The Gift to Be Simple: Life in the Amish Country

From Booklist
Twenty-five years ago, professional photographer Coleman helped reset a wheel on an Amish farmer's buggy. In return, the farmer invited Coleman to visit--an unusual thing for anyone from the very self-contained Amish community to do. Coleman became a regular visitor and learned how to photograph inoffensively that particular Amish aggregation, which avoids the ways of the world more rigorously than do many others. Some results of his persistence constitute this lovely album, and they rank with George Tice's pictures in the classic Fields of Peace (rev. ed., 1998). Whereas Tice printed his work in sepia to lend the images the monumentality he found in Edwin S. Curtis' famous sepia photos of American Indians, Coleman conjures the same largeness of spirit with a palette full of the velvety hues of various cloudy skies and the earth tones of farmland. Because the community he worked with discourages portraiture of adults, Coleman only shows the faces of children. Their innocent beauty suggests that this kind of simplicity is a gift all children should share. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


About the Author
Few photographers can boast of acceptance by and access to a remote Amish community, but Bill Coleman has had the good fortune to spend the past 25 years capturing its daily events in beautiful full-color images. From breadmaking to haymaking to community barn raisings, he takes readers on a visual journey through a Pennsylvanian valley largely untouched by tourists and the trappings of modern existence. Whether it's a buggy traversing a winter farmscape, a woman quilting, or a group of children at play, Coleman captures with a perceptive eye the one unique and telling gesture that reveals the character of an individual and a community. The images gathered here--authentic in their subject matter and utterly simple in their presentation--celebrate the beauty and grace of a time-honored way of life.


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Coleman is a professional photographer who has been documenting a remote Amish community in Pennsylvania for some 25 years. In the early years of his relationship with these notoriously reticent photo subjects, he photographed landscapes, animals, children, and home scenes. Over the years, he gained the community's trust and photographed adults. The result is a photographic ode to everyday life and the passing of the seasons in an Amish community. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)


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