.

Cotten is the author of Light and Air, a biography of Wootten that was first published in 1998 and contains more than 130 of Wootten’s images. Those images came from the Bayard Morgan Wootten Photographic Collection in the Wilson Special Collections Library. Library staff worked from Wootten’s negatives to produce the printed images in the book. The painstaking work involved making multiple prints from each negative, using techniques photographers call dodging and burning to adjust the exposure for different parts of each photograph.

Light and Air was republished by UNC Press in 2017. Advances in digital photography – and the skill and patience of library staff – make the images newly vibrant, often revealing details that were invisible in the book’s first edition.

A youth. Sandy Island, South Carolina, ca. 1937.

A youth. Sandy Island, South Carolina, ca. 1937. Photo by Bayard Wootten. (Before digital clean-up.)
Click to zoom.

A youth. Sandy Island, South Carolina, ca. 1937.

A youth. Sandy Island, South Carolina, ca. 1937. Photo by Bayard Wootten. (After digital clean-up.)
Click to zoom.

For example, in the new edition of Light and Air, the subject of this photo of a youth on Sandy Island circa 1937 pops more noticeably from the background, and the texture of his skin and his shirt become more apparent.

Gathering tulips. Pinetown, North Carolina, 1930s. Photo by Bayard Wootten. Before digital clean-up

Gathering tulips. Pinetown, North Carolina, 1930s. Photo by Bayard Wootten. (Before digital clean-up.)
Click to zoom.

Gathering tulips. Pinetown, North Carolina, 1930s.

Gathering tulips. Pinetown, North Carolina, 1930s. Photo by Bayard Wootten. (After digital clean-up.)
Click to zoom.

Similarly, Wootten’s photo of people gathering tulips in Pinetown, North Carolina in the 1930s becomes significantly more vibrant.

This digital clean-up work was undertaken by the University Libraries’ Digital Production Center (DPC), the library department that digitizes visual materials. All full-time staff members in the DPC have photography backgrounds, and a project like this emphasizes the extent of their expertise.

To create new image files for Light and Air, DPC staffers Jay Mangum and Kerry Bannen put the negatives on a light box and photographed them using a Phase One P65+ digital back with a Schneider 72mm Apo-Digitar lens.

Digital negative capture set-up

An example of a digital negative capture system, although not the Phase One system used for this project. This is a Hasselblad H6D-100C with a 120mm macro lens. Photo by Kerry Bannen.

After capturing the negatives, Jay Mangum used camera software to reverse the tones, turning each negative image into a positive. Next, he spent a long time removing dust and scratches from the images. Mangum explained that the goal with dusting is to remove elements that have accumulated over time, but to leave intact elements that were part of Wootten’s original negatives (an emulsion chip, for example).

Costume maker for The Lost Colony drama, Manteo, North Carolina, ca. 1937.

Costume maker for The Lost Colony drama, Manteo, North Carolina, ca. 1937. Photo by Bayard Wootten. (Before digital clean-up.)
Click to zoom.

Costume maker for The Lost Colony drama, Manteo, North Carolina, ca. 1937.

Costume maker for The Lost Colony drama, Manteo, North Carolina, ca. 1937. Photo by Bayard Wootten. (After digital clean-up.)
Click to zoom.

The work of removing dust and scratches makes a noticeable difference in the final image of a circa 1937 photograph of a costume maker for the Lost Colony drama in Manteo, North Carolina.

Finally, Mangum worked on tonal contrast – starting big, and then moving to ever smaller parts of each image. “We were trying to match [the 1998 edition of] the book, but make it better when we could,” Mangum said. “They were making prints. Since we’re in the digital world, it’s a lot easier. Working digital allows you to be more precise.”

A woman at rest. [Murrells Inlet, South Carolina], ca. 1937.

A woman at rest. [Murrells Inlet, South Carolina], ca. 1937. Photo by Bayard Wootten. (Before digital clean-up.)
Click to zoom.

A woman at rest. [Murrells Inlet, South Carolina], ca. 1937.

A woman at rest. [Murrells Inlet, South Carolina], ca. 1937. Photo by Bayard Wootten. The heightened tonal contrast makes the image come alive.
Click to zoom.

“Easier” is a relative term. The work is close and meticulous, and cleaning up the entire body of images for the new edition of Light and Air took about a year. But the final product allows these photographs to be seen in all their beautiful detail.

Children smoking Carolina Brights. New Bern, NC, ca. 1912.

Children smoking Carolina Brights. New Bern, NC, ca. 1912. This version appeared in the 1998 edition of Light and Air.
Click to zoom.

Children smoking Carolina Brights. New Bern, NC, ca. 1912.

Children smoking Carolina Brights. New Bern, NC, ca. 1912. Photo by Bayard Wootten. Digitally cleaned-up print for the 2017 edition of Light & Air.)
Click to zoom.

For example, in this photo from New Bern, circa 1912, the text on the top of the box at the boys’ feet wasn’t even visible in the 1998 edition of the book. The new edition is full of such revelations, heightening the power of Wootten’s images.

Exhibition opening

You can see prints of Wootten’s photographs on exhibit now in the Wilson Special Collections Library’s Pleasants Family Assembly Room. (And read more about her life and work on the New York Times’ Lens blog.)

We hope you’ll join us for a public exhibition opening on Tuesday, March 27, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Light and Air author Jerry Cotten and North Carolina Collection Photographic Archivist Stephen Fletcher will talk. Attendees can buy copies of the 2017 edition of Light and Air and have them signed by the author.

We hope to see you there!