The doorway between the Snite Museum of Art's two feature photography exhibits is a step between drastically different facets of American culture.

Lauren Greenfield's "Girl Culture" and "Roll, Jordan, Roll: Photographs of the Gullah Culture by Doris Ulmann," the latest in the Snite Museum's succession of photography exhibits, provide a startling contrast. "Girl Culture" features photographs published in Greenfield's book of the same name, exploring issues of beauty, image and self-esteem in popular culture and among American women. "Roll, Jordan, Roll" goes back 70 years in American history and provides a window on the lives of former slaves living on an island off the coast of South Carolina.

Lauren Greenfield's "Girl Culture"

The exhibition at the Snite Museum is the second showing of Greenfield's critically acclaimed photographs. Though the exhibit has attracted wide attention, the Snite Museum was the first to request an exhibition of Greenfield's work. Curator of Photography Stephen Moriarty developed an interest in the project after seeing some preliminary photographs and looking through "Fast Forward," another book of Greenfield's photographs.

"We were early supporters of the project," Moriarty said. "I first saw some of the preliminary photographs several years ago, and I was immediately interested."

In appreciation Greenfield mentioned the museum's support in the introduction of her book and gave a lecture at the opening of the exhibit.

As soon as viewers step inside the Art Gallery at O'Shaughnessy, more than 50 girls will begin to speak to anyone who is willing to listen. Diverse aspects of the female gender are shown in an exquisite collection of photographs that the artist has been working on for quite some time. Greenfield explained that some of the pictures for this exhibit were taken before she even realized she had embarked on the project.

"[It] seems to define the contemporary experience of being a girl," Greenfield said. Not only do these photographs speak because of the captions and interviews that accompany them, but because the images themselves convey underlying messages about the way girls, and women as well, play, cry, dress, laugh, worry, work, please, impress, suffer, admire, mature — the way they live.

One of the most shocking images is found at the beginning of the exposition, on the wall just to the right of the door. A surgeon's manly hands — covered in gloves to preserve an ambiance of professionalism and sterility — are shaping a young woman's breasts during a breast augmentation operation. The image is striking first because of its theme — yet another woman succumbing to the aesthetic pressure driven by a masculine perception of what female attributes should look like. The color and lighting of the picture make this reality even harsher by contrasting the girl's light skin with the darkness of the navy blue sheets and scrubs. Toward the bottom of the shot two bloody cloths and a bunch of bloody tools give an even greater sense of vividness, as if the operation was happening right there, and also deem the action as unclean, unsafe.

On a lighter note, one proceeds to find a photograph with an excellent sense of composition as well as a more pleasant theme. Nkechi, a girl of Nigerian descent, is wearing a bright pinkish-orange dress and sitting on a bench towards the left of the frame. She has won a contest in the New York Times Magazine to be dressed by a top designer and be treated like a princess on the day of her high school prom. In front of her lies a light-colored tablecloth with some beauty products wildly dispersed on it, and the white walls around her seem to be pulled towards the balcony in the back of the picture. Both the positioning of the girl and the angles in the room around her are techniques that draw attention to Nkechi as the main

subject, presenting her in the royal fashion she deserves on her special day.

The rest of the exhibit contains a wide variety of shots depicting little girls, teenagers, and grown women — or traces of them as in the case of a shot of an ashtray filled with cigarette butts covered in bright fuchsia lipstick. Viewers will learn from the latest trends among popular seventh graders, the desires of a young girl to become a woman and become famous like the female pop stars she admires, the struggles to attain ideal weight and be considered beautiful, and the daily hassle of putting on a show and pretending to be something someone is not. This exhibit portrays it all: the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of being a girl today.

"Roll, Jordan, Roll: Photographs of the Gullah Culture by Doris Ulmann"

The Snite Museum planned their exhibition of Ulmann's photography in honor of Black History Month and in recognition of a service seminar being run through the Center for Social Concerns. The seminar, entitled "Gullah People and Challenges of Coastal Communities," first took a group of sophomores to Johns Island in South Carolina to learn about the Gullah community in May of 2002. Volunteers painted houses, helped children paint and mural, and provided after school tutoring.

"We are excited to display these photographs not only because of Black History Month and because it is an exhibition of a woman photographer," Associate Director Ann Knoll said. "They're tied to what's going on on campus."

The photographs of "Roll, Jordan, Roll" are rarely seen in museums. The photographs were compiled in "Roll, Jordan, Roll," a book with text by Pulitzer Prize winner Julia Peterkin, but Ulmann died before making prints of her work. The photographs in the museum were taken from the book for display.

Ulmann's photography dates from the era of the Great Depression. Born into a Jewish family in New York in 1882, Ulmann photographed many of the most famous people of her time, including Albert Einstein, Robert Frost and Sherwood Anderson.

Though Ulmann had many chances to photograph famous personalities, she wanted to find more meaningful material for her work.

Ulmann traveled through Appalachia and the Deep South for a change of scene and subject. The photographs of the Gullah people were taken between 1929 and 1933 on the Lang Syne Plantation in South Carolina. Ulmann worked mostly in portraits, which held a special fascination for her. She brought out the character and pride of the Gullah culture though portraits of its people, which almost exclusively compose "Roll, Jordan, Roll."

"A face that has the marks of having lived intensely, that expresses some phase of life, some dominant quality or intellectual power, constitutes for me an interesting face," Ulmann said of her own work.

Walking into the exhibit, viewers are surrounded by faces and hands worn through years of work. The photographs show Gullah culture as it was preserved in the relatively isolated barrier islands near South Carolina and Georgia. The people are shown in every aspect of life, from cooking and farming to religious worship. Ulmann's photos highlight the strength and simplicity of a rural life and a close community.

In honor of the exhibit, Gullah storyteller and dancer Jacqueline Jefferson will give cultural presentations Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. at the Snite Museum and Feb. 21 at 5:30 p.m. at the Robinson Community Learning Center.

Lauren Greenfield's "Girl Culture" will be on view through March 9. "Roll, Jordan, Roll" will be until March 23.

• Snapshots of Life