Matt Eich: “I Don’t Dress Loud, I Don’t Walk Loud, I Don’t Talk Loud”

Among many other gifts, Matt Eich has been blessed with a long attention span: his widely praised look at a struggling community in rural Ohio began more than 13 years ago, and he’s been returning to Baptist Town—a Mississippi neighborhood wracked by poverty and violence—for seven years. The result of his ongoing focus? Intimate, seductively subtle stories that sometimes feel like memory itself. Eich’s eye for moments loaded with emotion, combined with a considered approach to the role—and limits—of documentary photography, has led to frequent assignments from the likes of the New York Times Magazine, Outside, Time, and National Geographic, among others.

Lab
- November 12, 2020

by Bill Shapiro

When you ask documentary photographers how they go about embedding themselves in a culture that’s foreign to their own experience, you often hear, “I gained their trust.” Some younger photographers might be curious about how, exactly, one does that.&...

Bill Shapiro

Bill Shapiro is the former editor-in-chief of LIFE magazine. Follow him on Instagram at @billshapiro.

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