Land Im Bound To

Book excerpt: This retrospective volume places Jack Leigh in the company of other documentary giants such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lang. While technology and urban sprawl have transformed much of our country in the last half of the twentieth century, Jack Leigh has been quietly documenting the people and the landscape of the Southeastern coast, a region steeped in history and tradition. The Land I'm Bound To is the photographer's tribute to the richly diverse culture of his native region. His subjects range from solitary oystermen working the fog-shrouded salt marshes of South Carolina to shrimp fishermen at sea to the swamps and marsh flats along Georgia's Ogeechee River, as well as the massive cranes and freighters of Savannah's busy port. Here, Leigh is both inclusive and expansive, offering some of his most memorable images as well as recent work that synthesizes the beauty and emotional grip the South has on many of us.