Making Pictures: Three for a Dime

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.