Customer Reviews

William Christenberry

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After ordering this book based on the solitude of the cover image, I was not disspointed with the excellent content. Christenberry has an ability to capture the questioning and mystery of quiet images. He stops and watches for natural arrangements that probably go unnoticed by just about anyone. (Except those also blessed to see the intrique that can lie quietly waiting for imagination to find them.) This photographer has the great gift of finding the unknown quantity. He is skilled like a painter, to catch the light that can turn a shed into something that can stop you dead in your tracks in wonder.

Aperture are publishing some of the best printed and produced photographic books available. William Christenberry is an artist who uses photographs as part of his work that includes paintings, sculptures, constructions and installations. I purchased this book because of the photographic work, but I enjoy the paintings and sculptures also. My appreciation of William Christenberry as an artist grows everytime I look at this exceptional monograph.This is one of the better books of its type currently available, and the essays that accompany the plates are excellent.

Christenberry photgraphs and crafts replicas of the landscapes in Hale County, AL. This is the same area in which Walker Evans photographed the people and places in the 1930's for the US Gov't and the classic "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men."
Christenberry's images are every bit as poingnant and timeless as Evans and like Walker he captures the old farms, buildings, signs with a great eye, circa 1966.
Chistenberry also consturcts replica models of the building and scenes he captured on film which are stunning. Any afectionado of Evans or photorealism should have this book.

Jeff Rose

I think of Faulkner when I view his work. I just saw his exhibition at Savannah's Telfair Museum and was mesmerized. He records the beauty of a culture in a process of decay. I am definitely buying this book.

This is an excellent collection of Christenberry's photos. I particularly like the photos showing the progression of a building over time.

Actually this is the second copy of the book that our family has purchased.

Despite being born in Alabama 20 years after Christenberry, I feel as though we've shared the same experiences. Growing up in Alabama, living for a time in New York City and feeling displaced there, living in D.C. and loving it, even living in Memphis for a while. Returning to this photographic essay periodically, it has the power to bring back long-repressed childhood visions of unpainted rural shacks, kudzu, and poor Southern towns. It is Christmas time as I write this review, and it also reminds me of the happiness of many of those poor Alabama citizens. Perhaps we didn't know what we didn't have and it didn't matter. Or perhaps we did know then that the most important things in life cannot be purchased. If you need a reminder of that truth, and especially if you are from the American South, I recommend this.

This is the definitive book on William Christenberry's color photography and shows why his work is mentioned alongside William Eggleston's. He shows us rural America that has a quiet beauty to it. The color and compositions are engaging, and this large hardcover book is printed well. Recommended for fans of color photography.