The Murder Ballad

I'm so excited to finally reveal the complete Murder Ballad project. I shot this photo story over the summer and have been holding on to the photos until I had a proper computer to edit them on. While this story really steps away from my usual fantasy filled photos, it served as a great way for me to work on and explore story telling through photos. Part of my primary goal in creating this series was to construct and photograph a story that could be told solely through the photos, without need for descriptions or titles. For the purpose of this blog post, which is intended to reveal the complete process behind story, I've decided to name and describe them. As you will soon read this was based on a series of old folk songs, which can be a bit of an acquired taste, and if you feel so inclined to listen to some of the ballads that inspired it you can listen to this YouTube playlist

The Inspiration-(Prepare for old folk music and a bit of a history lesson) This summer I was exploring some songs a friend had given me a few years ago, and really got into listening to Abigail Washburn. In watching an interview with her she mentioned that Doc Watson was basically the one who got her into folk music, so I gave him a listen. After listening to a few songs, I noticed a rather old looking black and white clip in the recommended videos on the sidebar of YouTube. Being a connoisseur of old things, I decided to give it a view. It was a video of Hedy West playing "Little Sadie," which she described in her introduction to the song as "one of the many American murder ballads."

Hearing that, I instantly became curious, found a Wikipedia article, and got to creating a playlist on Spotify. Eventually I became obsessed. Within the collection I began noticing some thematic similarities between some of the songs and identified about 6 or 7 different songs about young girls being attacked by their lovers. What caught my attention even further was that I was able to find many of the songs sung by at least four other artists and each one sang the song differently; either changing a few words or completely different versions telling the exact same story. The changing of words could be explained by the fact that all these songs were passed on through generations, some even being hundreds of years old brought over by settlers from the UK, and preserved in the mountains of Appalachia (seriously the history is fascinating, here's a Wikipedia article). After researching "Omie Wise" a bit, I came to find out that the reason for the completely different versions was that the story (and as I came to find out, most all of the stories) was based on an actual murder and the songs had been written in memorial of the events. In love with the story telling power of these songs, their legacy, and their oral tradition I decided I wanted to do a complete photo-story based off of the ballads.

The Planning- Once I had decided to the story I immediately knew exactly what sort of styling I wanted. My brain jumped right to these two photos by Sarah Ann Loreth and David Talley:


And luckily for me I was going to have the opportunity to meet and shoot with them at the MidWest Flickr Gathering in Indiana. I sent them a message via Facebook, warning them that I would be using them and set about researching, listening, and planning.
By the time I arrived at MidWest I had a fairly good idea of what I wanted to do, but knew that I would have to adapt to the location and props available. The meetup took place on the incredible Ethan Coverstone's farm which was the perfect setting for the story with golden fields, a river, and a small cabin.

Conceptualizing by candle light (thanks to Evan Walsh)

While plotting out the story I had two hard decisions to make- the weapon and the motive. For the weapon I had choose between the lover beating her, drowning her, stabbing her  and shooting her . I ended up choosing to shoot her into the water since shooting someone is easier to capture and more clear on camera, and having her in the water would give me a way to have her body discovered as described in "Omie Wise." The motivation was probably the hardest part of the entire story as many of the songs leave it unclear. "Banks of the Ohio" give the line "I killed the girl I love you see, because she would not marry me" but I felt this would shorten the story a bit and the song gives the impression that the murder was not premeditated. The motive I ended up using is actually very subtly suggested in "Omie Wise" which I didn't even notice until reading more about the actually story- "Have mercy on my baby and spare me my life, I'll go home as a beggar and never be your wife." He got her pregnant to avoid having to "bring her some money and other fine things" as the result of a Bastardy case, he killed her.
Once I had a general story line figured out I set about location scouting and around the farm and sketching out angles and everything.

Working out story line

Sketching out the story

Luckily I had access to all the costumes and props I needed at the meet up except for one. The gun. And as it turns out WalMart only sold neon orange toy guns. Good thing they also sell spray paint. 

The Shooting- Once I had everything planned out it was of course time to start shooting. Except for the 8th shot "And I stuck my pistol right under my head" everything was shot in real time. I kidnaped David and Sarah one evening just as the sun was starting to set, dragging along Shane and Grace to assist, and set up and shot the first seven shots with in under an hour. 

The next day I got up early to shoot in morning light with Jacob and Evan. I shot the three cabin scenes later that morning with the help of David, Chelsea, and Josh and finally shooting the final photo that afternoon with Gurbir, Sarah, Shane, Gilly and various others helping and waiting for something to go horribly wrong.

bts courtesy of Grace Jones

bts courtesy of Shane Black

bts courtesy of Grace Jones

The Photos- Alright now finally for the photos and some description of each!

I'll tell you a story, I'll tell you no lies, I'll tell you the story of Little Omie Wise

As you'll see I ended up drawing largely on the story of Omie Wise for the story, and generally refer the the young girl as Omie. I debated between various ways of putting across the idea that she was pregnant and that that was the reason for many of the ensuing events. I owe Casey Maxwell a big thanks for letting me bounce ideas off her as for how to convey this. I ultimately decided to insert it in a subtle manner just as the song does.

