After a life time of being fascinated by these seed pods of our native red maples, I have never been sure whether I liked them or hated them. The seeds always foiled the broom whisks which were never able to herd them 100%; or the leaf blower which added more chaos to any effort of spring tidiness. I have decided now that "I love 'em" as they have a unique ability (unknown to me until now) that…
Since 2003, fine art photographers and photography lovers from across the United States gather in Pike County, Georgia for SlowExposures. It’s the annual juried exhibition that celebrates the rural American South—in the rural South. Call for entries is now open.
This profile is a seminal component of a major work portfolio head lighting organic farmers whose hands are as expressive as their faces, and whose hearts have lead them to a proactive life of caring for the earth and others. "Growing up on the farm, I really never saw myself coming back and making a life here – I needed to get away and create my own story,” Cheryl Ferguson of Plum Granny Farm in Piedmont North…
We had a family garden when I was growing up in Alabama, and my dad gave me the responsibility of taking care of the beans. I really enjoyed that experience - a real sense of pride that has stayed with me. What impacted me the most was one day when I was working construction (on the west coast) and I looked into the field next to our building project, and the field crew were…
Jennifer Mantler lives what this photo essay project is all about ... Jennifer, like so many other college students that we have encountered, had periods of disillusionment during the college years of her life. Unfulfilled expectations and conflicting messages generated by a choice of study majors, in Jennifer's case - environmental science and political science - left Jennifer feeling that there had to be something more. Another common theme we have encountered as an ingredient for…
Cynthia Glasscoe enjoys telling the story of her dad's Troybilt tiller which changed her life. "It has been in my barn forever as a a gentle reminder of when he was alive and instilled in me his passion for gardening and farming." This image is the newest addition to the Organics: Heart and Hands series.
The 13th edition of one of the South's favorite photo exhibitions this past weekend (September 17-20, 2015) was by all accounts one of the luckiest. With 900 images submitted from all across the country, jurors Jerry Atnip and John A. Bennette distilled the finalists to 75. Photographers and the public were treated to a real fete - Southern style! My wife and I are life-long veterans of festivals - sports, crafts, and photography -…
This profile is a seminal component of a major work portfolio head lighting organic farmers whose hands are as expressive as their faces, and whose hearts have lead them to a proactive life of caring for the earth and others. From surgeon to farmer ... Since coming back to Winston-Salem to begin practice in 1979, Bob Alsup always had a garden. Even as a kid, he had a strawberry patch or vegetable plot. On his very first day in…
August 19, 2015 ... What one might expect, of course, the corporate "green and yellow" floral arrangement from the local John Deere dealership ... Cotton harvest season is October; cotton bolls in two of the arrangements.
Kate Schumacher has lived her whole life in the South, and as she tells it, "rural spaces have been a part of my entire existence." A college education and a few months into graduate school put her into a panic when she finally figured out that she wasn't living a meaningful existence. Career testings consistently pointed her to fields of study that had the word "agriculture" in them and on a whim and at…
