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jack leigh

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Publications:

Oystering: A Way of Life

Jack Leigh's first extended book project concentrated on the lives of oystermen along the barrier islands of the South Carolina coast. After two years work on the oyster boats and in the shucking houses and steam factories, he assembled his first book, Oystering: A Way of Life, foreword by James Dickey, which was published in 1983 by the Carolina Art Association / Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina.

The Ogeechee: A River and Its People

Next Leigh devoted another two years to a photographic journey on Georgia’s Ogeechee River, tracing the river from its source in a field in Northwest Georgia to its confluence with the Atlantic Ocean. The Ogeechee: A River and Its People was published in 1986 by the University of Georgia Press as part of the Wormsloe Foundation publication series.

Nets & Doors: Shrimping in Southern Waters

From 1986 to 1989, Jack Leigh followed the lives of the shrimp fisherman on Georgia’s coastal waters. Nets & Doors: Shrimping in Southern Waters was published by Wyrick & Company in late 1989.

Seaport: A Waterfront at Work

Published in 1996 by Wyrick & Company, Seaport: A Waterfront at Work, was the result of six years work on the docks, pilot boats, and container ships in the busy Port of Savannah. It marks the fourth volume of Jack Leigh’s ongoing chronicle of life in the American South.

The Land I’m Bound To

In the fall of 2000 a major retrospective of Jack Leigh’s work was published by W.W. Norton and Company.
The Land I’m Bound To chronicles three decades of Jack Leigh’s photography in the Southeast. From the solitary oystermen working the fog-shrouded salt marshes of South Carolina, to the shrimp fisherman at sea to the swamps and backwater haunts of Georgia's Ogeechee River, Jack Leigh’s love affair with the landscape and traditions of his homeland are revealed in this two hundred image volume. Foreword by Pat Conroy

"Capturing the pride of place in movie theaters or empty diners, at afternoon checker matches or baseball games, or on oyster boats in the salt marshes of South Carolina, each of Leigh's photographs is powerful in its ability to convey much about a social landscape within a single image."

"Leigh's pictures of his native South are firmly rooted in the American documentary tradition. With their subtle tones, they are not so much timeless as damp with the slow drip of time's passing."

Geoff Dyer, The Independent, London

"All of Leigh's shots evoke place and mood with heartgripping force. His black and white images, at once, softly textured and immaculately focused, emphasize the beauty of isolation, personal and geographic; but other shots celebrate the ties of community. An ordinary intersection in a small town holds our fascination; a fog covered body of water brings out the romantic in the most hardened of hearts."

Brad Hooper, Booklist, Chicago

"With his beautifully executed, quiet images of the South, Mr. Leigh challenges the viewer to find beauty in something most people would just walk past"

"This is a honey of a book, focusing on coastal towns and seaside scenes in South Carolina and Georgia. Some of the seascapes, shrouded in mist and fog, rival any of Ansel Adams' best work. Others are reminiscent of Walker Evans' finest. Leigh's people - young faces bright with hope, older faces quiet with a life-weariness, almost speak from the pages. This photographic tribute is their story, and the story of ther lives and the places they live and love."

"The exquisite black and white images in this book speak volumes to Coastal Southerners. The people that Leigh photographs are dancing in the open air, passing time on porches, and leaving church services - and facing his camera without fear. Through the lens, Jack Leigh eloquently writes their history."

"Elegiac black-and-white photographs . . . Mr. Leigh resembles (Lewis Hine) -- not esthetically, but in his ability to depict manual labor and, indeed, the South itself, without either sentimentality or condescension."

Vivien Raynor, The New York Times

"Lyric documentary depicting the oystermen of South Carolina's coastal wetlands . . . these solitary pictures do conjure up the mood of a hushed, misty morning on the creeks and rivers of the Carolinas."

"Leigh chronicles in words and images both an untamed river and a vanishing way of life. For two years, he traveled the Northeast Georgia river, talking to hunters, fishermen and moonshine makers. The stories are as memorable as Leigh's duotones."

"Sepia-tinted photographs and shared anecdotes form an affectionate and plain-spoken portrait of the vanishing lifestyle of the rural South . . . Leigh has captured a way of life on film that few outsiders will ever see."

"Leigh brings to the book its unique quality of creating images that do more than illustrate the text. Many of the photographs can easily stand alone (and probably do) as artistic works. While his views of the river are solid and evocative of what it must feel like to be there, it is his pictures of the people that are the more compelling. Leigh's vision honors the human spirit and the dignity earned from experience."

"Nets & Doors is about fishing for shrimp, but it is also about solitude and loneliness and quiet wishing. It is a haunting, beautiful book...Jack Leigh is a photographer in the tradition of socially concerned photographers like Walker Evans. Leigh spent two years with the shrimp fishermen on the coast of Georgia, going out with them every day, catching something of their lives...The lack of text allows you to bring your own stories to the spare and deftly composed images of the fishermen, their boats and the sea that surrounds them. There is no sentimentality here, no romance despite Leigh's elegant compositions. The sadness of these images works a spell, and by the book's end you care about these men and women without having to read a word about them...These people are depicted with respect and honesty. At the heart of this work is Jack Leigh, showing us something of this world with a clear and sympathetic eye."

"Very occasionally a book appears which demonstrates that photography is an art form in its own right. Seaport is such a book and contains exquisite monochrome photographs of the port of Savannah, although they could almost be of any port for many of the photographs are of ships and people. A few pages of text introduce the book, followed by the photographs, one to each large page. They have the compositional and lighting qualities of genuine art and cover large ships, tugs, pilot boats, wharves and the people who work at the port, all in a variety of moods and climatic conditions from early morning misty shots to sunsets and some in foggy weather. This is top quality pictorial photography."