Shelby Lee Adams (born October 24, 1950)^[1] is an American environmental portrait photographer and artist best known for his images of Appalachian family life.

Adams has photographed Appalachian families since the mid-1970s.^[2] He had first encountered the poor families of the Appalachian mountains as a child, travelling around the area with his uncle, who was a doctor.^[3] His work has been published in three monographs: Appalachian Portraits (1993), Appalachian Legacy (1998), and Appalachian Lives (2003).

Adams was the subject of a documentary film by Jennifer Baichwal in 2002 - The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams's Appalachia. This was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, and at the Sundance Festival in 2003.^[4][5] The film critiques and defends Adams' method in photographing Appalachian people for his previously published books.

• 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship^[6]

• Appalachian Portraits. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993. ISBN 0-87805-646-7; ISBN 0-87805-667-X.
• Appalachian Legacy: Photographs. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998. ISBN 1-57806-048-6; ISBN 1-57806-049-4.
• Appalachian Lives. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003. ISBN 1-57806-540-2.
• Salt and Truth. Richmond, Va.: Candela, 2011. ISBN 0-9845739-1-7.

• Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago^[7]
• Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago^[8]
• International Center of Photography, New York City^[9]
• Musée de l'Élysée, Lausanne^[10]
• Museum of Modern Art, New York^[9]
• Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts^[9][11]
• National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa^[8]
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art^[12]
• Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC^[9][13]
• Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam^[8]
• Time Life Collection, Rockefeller Center, New York^{[citation needed]}
• Victoria and Albert Museum, London^[14]
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York^[9]
• Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro^[15]