Rhonda Payne, St. Gabriel, Louisiana 25 - 1999

Deborah Luster made this tintype, Rhonda Payne, St. Gabriel, Louisiana, with light and chemistry on a metal plate. It’s pretty small, about 5 x 4 inches. I can imagine Luster in her studio with Rhonda, carefully setting up the shot. It's interesting how Rhonda is holding that sandal. I wonder what it represents to her and to Luster. Is it a symbol, a memory, or just a prop? Maybe it’s a talisman, or maybe it just happened to be there. I can't help but think about the history of photography. Think of Julia Margaret Cameron or Nadar—how they used photography to capture something about the human condition. Photography is like painting, you know. You can't just replicate reality; you transform it, and in this way, Luster's work joins a long conversation in art about seeing and representing the world.