Tuesday, February 10, 2009

"Southern Exposures"















I grew up in the South and have lived here virtually my entire life. Although this is not my birth place, in essence it is my home, the only place I know. So these images of great southern homes truly resonate with me, they are everything I associate with the South; whether "grand or humble, antebellum or modern," they are "all bound by land, heat, and history." Especially, heat, I can personally vouch for that one!
Although I have never visited any of these particular specimens, chronicled in the above photographs, I have seen them all through my car window driving through small towns whose names I don't remember, on the way to family vacations. As a child, and now with my own children, these homes are stored away in my memory bank, at once so foreign, and yet so familiar at the same time.
{all images and bits of text via the wonderfully written, beautifully photographed Garden and Gun}

8 comments:

Raina Cox said...

I desperately want the third one to go with that cotton fields print from 20x200 I'm forever going on about.

Rambling now...have you ever seen the documentary "Shalom Y'all" about Jews in the South? Love, love, love it!

http://www.shalomyall.com/shalom-yall/index.php

nelya said...

That third image is the most beautiful and would be a perfect pairing with the cotton fields. I just read the issue this morning and you are spot-on, it would make an incredible print.

The documentary sounds vaguely familiar, checking it out right now!

erin@designcrisis said...

You're making me homesick. The south is beautiful, if more than a bit stifling. And I don't mean the heat.

Anonymous said...

These remind me so much of my childhood in georgia! i was still young when we left, but I have these impressions in my mind of long aimless drives down dirt roads lined with abandoned houses.

it would be so interesting to go back as an adult and get that grown up perspective!

mary s. said...

I MUST live in the 4th one down. I'm actually in pain thinking of stepping inside that little jewel.

Where do you live down south? We're New England born and bred, but my husband lived in Atlanta and then Kentucky for about 8 years total, and his years down there really shaped who he is now. I, personally, am dying to go to Texas and Nashville!

essbesee said...

I, too, have always lived in the south. The South is awesome. I wouldn't live anywhere else. Beautiful images, thanks for posting!

nelya said...

Erin...I think I know exactly what you mean...

Mary- I've lived in and around Atlanta most of my life, now we are just north of the city in the 'burbs.

nelya said...

Sherri, Hi! So glad you stopped by.