Baldwin Lee: The south in black and white

I saw this exhibit yesterday. Great stuff. 

From the Chrysler museum website:

Picture this... An Asian-American man from New York city is walking through African-American communities in the deep South. He's carrying an antique-looking wooden camera and a tripod and asking people if he can take their pictures. Most times they feel comfortable enough to say yes, because as Baldwin Lee notes in his memoir, he's a minority within a minority.

"I routinely seek out the local police station when I arrive in a new place. I announce that I am a tourist interested in taking photographs and have very expensive camera equipment. The officers will usually produce a map and redline areas to be avoided, almost always neighborhoods where there is a concentration of blacks. The redlined areas are where I go to make photographs."

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