Eyes of the South Eudora Welty Photo Exhibit Shows Another Dimension of Writer by Carolyn Chapman Eudora Weltyís short stories and novels about life in her native Mississippi and the South are what made her famous. But before the success of her first book in 1941, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author almost chose to pursue a career in photography instead of writing. If she had, literature lovers would have missed out on Weltyís influential observations of life in the racially segregated South. However, going by the 50 black-and-white photographs on display in "Passionate Observer: Photographs by Eudora Welty" at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Welty would have enjoyed an equally successful career as a photographer. With a makeshift darkroom at home and a father who was an enthusiastic amateur photographer, Welty began taking pictures at an early age. At first, she used the camera solely for entertainment, photographing herself and friends posing satirically in front of the lens. But by 1929, Welty began taking her photography more seriously, looking at it more aesthetically and in terms of a career. As she traveled throughout the South with the Works Progress Administra tion (WPA), also spending brief periods living in New York City and the Midwest, Welty shot photographs that emphasized the vitality of the people in the South during a difficult time. These unposed portraits formed the centerpieces of most of Weltyís photos, and she is known in both her writing and photography for her empathy of an individualís dignity. Welty once said of her work, "My wish, indeed my continuing passion, would not be to point the finger in judgment but to part a curtain, that invisible shadow that falls between people, the veil of indifference to each otherís presence, each otherís wonder, each otherís human plight." Weltyís career as a photographer comprised a brief part of a long life, but it complemented her later work as a writer. In the late 1930s, Life magazine published Weltyís photographs. She also had exhibitions of her more artistic photographs in New York in 1936 and 1937. In the early 1940s, Weltyís career as a photographer for the most part ended after she decided to instead concentrate on writing. The photographs that Welty took while traveling through Mississippi for the WPA didnít get published until nearly four decades later in the book "One Time, One Place: Mississippi in the Depression." However, Weltyís photographs were never widely exhibited during her lifetime, besides a few limited-edition portfolios. In fact, most people did not even know of her years as a photographer until after her death in 2001. Most of the images in "Passionate Observer" were taken in Mississippi, although there are several shots from New Orleans and New York City, which primarily show street life and urban architecture. The Mississippi photographs are the most interesting, however, for their colorful, honest and dignifying portrayals of the people with whom Welty spent most of her life. Many of these photographs capture strong women, both black and white, and although Welty did take many photographs of blacks in the segregated South, including one of a man entering the colored entrance of a theater, racial tensions are never directly addressed in her photography. Her interest lay mainly in showing her subjects as strong individuals living in the land that she loved. For fans of Weltyís writing, this exhibition is a welcome supplement to her Southern-themed fiction and nonfiction. But even for those unfamiliar with Weltyís work, these photographs take us on a fascinating journey, both aesthetically and historically, to a particular time and place that will never again exist but that played an important role in the history of the American South. Welty has often been called the "Voice of the American South" for her writings about Mississippi, but with these photographs, we can also call her the "Eyes of the American South." "Passionate Observer: Photographs by Eudora Welty" runs through Feb. 29 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Ave., NW. For more information, please call (202) 783-5000 or visit www.nmwa.org. Carolyn Chapman is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.