The last I set foot in Mississippi was early November of 2010 for Butta’s funeral. A lot happens in a short period of time in this neighborhood, but somehow everything remains the same. This most recent trip was made with LUCEO partner Tyler Strickland, who is collaborating with me on the project that we proposed for the National Geographic Innovation in Storytelling Grant, which funded this adventure. We had about four and a half days to gather the content for the small piece of that proposed puzzle and photographed, interviewed and made video of just about everyone we came into contact with during our time there.

For months I have been looking forward to getting back to the neighborhood, to catching up with people and hearing what is new. At this point I feel closer to the people I know in Baptist Town than I do to a lot of friends I live in close proximity to. Admittedly, I was a little worried about bringing Tyler because I wasn’t sure how people would respond to another outsider and if that would throw off the dynamic I had become accustomed to with the community. We arrive on a Wednesday evening in February, check into our hotel and I ask Tyler to drive over to Baptist Town so he could begin to learn the route. The first people we see are Nikki and Dominique, getting into their car in front of Hoover’s store. After “what up?” and brief introductions, I began walking Tyler through the neighborhood. Familiar faces begin popping out of the woodwork and I introduce Tyler, a tall, red-bearded and heavily tattooed musician, to everyone we meet. He quickly gets into the rhythm of the interactions and everything flows naturally. We stop at Ellen’s place and hang out in the kitchen with her and some neighbors before walking across the street to check out the new house Winky had moved into with his family in Baptist Town. Later when we asked him how he felt about the neighborhood he replied, “Best place to raise a family…everybody know everybody. You ain’t gotta worry about other people coming inside the circle, trying to take this and that.  You know what I’m saying? You know everybody. I can go into any house around here. Everybody know me. I can run in with the law, everybody gonna help me out.”

The next day was mostly spent wandering the neighborhood so Tyler could become accustomed to it during the daylight. We catch up with a few folks and are told to check out Joe’s Place across the track later in the evening for Rhythm and Blues night. They say it is a place where people from different parts of town mixed and the owner, Joe, proves to be very warm and receptive to us being there. The headlining act hails from Baton Rouge and goes by the name Mr. Rude, but everyone calls him the teddy bear man because he tosses out plush stuffed animals and roses to the women who line the stage. Tyler and I keep catching one another’s glances from across the smokey room as one of us would mouth, “This…is…awesome…” Needless to say we had a blast.

On Friday I stop by a place near the church lot that I park in where some folks are working on a car and I recognize T and Smitty. I hang out with them shooting the shit for a while until one of the guys invites me to photograph his brother’s wedding the next day and to come to the bachelor party that night. “Sure”, I say, telling them I’ll be there. The day drags on with more interactions, stories heard and pictures made. It all begins to blur together. After night falls we head to Odessa’s so Tyler can check out the awesome one-roomed bar that is usually packed on the weekends. As soon as we step in my lens fogs over from the humidity of the small space. Shortly after arriving Tyler shoots me a glance from across the bar and holds up three beers that have been purchased for him while he is hanging out. With maybe 20 people in the bar it is packed – every shot during the unending pool games requires someone to shift to get out of the way. The music pulsates and occasionally a woman will rise from her chair to dance to a tune that she particularly likes. After finishing our beers we decided to wander back into the cool night air. We end up on the corner of Young and Pelican when Shaun pulls up and says, “Yo Matt, you comin’ to the bachelor party?” “Of course”, I respond. We go grab our car and pull out behind them as they roll over the tracks. What follows is the usual business of back roads, gas station stops and eventually we make it to the hotel and walk around to the room where the party is supposed to take place. 

The hotel room is thick with smoke, nearly hot-boxed, as we walk in. Two young women sit on the bed, fully-dressed, having an argument with a couple of the guys. We try to blend in and start kicking it and making pictures of the people I know. The women were hired for the party at $100 a piece for an hour but are pushing for $150 and the boys aren’t about to budge. “You tryin’ to hustle, well I’m hustlin’ too!” one of the women shouts before they get up and storm out saying that they are going to drive back to Memphis. Most of the guys follow them out but a tension leaves the room with the women and the few of us remaining hang out talking and smoking cigarettes with the door open as the smoke wafts out into the night. It turns out the bachelor isn’t even here – he is otherwise indisposed the night before his wedding. We leave shortly thereafter but apparently the guys rallied everyone to go to a club that night and they rolled 30 or 40 deep. 

