Fonville Winans
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
photographer whose black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
images captured south Louisiana people and places.
Fonville was born on August 22, 1911, in Mexico, Missouri
Mexico, Missouri
Mexico is a city in Audrain County, Missouri, United States. The population was 11,543 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Audrain County. The Mexico Micropolitan Statistical Area consists of Audrain County...
, died September 13, 1992, in Louisiana, and spent part of his childhood in Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
, where, as a senior, in high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
he purchased his first camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
, a Kodak 3A model. Armed with this camera, Fonville shortly won $15 in a photography contest, which stirred his interest in pursuing photography as a career.
Early Cajun Images
In 1928, Fonville moved to LouisianaLouisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
to work in construction, and it was during this time that he fell in love with the state. Fonville began photographing the state's southern swamps and grassy coastal wetlands, as well as the people who inhabited them, most notably the Cajuns. "Louisiana was my Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, my South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
," he recalled.
Fonville's timing was fortuitous, for as Ben Forkner noted, "Thanks to an absence of roads and bridges, and to a largely inward-turned and jealous identity, the Cajun settlements and outposts that Fonville found were irregular islands of a predominantly French-speaking culture that continued to resist the tidal floods of 'progress' and the 20th century. . . . [W]hen Fonville appeared with his boat and camera the more remote strongholds of Cajun society could still give the impression of a private country at home in the midst of millennial swamp forests and endless river prairies, and only half-open to the modern world."
Anne Price has observed that Fonville's photographs from this period were a "human, cheerful record of a people who were self-sufficient enough to make their own way with dignity despite the times, . . . Fishermen, hunters, moss gatherers and other wetlands residents are seen at work and at play. His landscapes and seascapes are haunting and enduring, and his always accurate eye captures
the essence of time and place."
Fonville himself recalled of these images, "I didn’t take any of these pictures deliberately. I just took them for fun. None was on assignment. I wasn’t even a freelancer. I just took my camera and got pictures when I saw something interesting."
Later career
In 1934 he became a student at Louisiana State UniversityLouisiana State University
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...
, where he majored in journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
and performed in the school's brass choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
. He often photographed on LSU campus and had images published in the Reveille student newspaper and in the school's yearbook, Gumbo.
Around 1940 Fonville opened his own photography studio in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...
. "I had a side porch I covered with tar paper," he recalled, "and made into a darkroom
Darkroom
A darkroom is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of light sensitive photographic materials, including photographic film and photographic paper. Darkrooms have been created and used since the inception of photography in the early 19th century...
. I used my bathroom for plumbing fixtures. I used the dining room to make portraits. I photographed several important people, and word got around pretty fast."
Fonville's wife did classic make-up for the subjects. Fonville photographed LSU student Joanne Woodward. He advised female subjects to wear a white, high necked, top, which he found more flattering. Fonville typically offered his subjects a drink to help them relax.
Eventually he established a solid reputation as a wedding and studio portrait photographer, capturing images of local beauties and state politicians. Yet Fonville became best known for his images of south Louisiana's rugged outdoors, as well as its fishermen and swamp dwellers.
Fonville rode a bicycle and, in later years, he hosted challenging Sunday brunch/bicycle tours of Baton Rouge.
A portion of Fonville's work is stored in Hill Memorial Library, located on the campus of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
In 1995, LSU Press issued Fonville Winans' Louisiana: Politics, People, and Places, a collection of over one hundred images by Fonville with a foreword by Louisiana politico James Carville
James Carville
Chester James Carville, Jr. is an American political consultant, commentator, educator, actor, attorney, media personality, and prominent liberal pundit. Carville gained national attention for his work as the lead strategist of the successful presidential campaign of then-Arkansas governor Bill...
and an afterword by noted contemporary Louisiana photographer C.C. Lockwood
C.C. Lockwood
C. C. Lockwood is a nature and wildlife photographer specializing in Louisiana and the Gulf Region, including the Yucatan peninsula. He has received the Sierra Club’s Ansel Adams Award for Conservation Photography...
.
In 1999, Fonville's studio joined the National Register of Historic Places.