"Since the early 1960s, William Christenberry has plumbed the regional identity of the American South focusing his attention on Hale County, Alabama, from which he hails. Although he is most often associated with American color photography, his multifaceted vision encompasses a mix of media that includes sculpture, drawing, painting and found-object assemblage. To understand the scope and complexity of his decades-long project, these various media must be considered together." "His documentation of vernacular architecture, country churches and graveyards, signage, and landscape captures moments of quiet beauty in a sometimes mythic terrain that, with its worn iconography and buildings turned ramshackle, evokes the form and power of the passage of time. Since relocating to Washington, D.C., in 1968, Christenberry has dutifully returned home to photograph and consider the same locations annually - the green barn, the palmist building, the Bar-B-Q Inn, among others - fulfilling a personal ritual and documenting the physical changes wrought by the passing of a year. More than half the work in this comprehensive publication is previously unpublished."--BOOK JACKET.