Customer Reviews

To Remember a Vanishing World: D. L. Hightower's Photographs of Barbour County, Alabama, c. 1930-1965

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The cover fly-leaf to this book suggests that DL Hightower's photos of Barbour County, Alabama are comparable to the work of Walker Evans, FSA and more contemporary documentary photographers. I think this is being far too generous; he was not a professional but ran a Chevy dealership in Clayton, Alabama. However he was a keen amateur and more importantly he had the wonderful idea of recording all aspects of life in the town and county. The 195 photos in the book confirm his vision.

There surely can't be too many small towns across the country where one person took it upon themselves to record what was going on, not just in the social sense of community activities but how life worked. There are some wonderfully detailed photos here: a typical farmhouse called a double-pen that had a wide opening front to back in the middle to allow a breeze to ventilate rooms either side; a close-up of a broad ax used to cut timber to make split rail fences and a photo of a typical fence; two photos of a small cane mill to make sugar for farmers. Having looked through the book plenty of times it's difficult to find something of significance in Barbour County that Hightower didn't photo. The coverage is rather awe inspiring.

If only the book's production lived up to the potential of these fascinating photos. The 195 were chosen from four thousand or so and several used are soft focused, many need additional cropping but perhaps the main thing is the print quality. If they had been professionally done (admittedly increasing the production costs) it would have given all the shots a lift. Printing with a 133 screen doesn't do these average prints any favors either. The book came out in 1997, if it was published now I think the image quality, printing (175 to 200 screen) and paper (matt art) would have made a wonderful looking book.

***SEE INSIDE THE BOOK by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.