He told her to meet him at Adams' spring, he'd bring her some money and other fine things

This was another hard element to decide on. I wanted to figure out how to show that she was meeting him and it would later become evident that he was luring her astray. I eventually rejected the idea of using a photograph of a letter and decided that her running to him would work well, especially once the next scene came about.

We'll go and get married and no one will know

This light was perfect. I figured a proposal would be the best way to make it obvious that the pregnancy was out of wedlock and hoped that the order of events would be a signal that something was off about the events.

Go along with me, before we get married some pleasure to seek

The purpose of this shot was to put in an important transition in the mood of the story. I wanted a clear contrast between the happy and bright setting of the field and the dark setting of the river bank. I also wanted to show some uneasiness in the characters. He's leading the way, nearly dragging her off, and she glances back beginning to question the way things are playing out.

John Lewis, John Lewis will you tell me your mind. Do you intend to marry me or to leave me behind

 Here I really wanted to quote from the line "will you tell me your mind" that I've actually found in  a couple of different songs. I found that in a number of the songs the victim has a moment of doubt and questioning of her lovers motives.  It also provided an opportunity to position the two so that he could eventually shoot her and to create the final bit of suspense before revealing his true intentions.

I went out last night and I made my round, I met Little Sadie and I shot her down

The main climax. I wanted to create a very dramatic moment in which it's revealed what he is hiding behind his back, he shoots her, and she falls back into the water. Shane Black gets double kudos for jumping in the water and holding Sarah up as she fell. Not being allowed to stain the dress with fake blood, I actually set up a mini-studio once I was home to shoot the bullet wound which was a challenge to composite in. I actually debated whether or not I should even include the wound and it felt a bit more gruesome and in a way modern (if that makes any sense) to be in a folk tale, but I eventually decided that I wanted to go for realism and it served to clarify the photo.

Down on the banks of the Ohio

Too many of the songs give reference to the girl drowning for me to not include it somehow. I wanted to give her death some finality and also provide a link to her body's ultimate discovery.  Shooting this was probably my biggest "is this real life?" moment of the entire meet-up. Sarah has long been a huge inspiration to me and shooting her in dirty water (something she's kind of known for) was unreal.

I went back home and I went to bed, said I stuck my pistol right under my head

In "Little Sadie" which this photo quotes from, the placing of the pistol under his head is passed over and never plays any importance in the story, but I saw it as a perfect opportunity for the murderer's discovery. I'm actually very proud of how I pulled this photo off. There's no way there would have been enough light at night after the murder, so I had to take it out of sequence. The problem with shooting during the day though was that there were very obvious reflections in the the window. So I used a technique I discovered way back during day 57 of my 365 and used a black sheet behind me to black out all reflections. And with another sheet over the other window I was able to create night!

Two boys went a fishin' one fine summers day, and saw little Omie's body go floatin' away

Here I directly took reference for "Little Omie" for the perfect discovery of the body. I decided to take a  subtle approach to showing the body and instead used the hat to imply that she was floating down the river.

The very next day, at half past four, the sherif walked right to my door

The primary purpose of this photo was to introduce the character of the sheriff so that his appearance in the next photo made sense. It's a rather simple shot but really works to show that something is about to go down.

If it hadn't been for Sheriff Greyson, I 'd be in Tennessee 

This is the only scene in the series that I entirely invented. Where all the other photos draw upon events described in the ballads I created this scene as a way to wrap the plot up. I wanted a confrontation between the murderer and the sheriff, and to make it clear that he had been found out. The gun that had been hidden under the pillow provided the perfect give away. Even though I had planned this out, I for some reason didn't originally plan to shoot it as I didn't feel like I would be able to pull off as it seemed a bit complicated. However after shooting the two other scenes at the cabin I asked David and Josh if they had time for me to try something out and it ended up working perfectly.

Hang your head Tom Dooley

 Even though I was the one who shot and edited this photo, it still make me uncomfortable, which is why I love it. I really wanted this photo to be simple and powerful. I absolutely had to end the series with the reference to Tom Dooley, probably the best known song out of the collection. On my way back from the Gathering I met up with my mom, dad, grandma and great aunt and uncle in Illinois and explained this series to them. I provided Tom Dooley as an example of the songs I was using and they all knew it. But they were all stunned to realize how dark of a story the ballad actually is. I to quote "hang your head Tom Dooley, hang your head and cry, you killed little Laurie Foster and now you're bound to die" for them to believe me. David gets super extra kudos for letting me almost actually kill him a couple of times while shooting this.

It's so unbelievable to finally have this series done. I owe a huge thanks to all my models and assistants and everyone who attended the Midwest gathering for helping me out and supporting me as I worked on this story.

Models- Sarah Ann Loreth, David Talley, Jacob Price, Evan Walsh, and Josh Malik

Assistants- Grace Jones, Shane Black, Chelsea Roden, Gurbir Grewal, and Gillian Woods

In summary it basically went like this-

Thank you Gilly for this amazing summary.