Richard McCabe in SPOT

Richard McCabe is the Curator of Photography for the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans.

As such, he's been responsible for some outstanding photography shows at the Ogden Museum in the past few years, including their current show Into the Light: Photographs from the Permanent Collection of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, now up through January 5th, 2014.

Now McCabe is interviewed by Susie Kalil in the latest issue of SPOT (see cover image above),  the magazine of the Houston Center for Photography.

The interview is entitled New Southern Photography, and its on pages 18-26 of SPOT.

McCabe is really talking about photography at the Ogden Musem, but he has lots of thoughtful and insightful things to say about Southern photography in general. 

For instance, McCabe finds that Southern photography has central themes, including "sense of place, identity, a reverence for history, family, the burden of history and relationship to the land."  He values the perspective of non-Southerners who work in the South and who, as he says, "let you see the place with fresh eyes."

McCabe discusses the history of photography in the South, including subjects, styles, techniques, the place of Eggleston, Christenberry, and Mann, and the folks whom he believes are doing good work today. 

This is an exceptionally helpful interview, not to be missed. And I am deeply grateful to the fine Southern photographer Don Norris for bringing it to my attention.