Michael Disfarmer ...

... was a small-town portrait photographer who documented rural life in the American south between 1930 and 1959. 

Disfarmer was not a social individual and little is known about his life. He was born Mike Meyer in Indiana and moved to Arkansas with his parents in the late 1800s. After his father died in 1914, he moved with his mother to Heber Springs, where he constructed a photography studio on the back porch of their house. Around 1930, a tornado killed his mother and destroyed their house. He built a new studio on Main Street and established himself as the town photographer. He kept to himself and was considered eccentric.