Calhoun County centenarians through the lens of Eric Ebner

Calhoun County Storytellers: Eric Ebner

By Lucy Hough / For Black Squirrel News

MARSHALL — MARSHALL — Since 2021, Eric Ebner has taken portraits of Calhoun County centenarians. He says it’s a dream creative project because it’s not about selling something, nor about ego or control. Instead, “the only goal is to make it good and do their lives justice,” Ebner said. “That’s super rare. It’s a breath of fresh air in my career.”

Calhoun County’s Senior Services Department has honored centenarians in various ways over the years. In 2021, it began a relationship with BluFish Consulting in Marshall to capture each person with a unique portrait. Each year, Senior Services staff seek and interview any residents in Calhoun who are 99 years old or older, and Ebner takes the photos. Then those stories and photos are collected in a printed booklet to be shared at an event in July honoring the centenarians and their families and share their stories.

“Eric’s photographs of the centenarians are thoughtful and seem to capture the personality of the individuals,” said Rebecca de Finta, senior services specialist. “He carefully positions them in settings that gives the viewer a sense of what they feel is special to them, whether it’s a garden, prized collections or simply a comfy chair. His use of family members at times show just how important and cherished the centenarians are to them.”

Ebner said that he doesn’t always know what he’s walking into when he arrives at someone’s home. Sometimes it’s a large house or a senior living facility, a home full of memories and family members or someone without family support. He must be ready for anything. Everyone looks to him to direct the photo shoot and guide the process. Centenarians have limited energy, so even 30 minutes of taking photos can be exhausting for everyone.

“It’s very intuitive,” Ebner said. “My eye has been trained and become confident enough that even though I might not have all the answers, I’m generally good at getting us in the right direction. And then with 15 or 20 minutes, I find I really get into a flow state and I’m able to identify things way easier.”

The portraits are unique to each person. Regardless of the person or the life they lived over 99 years, Ebner walks into each home ready to learn. He appreciates the opportunity to learn from their experiences or perspectives.

“I think the more perspectives we’re exposed to, the better we can make ourselves. I think that viewing life in lots of different ways, in all shapes and sizes, it gives you the opportunity to choose the life for yourself,” Ebner said.

Seeking Stories With Depth

Centenarians offer Ebner incredible visual subjects for the Calhoun County portrait project.

“Their skin, their eyes, their environment — it really bodes well for portraits. They’re just incredible photos,” Ebner said. “From an artist’s perspective, it’s a great opportunity for me to flex my muscle, and every summer, I get hundreds of beautiful shots.”

While his creative work started in photography, Ebner has found himself gravitating toward video in recent years. After experimenting with video, he found the medium shared fundamentals with photography, but became more complex in a way that he liked. Video offered opportunities for greater detail and nuance.

“I wanted to tell the stories I wanted to tell, which weren’t about me but they were from my point of view. Video documentary storytelling was pretty perfect for what I wanted to share. I could tell stories authentically because I could use people’s own words,” Ebner said.

Documentary storytelling is how Ebner makes his career. He seeks topics that speak to larger human truths. While being interviewed for this article, he was in Brazil working on post-production for a documentary about efforts to designate an area of southern Brazil as a surf reserve to make it a protected natural area.

“I look for something really special. The people that I cover, they always represent something larger than themselves. Their story translates to a bigger observation or lesson,” he said.

Ebner applied this documentarian style to the Calhoun County Centenarian Project with a 15-minute documentary telling the story of a rural Calhoun couple who have been together since they were young. Alongside his BluFish colleague, Erica Eash, who served as a producer, they captured the story of two married centenarians whom they had photographed for the project: Bud and Violet. The married couple, both over 100 years old, had the “juice,” as Ebner said.

The documentary shares their history, their personalities, and their love. In 2024, the documentary was presented at Marshall’s Wolf Tree Film Festival and won Best Documentary and Best Picture. It went to a couple other film festivals, but there wasn’t much critical interest, which a consultant told them was likely because it lacked drama or a big reveal.

“It’s really more of a celebration,” Ebner said of the documentary, which is now available on YouTube.

Initial photo courtesy of Eric Ebner; centenarian portrait provided by Rebecca de Finta

How we reported this: This story is based on an interview with Eric Ebner, as well as a brief interview with Rebecca de Finta from the Calhoun County Senior Services Office. Ebner’s documentaries can be found on Youtube at youtube.com/@ebner_eric. The stories and photos of the Calhoun County Centenarian Project can be found on this story map.

Disclosure: Lucy Hough works in the Calhoun County Office of Community Development, of which Senior Services is a department.