Above are photographs by an old high school friend named Becton Morgan. We hadn't seen each other in ten years but there we were at her latest opening in Savannah. We'd crossed similar state lines at different times but now live blocks away from each other. I've seen a lot of openings here lately and this was a truly wonderful one. The concept was the themes of the southern gothic writers (William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor primarily). There were images of antebellum ruins, leaves blown onto a church pew (my favorite!), violence (So Flannery!), and abandonment. I've been on a color photography kick and mostly because of my obsession with the 1960's and 70's photographers that ruled it (then and some still---Eggleston, Leiter, etc.) I find a particular thrill in perfectly printed black and white photography. Partly because I spent uncountable hours in college perfecting one photo at a time and there is a meditative joy to it (okay, it's also a pain in the ass). Otherwise, a wonderfully printed black and white image carries a grace, an accessibility and immediate rush of a feeling.
Many of the photos from her latest exhibition are shot on Cumberland Island. It's a near abandoned stretch with the antebellum ruins of Thomas Carnegie's estate (the less famous of the Carnegie's), marooned shrimping boats, wild horses, and therein some epic landscapes. If you visit the link you will find not only great history, and ruin photographs, but also the simple fact that Cumberland Island has a large shark population. Needless to say, Cumberland is my next big road trip once this Unchained Tour winds down.
On a side-note, I share the eeriest Ouija board experience of all time with Becton. In my senior year of high school I was in a production of Picnic by William Inge. I played the bitter old schoolmistress that's always slapping cold cream on her face and getting sloppy drunk. It was good fun. After the run, the cast and crew headed out to Jennifer Borntrager's lake house. The boys ended up watching The Matrix. The rest of us girls, ten in total, went into a room across the way and played Ouija. After a few harmless questions, the spirit "Rowena" got a little bitchy. Then, Jennifer admitted that Rowena was her aunt and had killed herself in that room. Good times! We'd all taken our fingers off the board at this point and were in need of additional oxygen. Jen said not to worry and that Rowena didn't want to hurt us, right? The cursor began moving by itself saying, No No No. So we think okay, great. Then the cursor aka Rowena says, I will hurt you. An inexplicable thump from below flew the board and all ten of us up and then back down. Eight of the girls ran screaming and jumped fully clothed into the lake. Why? One need not question any behavior after experiencing a demon or whatever... The other two girls, myself and Jean Parker, grabbed each other and cried ourselves to sleep. We were convinced that Rowena was underneath the bed getting ready to drag us by the feet into hell and/or kill us. We survived. We all slept with a light on for months to come. Surprisingly or not, I did keep playing Ouija.
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