In Mound Bayou
In Mound Bayou
Edouard Caupeil
January 25, 2019
The French photographer followed the 2012 presidential election in the USA. The trip took him to Mound Bayou, a little town in the southern state of Mississippi.
“Mound Bayou, Mississippi, is an important landmark for American history, a milestone: it was the first city to be run completely by African Americans. In 1904, the Bank of Mound Bayou was founded there, one of the first banks in Mississippi that belonged to black people. When I was there, I was immediately identified as a stranger because of my looks.
I took this picture in 2012 in Mound Bayou while I was following the election. I didn’t select it when I did my first edit, but a few month later I suddenly noticed it on the contact sheet and it became important. This picture tells a story without doing so in a obvious way. If you look at it, you can follow your own way, make your own story out of it. And, at the same time, a part of America is obviously in it.“
Learn more about Caupeil’s On the trail of James Baldwin series in LFI 01/2019.
“Mound Bayou, Mississippi, is an important landmark for American history, a milestone: it was the first city to be run completely by African Americans. In 1904, the Bank of Mound Bayou was founded there, one of the first banks in Mississippi that belonged to black people. When I was there, I was immediately identified as a stranger because of my looks.
I took this picture in 2012 in Mound Bayou while I was following the election. I didn’t select it when I did my first edit, but a few month later I suddenly noticed it on the contact sheet and it became important. This picture tells a story without doing so in a obvious way. If you look at it, you can follow your own way, make your own story out of it. And, at the same time, a part of America is obviously in it.“
Learn more about Caupeil’s On the trail of James Baldwin series in LFI 01/2019.
Text and image: Edouard Caupeil
Edouard Caupeil+-
The autodidact was born in Paris in 1971. From 1995 to 1997, he travelled with his wife and small son through Africa, Madagascar and India, to catalogue the architecture of school buildings. In Mali, an acquaintance took him to visit Malick Sidibé (1936–2016). The photographer guided Caupeil further in the medium – not least because Caupeil’s wife purchased a Rolleiflex off Sidibé to give it to her husband as a present. More