Partial to Home

Partial to Home represents the culmination of a ten year period in which the photographer, Mississippi's Birney Imes, records timeless vestiges of Southern, African-American culture throughout Mississippi. These first photographs, many of which were taken during research and photography for Juke Joints, acutely pick out specific instances that are rich in drama and heritage and smack of rural ingenuity and pragmatism as a way of life in the South. Photographs in the book range from back porch gambling to Sunday baptisms in the river, and combines the photographers knowledge with powerful subjects to make for thoughtful, provoking, and equally joyous imagery, while chronicling and preserving a way of life that resists change but is rich in history and in its sense of familiarity. Imes has a way of surprising the viewer with his adept visual storytelling, and, even though obviously physically present in the environment of the photography, resides as the instrument by which the often barely visible is fully seen.I highly recommend this book.