By WHITTEN SABBATINI

The rural South of the United States is a place still haunted and oppressed by segregation. It is a place where, often times, African Americans are viewed as dangerous or pitiful. As an outsider, I am interested in what it looks like to be an African American male living in the same geographic location as myself.

This series of photographs is my acknowledgement and appreciation of a culture of which I am not a part of, but wish to better understand.

Within these photographs, I want the viewer to consider my subjects’ vulnerability when lending themselves to the photographer.

By acknowledging the camera and posing for the photographer, the sitters are actively participating in this act of being photographed.

This act of letting their guard down and trusting the photographer’s intentions is extremely crucial to the work, as I seek to visually deconstruct identity and place in an effort to better understand the rural South.

Whitten Sabbatini is a photographer in Mississippi, U.S. Visit his website or Tumblr page.