In 1975, When Sothern began the FAMILY TREE series, complete strangers were more trusting of a person with a camera. Suspicion, and mass antipathy had not yet blanketed the country. Now, 47 years later, no one seems to trust anyone and everyone is a photographer. A million selfies a day have greatly lowered the personal and sentimental value of the image. The Family Tree photographs, shot on Kodachrome, since discontinued, and printed as Cibachromes, also discontinued, combined with Sothern's written memories and accounts of the interactions are unique and meaningful stories of another time.
Elwin likes to drink. He likes to laugh and get shit-faced and have a good time. Guys at the bar call him the wild-man even though he hardly ever leaves his bar stool. Ask him if he’s married and he says if I wasn’t married I wouldn’t be sitting here, I’d be out gettin some poontang. Ask him if he has kids and he says two that I know about and about a hundred I don’t. Ask Elwin what his kids are named and he says number-one-son and number-two-son. He laughs and yowls like a cartoon wolf. He takes a slug of whisky and bangs the glass on the bar.
Sometimes if Mickey closes his eyes tight enough no one can see him. Sometimes when Mickey puts his fisted hands over his eyes to make sure no light can get in, he sees a strange dark red world. When he rubs his closed eyelids with his knuckles he sees blobby unidentified floating objects. If he turns toward the sun he sees the veined maps on the screen of his eyelids and he wonders where they might lead. Sometimes Mickey wishes he could stay in the red world and leave the open-eyed world for good. Mickey opens his eyes and he sees me pointing a camera at him and so he pulls shut his hoody and closes his eyes and hides until I go away.
Vernon says he can gut and skin a five-foot long alligator in seven minutes and he knows six different ways to cook it. He has pen with a wild hog out back and wants to bet me a dollar fifty he can put the pig in a full-nelson in under a minute. He has been married four times and figures he will be married four more times before he turns sixty, if none of them kills him first. Vernon tells me he loves Budweiser and pussy and there is no such thing as too much of either.
