Longtime photojournalist Dennis Hughes committed to donate his collection of about 18,000 pictures depicting life within the Amish community to Elizabethtown College’s Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. Hughes delivered a presentation entitled “Amish in Focus: Photos and Stories” on Thursday, March 12, in which he selected and displayed roughly 150 of the most impactful images.
Hughes first developed an interest in the Amish culture at a very young age. He was raised amongst an Amish community, and his family encouraged his interest. As early as his fifth birthday, he had found a strong friendship in Solomon Yoder, an Amish neighbor boy very close to his age. Through this time, Hughes felt that he had been influenced by Yoder’s family, and it had sparked a curiosity in him.
Years later, Hughes had been working within the printing industry. He had always loved photographs, and his job consisted mostly of touching them up. He said that he “was trying to make them look like Fuji film.” After his retirement, he began to pursue photography more seriously, and his appetite for clear pictures worked in tandem with his feelings about Amish and Mennonite practices to often pull him away from home. Although he has spent a great deal of time photographing the Amish people of Lancaster County, he has also ventured to states such as Indiana, Ohio, New York, Delaware and even as far as Florida in order to satiate his longing for enrichment.
Hughes thanked his wife Harriet for “48 years…25 of those I was taking pictures, she put up with me,” he said. The presentation moved more in the direction of a collection of stories than a demo or exhibition as Hughes operated the slide show projector.
As he clicked through the different pictures, Hughes seemed to have a story to tell about each image. His sense of humor could be seen upon stopping on a photograph of an Amish teenage boy who was sitting on a stump and facing away from the camera. While mostly dressed traditionally, it was quickly obvious that he was wearing only a single suspender. “I asked him, ‘why do you have one suspender?’” Hughes recalled. “He said, ‘to hold my pants up.’” Hughes noted he had learned from his time in the field that “it is all a matter of perception.”
Hughes discussed the differences in the segmentation of Amish beliefs and groups that are present in the area within Lancaster County. He mentioned three types: the “white-toppers” which are some of the most conservative of the faith and are also known as the Nebraska Amish; the “yellow-toppers,” on the opposite side of the spectrum; as well as the “black-toppers,” who fall somewhere in between. The majority of Amish people around Lebanon Valley, Hughes mentioned, seem to be the Peachey or Renno “black-toppers.” The easiest means of differentiation between each of these groups is in the colors of the buggies that they use, each color corresponding to each top.
One idea Hughes covered within his presentation is something that he has dealt with throughout his experience as a photographer of the Amish and Mennonite communities. After being asked a question about the faith’s permissions toward exposure to photographs or other media, Hughes decided that he did not have a conclusive answer about the correctness of the consenting Amish parties. Through his experience, he has generally found that most Amish people would not allow or prohibit him from taking their pictures, but rather left it up to him. A common response he would receive when asking for approval was “I must say no.” According to the belief system, modesty is very important to Hughes’s subjects, and despite these factors, the Amish would generally not take action to stop him. What he was doing was believed to be a sin, yet Hughes said that sin was “on me.” Thus, there had been few problems for him.
Hughes’s donation will help Etown greatly in research and education regarding the Amish population, as well as expand on the established Ernest Hess collection. With the international 2016 Amish Conference coming up in June, an even larger audience will get a chance to share the sentimentality that Hughes had last week.
