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DUST-TO-DIGITAL
Making Pictures
Three for a Dime
Edited with introduction by Maxine Payne. Foreword by Phillip March Jones.
In the 1930s the Massengill family of rural Arkansas built three portable photography studios on old truck frames, attached each to the back of any car that would run, and started a mobile photo booth business that would last for a decade. Without formal training they invented ways to mimic the popular photo booth and brought their business to the dirt roads and open fields. Making Pictures, featuring Massengill family prints and photo albums collected by the artist Maxine Payne, illuminates a Depression-era South previously unseen by the public. Unlike the hardscrabble lives captured by WPA photographers, the Massengill photographs often show folks working to look their best. Hand-painted backdrops, colorized prints and the occasional prop add a playful edge to these scenes. Not unlike photographs by Vivian Maier or Mike Disfarmer, the Massengill photographs invite us to reconsider a time and place from a new perspective.
Featured image is reproduced from Making Pictures.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Spectrum Culture
Pat Padua
The history of these photos is more than enough to get your attention, but the images and the book itself are valuable additions to an increasingly crowded field.
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"One Saturday morning in the mid-1930s, Mancy Massengill, a wife and mother of three, saw people having their pictures made in a dime store photo booth in Batesville, Arkansas. According to her son Lance, 'she watched close, and got the name off the camera, then wrote to the company and ordered the lens. She got the money for that by taking about two-dozen pullets in for sale.' Her husband, Jim, built a box to house the lens and outfitted a trailer to create a mobile photography studio. On weekends, they would set up in little towns across the state and make pictures, three for a dime… The Massengill family photographs can be playful, serious, strange, and at times, haunting." So begins Phillip March Jones' introduction to Making Pictures: Three for a Dime Dust-to-Digital's wonderful collection of unattributed family photographs made by the itinerant Massengill family throughout the 1930s and 40s. Featured photograph is of Thelma Massengill. continue to blog
Published by Dust-to-Digital. Edited with introduction by Maxine Payne. Foreword by Phillip March Jones.
In the 1930s the Massengill family of rural Arkansas built three portable photography studios on old truck frames, attached each to the back of any car that would run, and started a mobile photo booth business that would last for a decade. Without formal training they invented ways to mimic the popular photo booth and brought their business to the dirt roads and open fields. Making Pictures, featuring Massengill family prints and photo albums collected by the artist Maxine Payne, illuminates a Depression-era South previously unseen by the public. Unlike the hardscrabble lives captured by WPA photographers, the Massengill photographs often show folks working to look their best. Hand-painted backdrops, colorized prints and the occasional prop add a playful edge to these scenes. Not unlike photographs by Vivian Maier or Mike Disfarmer, the Massengill photographs invite us to reconsider a time and place from a new perspective.
