Native Shrimp Man, Grand Isle, Louisiana
Theodore Fonville Winans
1934
black and white photograph, 20 x 16 inches
Fonville Winans, the son of a highway engineer who took his family
to construction sites across the Southwest, was raised primarily in Fort
Worth, Texas. As a young man he learned to play the saxophone and also
brought himself a Kodak camera and taught himself photography. He worked
for a short time on one of his father's road-building projects near Grand
Isle, Louisiana, and became curious about the bayou country. In 1931 he
bought a derelict boat, the Pintail , reconditioned it, and set off to explore
the water-bound world of the Acadians of southern Louisiana. Cajuns
worked as trappers, fisherman, shrimpers, and oystermen, and Winans
photographed their out-of-the-way communities between Bayou Lafourche
and Bayou Teche, as well as on the barrier island of Grand Isle. The
photographs he took are now the definitive imgs of a lost bayou world.
Winans attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge for one year, in
1934-1935. In 1940, Fonville (as he signed his art) opened a portrait
studio in Baton Rouge, and there he continued his work for a half-century.
Still, it is his earliest photos that are best remembered.
Native Shrimp Man was photographed at Cheniere, Caminada, just outside of Grand Isle. As Winans remembered, "This man has just had a successful shrimp run and is celebrating with a bottle of wine and sporting a fresh (rare) haircut."
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