Still, a troubling sadness shadows some of the pictures. Lois, the mother, struggled with emotional problems. Joel, the father, drank too much. Adult children married, divorced, and remarried. Not surprisingly, some viewers of Sills's pictures tell her that for them, the predominant image is of poverty.
Sills sees it differently.
What I care about is the individuality. I see them as having qualities and characteristics. I see a lot of intelligence in the faces. I see it in the eyes, in the way they hold themselves. Her students, too, tell her that when they look at the pictures, they see happiness.