One of my favorite novels is Wiley Cash's A Land More Kind Than Home. Few books have a lasting impact on us, and I can say with confidence that I'll never quite leave the world/situation that he has created–much as I've never left The Grapes of Wrath or The Stranger. I dabbled with The Stranger in retelling a story in song, and I tried it again this time with A Land More Kind Than Home. I only hope that somewhere in North Carolina, Wiley Cash isn't cringing.

[If you can't see the audio player above, click here.]

Lyrics:

Jess was just a boy
That had to do his growin' quick,   
For things changed awful fast
When he caught himself a glimpse
Through the newspapered windows
In that old church up the river.

Inside was Preacher Chambliss
And a roomful of deacons
Jugglin' snakes and smotherin' demons,
And on the floor lay his brother
Dead as a stump.

And if one secret ain't enough
For a young boy to keep hid,
Only Jess and his dead brother
Seen what Mama and Preacher did
In the bedroom when no one else
Was supposed to be around.

Now, Mama didn't know,
Well, hell, maybe she did,
That it wasn't God,
But that old preacher
That took her poor kid.

Mama didn't know,
Well, hell, maybe she did,
That it wasn't God,
But that old preacher
That took her poor kid.
And damn, if the sheriff and Adelaide
Weren't suspectin' the same.

Well Daddy got drunk
For the first time in a long time.
He blamed Mama and the Preacher
For takin' his boy's life.
And through a faceful of tears
Jess told his daddy everything that he'd seen.

Then a car pulled up
And Daddy grabbed his gun.
And when he shot that old preacher
You know Mama tried to run.

And the sheriff showed up
In time to see Daddy shoot,
And when Daddy turned towards Jess
The sheriff shot him too.

Jess turned out alright,
And the church healed itself through.
Maybe the good Lord
Has it in his plans
To save us too.

Malory and Greenberry Taylor, sister and brother.

Somehwere in the back of my mind, I've settled on the fact that I generally don't love shooting 35mm–even though it's the most convenient format at my disposal. That being said, I really love this shot, and it wouldn't have been quite right, I don't think, in any other format.

Also, garage sales, y'all.

Rasberry Tea by Amy Anderson

36" x 36"

Amy and I did some test shooting to prep for photographing a friend's large painting tomorrow. We used one of her paintings that we already had hung on the wall as a subject, and I'm happy that she has it digitized now.

1) Chris in front of the Lincoln Memorial–that is, the country's first memorial to Lincoln enshrining a reconstructed, symobilic, log-cabin birthplace.

2) Chris at Buffalo Trace Distillery on the loading dock of a rickhouse full of barrels of bourbon in a sentence full of prepositions.

3) Chris in a field.

I really didn't like the color in this image at first, but it grew on me. Now I like it.