New SIGNED

Keith Carter

Ghostlight

SIGNED Keith Carter

Text by Bret Anthony Johnston

 

University of Texas Press, US, 2023. First edition. Hardcover. With the dust jacket. SIGNED by Keith Carter on the half title page. Text In English. 184 pages. 134 color illustrations, 12 x 12 inches. New unread copy still partially sealed in shrink wrap. The photographer slit open the shrink wrap to sign the book.

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 as 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.

SIGNED Keith Carter.