Christmas at Graceland -- December 2018

In the words of Paul Simon, "I have reason to believe we all shall be received in Graceland."

Best wishes for a joyous holiday season to Southern photographers and Southern photography fans everywhere. 

Thank you for your interest in The Southern Photographer, and especially for your kind words of support for this blog during the past year. 

I especially appreciate your patience with me during my Sabbatical. We are back now, with what I hope is a sustainable practice. 

So I know I'm a bit behind right now in chronicling the world of fine art photography in the American South. 

Nevertheless, the Southern Photographer must now take a short break, while yr humble blogger attends to other professional and personal responsibilities.

We look forward to resuming our chronicle after the 1st of January 2019. 

In the meanwhile, remember that Christmas is a season, not just a day, and the season of Christmas is 12 days long.  

So its Christmas from the eve of December 25th of 2018 all the way through until Twelfth Night, January 5th, 2019. 

Graceland, of course, the home of Elvis, who became famous by appropriating the music of Arthur Crudup and Big Mama Thornton. They wrote the music, and he made the money.  

But what he spent it on was this tacky McMansion in Memphis. 

That's one of the things I believe about the South -- it can set you free and break your heart, all at the same time. 

Happy holidays, everyone!

Southern Photography at the Nasher

The Nasher Museum at Duke University has up an important show of Southern photography entitled Across County Lines: Contemporary Photography from the Piedmont.

While concentrating on photographers who live and work chiefly in Piedmont North Carolina, the show demonstrates the diversity of subjects, styles, and interests of several generations of Southern photographers. 

 
 Photographers in the show include Ben Alper, D.L. Anderson, Bill Bamberger (see image directly above), Endia Beal,  Diego Camposeco (see image below), Aaron Canipe, Kennedi Carter, Faith Couch, Phyllis Dooney, Tim Duffy, William Ferris, Maya Freelon, Tamika Galanis, Michael Galinksy, Alex Harris, Harrison Haynes, Titus Brooks Heagins (see image at the top of this blog post), Colby Katz, Anna Kipervaser and On Look Films, Jeremy M. Lange, Bryce Lankard, Jim Lee, Elizabeth Matheson, Lisa McCarty, Lindsay Metivier, Susan Harbage Page, Tom Rankin, John Rosenthal, Margaret Sartor, MJ Sharp, Christopher Sims, Heather Evans Smith, Leah Sobsey and Tim Telkamp, Hồng-Ân Trương and Hương Ngô, Burk Uzzle, Caroline Hickman Vaughan, and Gesche Würfel.

 
This show is up through February 10th, 2019. It's very worth your while to make the journey. 
 

PhotoNOLA for 2018

PhotoNOLA, the annual photography festival in New Orleans, this year runs from  December will bring us  this year running from December 12th-15th, 2018. 

For the full calendar of events for this year's festival, go here.

A special feature of this year's festival is the show now up at the Ogden Museum, entitled New Southern Photography, featuring the work made in the past 10 years by 25 photographers, many of whom are familiar to readers of this blog. 

 
The photographers chosen for this show include David Emitt Adams, Kael Alford (see image above), Elizabeth Bick, Christa Blackwood, John Chiara, Scott Dalton, Joshua Gibson, Maury Gortemiller, Alex Grabiec, Aaron Hardin, Courtney Johnson, Tommy Kha, Brittany Lauback, Carl Martin, Jonathan Traviesa & Cristina Molina, Andrew Moore, Celestia Morgan, Nancy Newberry, RaMell Ross, Whitten Sabbatini, Jared Soares, Louviere + Vanessa and Susan Worsham (see image below). 



According to the folks at the Ogden, "New Southern Photography explores the role photography plays in formulating the visual iconography of the modern New South."

They go on: "Regional identity in an interconnected and global world is central to the exhibition’s narrative. 

"Themes and ideas addressed in New Southern Photography include: memory, the experience of place in the American South, cultural mythology and reality, deep familial connections to the land, the tension between the past and present, and the transitory nature of change in the New South." 

If you can't make it to PhotoNOLA this year, the show at the Ogden is up through March 19th, 2019.