I found it pretty interesting how Agee composed the photos at the beginning of the book. Before any explanation, it was clear that these were three separate families before Agee told us such. It reminded me of Sabrina in how the pictures move in and out of these families’ lives, usually starting with an establishing shot of their homes.
His writing gives life to these pictures of people who otherwise may have been lost in history. He does this by writing truthfully about their situations and treating them with the respect famous people throughout history have received. The amount of detail he gives juxtaposes the lack of explanation in the pictures. In regards to the question regarding ethics of this kind of documentation, I am kind of torn. On one hand, if it were my life being documented, I may feel a great invasion of privacy if a stranger from the north came to take pictures of me and my family as we struggle. On the other hand, I feel like if it is to be done, Agee did it in the right way. He stayed with the families for an extended period of time and got to live with each of them intimately. He embraced their ways of life in an effort to truthfully capture what these people in “deplorable circumstances” were experiencing. With that being said, he uses fictional names and he recognizes himself as an outsider. In doing this, he shows respect for the sharecroppers as they are more than just subjects to write about, but human beings.