Debbie Fleming Caffery

Debbie Fleming Caffery

Stories And Histories

Article by Mary-Charlotte Domandi

Aperture, Fall 2009, issue 196

Debbie Caffery is from southern Louisiana. The photographs in this series focus on the Bayou Teche in what is known as sugarcane county. Sugarcane county was home to thousands of slaves who were forced to work at the sugarcane factories in the 19th century. Caffery's black and white photographs seem to carry an apocalyptic undercurrent. Actually, the apocalyptic feeling is more than an undercurrent; it's in your face. The opening photograph is of a small group of children playing by the water. The innocence I normally associate with childhood is muted due to the children's dark shadowed representation. The subsequent photographs focus on people in the midst of some type of earthly catastrophe. Caffery's dark imagery both conjures the past hardships of her subjects, while simultaneously foreshadowing the dark events of Hurricane Katrina.