Looking at the pictures was like looking into his past.

The first time Jerry Cotten saw photographs taken by the late Bayard Wootten during the 1930s, he was struck by the similarities to his childhood growing up in the 1950s in Chatham County. Apparently, the rural life had not changed much.

Photo courtesy Edgecombe County Cultural Arts Council (ENLARGE)

Bayard Wootten poses with her camera in a photo likely taken in the late 1930s.

"The first photographs that I saw that she had done were scenes of rural life in North Carolina. They were pictures of people working in tobacco, working in cotton. ... The photographs had a relevance for me that I think they might not have had for some other people," said Cotten, author of "Light and Air: the Photography of Bayard Wootten."

More than 20 of Wootten's photographs went on display this week at the Blount-Bridgers House in Tarboro, said Buddy Hooks, director of the Edgecombe County Cultural Arts Council. The free exhibit, "Faces and Places: the Photography of Bayard Wootten," runs through Oct. 12 in the Hobson Pittman Memorial Gallery.

Wootten used photography to show the people and places of North Carolina, including beautiful gardens and landscapes, Hooks said. Some of her more moving pieces captured the images of workers in the fields or a baptism under a bridge.

"Wootten's most notable accomplishment was the creation of a photographic record of black and white Americans in the lower reaches of society – persons that other photographers often ignored. The pieces we choose portray that," Hooks said.

The exhibit officially opens with a free reception at 6:30 p.m. today at the house, Hooks said.

Cotten will read and lecture from his book and give a slide show of Wootten's work.

Said Cotten: "She was a North Carolinian, and she was very committed to the state and loved the state very much."