The mere mention of some places in America evoke images that are powerful, instantly recognizable — and stereotyped. Brought to public awareness through photographs of poverty, despair or violence decades ago, some of these places cannot shake off their stubborn notoriety, despite the passage of time and progress. And in some cases, their past misfortune gives ample fodder for cruel, and clueless, jokes.

Just ask Roger May. He is a photographer who proudly calls himself an “Appalachian American.” Born in Kentucky and raised in West Virginia, he jokes that he enjoys “dual citizenship,” but he is serious about changing how his beloved region is portrayed. For too long, images that defined it were dominated by the usual visual tropes — of barefoot kids, rundown shacks and rutted roads — made at the dawn of the federal government’s war on poverty in the 1960s.

“Those pictures created this visual definition of Appalachia,” he said. “It became so easy to say: ‘Yeah, I know Appalachia. I know the Bronx. I know East L.A.’ In any of those places we have visual cues that immediately take us there, yet they are in no way representative of those places.”

Intent on creating an alternative visual narrative, Mr. May issued a call last year on Instagram for a project called “Looking at Appalachia,” inviting professional and amateur photographers to submit images that reflect the 13-state region today. The response was overwhelming, leading to the selection of almost 300 images for the website and 75 prints that are now on exhibit at the Spartanburg County Public Libraries headquarters in South Carolina.

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Mr. May, an Army veteran and I.T. specialist now living in Raleigh, N.C., had never undertaken a project this ambitious. In fact, he has yet to even have a solo exhibit of his work. But his own roots in the region pretty much fated him to help people reconsider their biases and preconceptions. He has been taking pictures since childhood, starting with a 110 film camera his mother got for him by sending in cereal box tops. Years later, in his 20s, he returned to the area and was shocked to see how the landscape of his childhood had been destroyed by mining companies that blew off the tops of mountains to get at veins of coal.

“There was this theme of never being able to go home again,” he said. “So I photographed what I knew and what I was familiar with, the places that looked like the places I had been to with my grandfather, where I would fish and hunt with him. I got into it because of this intense connection to home. I didn’t know any other way to express that outside of photography. I was looking for a way to hold onto something you really can’t hold onto.”

What much of the rest of America had held onto were the classic images of deprivation, made to spur outrage and action. By definition, these kinds of photos were not meant to show all the nuances of life and community, but to highlight the inequality and need that existed in the country.

While those pictures drew attention to the region, Mr. May said they also saddled it with a burden. That’s why last year, during the 50th anniversary of the war on poverty, Mr. May got the idea for his project.

“I didn’t want to reflect poverty porn,” he said. “I didn’t want people to think, ‘Oh, Appalachia, I got a bunch of pictures of kids in rundown trailers and broken satellite dishes.’ That’s not to say those things can’t be found in Appalachia, and not to say those things are not part of America. This is not about echoing pictures made 50 years ago.”

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For a while, Mr. May thought he would have been able to do the project on his own, but he decided against it for reasons of logistics — he has a job and a family — as well as perspective.

“If I wanted to show the diversity of the region, that would be hard to do as a lone photographer,” he said. “I would just be constructing new visual stereotypes if I did it by myself. It made sense to open it up since there are far better photographers and the story being told is more than just mine. This region belongs to everyone, all of America.”

The project covers a wide range, both geographically, from Mississippi to New York, and with images, from landscapes to formal portraits. The submissions were culled down with the help of an editorial board, and the project was guided by input from an advisory board, too. Although the exhibit includes work by professional photographers like Shelby Lee Adams and Maddie McGarvey, Mr. May was often more excited by entries accompanied by notes that started “I’m not a photographer. …”

Similarly, while Mr. May is happy that the work is being exhibited, he is more eager to ensure that schools and libraries have access to it. He is also pleased that the project will be archived at Duke University. His goal is to spark conversations among as wide a group as possible, even if he knows that otherwise intelligent outsiders still feel it is O.K. to crack jokes about the people of Appalachia.

“It’s like poor rural white folks are among the last groups that people feel it’s O.K. to make fun of,” he said. “So, they can laugh at a hillbilly or redneck, make incest jokes, and that’s supposed to still be O.K. It’s just not. I’m not making the assumption this project will change the tide of stereotypes. But what we can do is engage people and start conversations.”

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Looking at Appalachia will be on exhibit at the Spartanburg County Public Libraries Headquarter from May 21st to June 26th.

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