On Saturday we show up at the wedding in the afternoon, just across the tracks on Avenue G. The women are dressed beautifully in red, the men in white suits. The organization of the wedding seems to be a bit haphazard but we just walk right in and I began making pictures. Immediately I am shown into the side room where the bride-to-be is hiding away, watching the progress of the ceremony by peeking through some plastic covering the window to her room. She seems so genuinely excited it just makes me smile. After the ceremony we head back to Baptist Town where we work on video and audio interviews for a while, also attending a back yard birthday bash that you can hear over half of the neighborhood. People here are full of life. That evening we left around dusk and I made a few sense of place images on the other side of the tracks that will be some of the first building blocks for the larger exploration of that part of Greenwood. 

Sunday morning we put on our nice clothes and drove to Money, Mississippi on the outskirts of Greenwood, the supposed burial place of legendary bluesman Robert Johnson. The church was built shortly after the Civil War and the ceremony is heartfelt and colorful, providing Tyler with some wonderful audio. That afternoon we come back into town and kick around with people. A lot of time is spent doing what Tyler calls “pro-hanging” where we are simply sitting and talking with folks. We’ve been trying to track down Korwin (Quan) since we arrived days before to show off his bike stunt on video and to do an interview but we keep coming up short, watching the afternoon light fade away before anything happens. We manage to get a video portrait of Winky, his wife and daughter at the last possible moment before the sun set and it turned out amazing. His three-year-old daughter stood perfectly still, taking herself very seriously. I’m naively excited about all of the video and audio content we gathered to see how it will begin to develop the overall narrative of the story. I have no idea what to expect. 

Our last day was Monday before we had to head back to Atlanta that afternoon. We had not succeeded in getting an audio interview from one individual yet, so we stop by his place to stress the importance of getting that before we left. Occasionally while in the field you are forced to step back and look at the absurdity of the situations we find ourselves in. We’re sitting in the living room with a microphone in his face when there’s a knock on the door from the cable man who is there to hook up the internet. He walks in to two skinny white boys sitting on a couch in the hood, facing two gangsters smoking a blunt with a knife on the desk, a box of drugs under the computer, guns within easy reach and the wall behind us is covered in pictures (mostly mine) from the neighborhood. The cable man seemed a bit taken aback but kept about his business like it wasn’t the weirdest thing he’d seen that day. As we were getting ready to leave I could hear Ellen yelling from outside, “Come get these crazy people outta my house!” We walk outside to see what looked like a pretty big verbal blow-up between a couple of neighbors who had been over at her place. It turns out when they got to exchanging words in her kitchen one of the women picked up a knife and the other a frying pan. El tried to keep them separated until someone could break them up but doesn’t get around too well these days. Thankfully no one was hurt but we were all left to chuckle at how fast things can escalate around here. “Oh, Matt you shoulda been there with your camera!” says El. From there we said our goodbyes and left Greenwood – always hoping that my next return will be just around the bend. And if any of my friends in BT are reading this, pictures are headed your way soon!

For those of you who have been following the development of this project over the last year there is a new outlet for an audience to engage with this body of work on a deeper level. Emphas.is just launched a beta version of their website and “Sin and Salvation Baptist Town” is one of the first to be featured, along with a slew of other incredible projects that all deserve attention. One of LUCEO’s fundamental goals is the support of long-form documentary projects so we are all excited for a new tool that will hopefully enable the completion of significant work. As an organization we plan to support other projects via that platform as well. People who are interested in behind-the-scenes access to a project through the Emphas.is “making-of zone” also receive rewards ranging from prints to mix tapes and cookies. Most importantly, Emphas.is opens up lines of communication between backer and photographer, allowing for an exchange of ideas and offering a platform for conversation during the development of this long-term body of work. For anyone who wants to become a part of a story while helping to send me down to Mississippi for another stretch, this is a great tool. Also for students and young photographers who are hoping to get an intimate look at the ways working photographers pursue these long-term projects, the insight Emphas.is offers is invaluable. I will blog more about this exciting new platform early next week. Regardless of your involvement in this project, keep your eyes on the LUCEO blog for updates throughout the year. I am excited to see what unfolds. 

*Editors Note: typically I do not include this many images in a blog post, however I am including a wider edit in order to see which photographs rise to the top from this initial selection.

The last I set foot in Mississippi was early November of 2010 for Butta's funeral. A lot happens in a short period of time in this neighborhood, but somehow everything remains the same. This most recent trip was made with LUCEO partner Tyler Strickland, who is collaborating with me on the project that we ...