Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
Ghostlight : Bill and Alice Wright Photography - Keith Carter

Ghostlight

By: Keith Carter (Photographer), Bret Anthony Johnston (Contribution by)

Hardcover | 4 December 2023

At a Glance

Hardcover


RRP $116.00

$114.75

or 4 interest-free payments of $28.69 with

 or 

Ships in 5 to 7 business days

Southern wetlands, with their moss-draped trees and dark water obscuring mysteries below, are eerily beautiful places, home to ghost stories and haunting, ethereal light. The newest collection from award-winning photographer Keith Carter, Ghostlight captures the otherwordly spirits of swamps, marshes, bogs, baygalls, bayous, and fens in more than a hundred photographs.

From Ossabaw Island, Georgia, to his home ground of East Texas, Carter seeks "the secretive and mysterious" of this often-overlooked landscape: wisps of fog drifting between tree branches; faceless figures contemplating a bog; owls staring directly at the camera lens; infinite paths leading to unknown parts. Similarly, spectral images are evoked in the original short story that opens this book.

Ghostlight, writes best-selling author Bret Anthony Johnston, "hovers, darts, disappears. It can be as mean as a cottonmouth, as mischievous aes a child. The closer you get, the farther the light recedes." A masterpiece of "Bayou Gothic," Ghostlight challenges our perceptions and invites us to experience the beauty of this elusive world.

About the Contributors

Keith Carter teaches photography at Lamar University, where he is a Regents Professor and holds the Endowed Walles Chair of Visual and Performing Arts. He is the author of twelve previous books, including several with UT Press: From Uncertain to Blue, Ezekiel's Horse, Fireflies and a retrospective, Keith Carter: Fifty Years.

Bret Anthony Johnston is the internationally best-selling author of Remember Me Like This and Corpus Christi: Stories. He is the director of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas.
Industry Reviews
A stunning new book...[Ghostlight] conveys the strange allure of these brackish backwaters and their biological menagerie...Carter's playful approach can be seen in nearly every photograph. Drawing from a deep bag of tricks, he can make photographs that resemble still-life paintings, chiaroscuro portraits, or carefully etched Japanese woodblock prints. His sepia-toned images have a timeless quality emphasized by their vignetting-an old-fashioned darkroom technique that subtly darkens the edges of a print. (Texas Monthly) Writer Bret Anthony Johnston sets the murky, mysterious tone in Ghostlight with a gothic short story that offers a haunting intonation to Keith Carter's otherworldly wet-plate B&W photographs. Whispering, humid southern wetlands of moss-draped cypress trees and dark waters breathe spectral light, divulging ghostly apparitions and the gators, owls and other wild things secreted within. Carter's caressing imagery is a stunning, atmospheric impression of southern mythology. (What Will You Remember?) Keith Carter's monochromatic masterpiece Ghostlight uses stark contrasts to convey profound emotional depth. The interplay of light and shadow within its frames serves as a silent poetry, inviting readers to immerse themselves in the quiet narratives embedded in each photograph. (Smithsonian Magazine) [Carter's] photography shares his artistic vision in a artsy, folksy way that connects us all and makes us appreciate what we have here [in Texas]. (Port Arthur News)

More in Individual Photographers

Exposure : A photographic memoir - Greg Weight

RRP $44.99

$37.75

16%
OFF
Holbein : Renaissance Master - Elizabeth Goldring

RRP $82.95

$60.75

27%
OFF
Annie Leibovitz : Women - Annie Leibovitz

RRP $160.00

$110.99

31%
OFF
Art Is : A Journey into the Light - Makoto Fujimura

RRP $51.95

$40.75

22%
OFF
Dear New York - Brandon Stanton

Hardcover

RRP $65.00

$42.75

34%
OFF
Henri Cartier-Bresson : The Decisive Moment - Henri Cartier-Bresson

RRP $79.99

$66.75

17%
OFF
Journeys Into the Wild : Photography of Peter Dombrovskis
Kate Moss by Mario Testino - Mario Testino

RRP $34.99

$28.75

18%
OFF
226 Garages and Service Stations - Philip Butler

RRP $59.99

$45.75

24%
OFF
Lee Miller - Hilary Floe

Paperback

RRP $69.99

$52.75

25%
OFF
The Power of Women : An Atlas of Beauty Book - Mihaela Noroc

RRP $55.00

$40.75

26%
OFF
Utterly Lazy and Inattentive : Martin Parr in Words and Pictures - Martin Parr
Exposure : Contemporary photographers in Australia and New Zealand - Amber Creswell Bell
Stephen Shore : Uncommon Places: The Complete Works - Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen

RRP $110.00

$76.99

30%
OFF
Year of the Monkey : The New York Times bestseller - Patti Smith
Annie Leibovitz: Wonderland - Annie Leibovitz

RRP $140.00

$96.99

31%
OFF
Danny Lyon : The Bikeriders - Danny Lyon

RRP $55.00

$44.75

19%
OFF
Ralph Gibson. Photographs 1960-2024 - Ralph Gibson

RRP $170.00

$117.99

31%
OFF
Poolside with Slim Aarons - Slim Aarons

RRP $140.00

$96.99

31%
OFF
The Atlas of Beauty : Women of the World in 500 Portraits - Mihaela Noroc
Dreamscapes : Inspiration and beauty in gardens near and far - Claire Takacs