Working from Memory” by William Christenberry is one of my favorite photo books. Christenberry taught art at Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C., and was a prolific artist, creating photographs, paintings, and sculptures.
Over many summers, Christenberry would return home to his native Alabama and revisit the place where he grew up. He would photograph the landscapes, signs, and architecture of the area, returning to the same subjects again and again. These photographs tracked time’s effect on the scenes, and the result is a visual record of his links to home and his memories. Several of his books collect these familiar scenes.
Looking at Christenberry’s photographs, I can feel time slipping away for him. The pictures often seem melancholy as these subjects that obviously mean a lot to the photographer transform and barely resemble the content of earlier photos of the same places.
I had no idea about Christenberry’s work when I took the photograph that appears here. But as I’ve grown older, it reminds me of his subjects and his method. The picture was on one of the first few rolls of film I took with the Canon AE-1 camera I received for Christmas in 1982. My earlier cameras had been simple ones that produced pictures of much lower quality. I fell in love with photography while in 4-H, and the photography project stoked my desire to get better. The 4-H experiences and the Canon camera set me on a career path I could not have imagined at the time.
The photo was taken on April 18, 1983, and it remains one of my favorite memories of my homeplace. It was a Tennessee 4-H Photo Search Winner and was among photographs representing the state at National 4-H Congress in 1983.
The corn crib in the picture is one of the few structures left on the remaining five acres of my grandfather’s farm, and it sits alongside the farmhouse built around 1900 where my mom has lived most of her life up this point. The farm’s tobacco and cattle barns succumbed to storms a few years before this picture was taken. A springhouse, chicken house, and what we called a woodshed have suffered similar fates in the years since. The corn crib is still standing, though barely; it’s in pitiful shape.
Over the years, I’ve taken numerous pictures of all these buildings, whether they were the main subject or simply supporting backdrops to family photos. It was where I started with those early cameras.
It’s sad to see the buildings decay. Although their deterioration and ultimate disappearance are like losing a friend, I’m still grateful to have the pictures. The house and the acres that remain will always be home to me and my family and essential to our story long after these buildings are just a memory.