Light and Air - by Jerry W Cotten (Paperback)

About the Book

Exploring the life and work of one of the South's first female professional photographers, "Light and Air" features 190 illustrations, including 136 duotone reproductions of photos by Bayard Wootten (1875-1959).

Book Synopsis

A trailblazer for women photographers in the South, North Carolina's Bayard Wootten (1875-1959) overcame economic hardship, gender discrimination, and the obscurity of a small-town upbringing to become the state's most significant early female photographer. This advocate of equality for women combined an artistic vision of photography with determination and a love of adventure to forge a distinguished career spanning half a century.
Originally trained as an artist, Wootten worked in photography's pictorial tradition, emphasizing artistic effect in her images at a time when realistic and documentary photography increasingly dominated the medium. Traveling throughout North Carolina and surrounding states, she turned the artistry of her eye and lens on the people and places she encountered.
Having opened a studio in her hometown of New Bern in 1905, Wootten moved to Chapel Hill in 1928, where her clients included the University of North Carolina. Between 1932 and 1941, she also provided photographs for six books -- including Cabins in the Laurel, Old Homes and Gardens of North Carolina, and Charleston: Azaleas and Old Bricks -- lectured extensively, and exhibited her photographs as far away as New York and Massachusetts.
Light and Air features 190 illustrations, including 136 duotone reproductions of Wootten's photographs taken in North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee -- many of which have never before been published. Though she was an accomplished landscape and architectural photographer, some of Wootten's most notable images were the portraits she crafted of black and white Americans in the lower reaches of society, working people whom other photographers often ignored. These images are perhaps her most enduring legacy.

Review Quotes

"Light and Air is a beautiful volume, carefully produced. Well researched and illustrated, it is a document of an old way of life and a tribute to a pioneering woman photographer and her contemporaries." -- Bloomsbury Review

"Light and Air is at once a thoroughly documented study of an intriguing figure in photographic history and an attractively produced volume of photographs." -- AB Bookman's Weekly

"[Bayard] Wootten is back, thanks to the publication of Jerry Cotten's wonderful biography and portfolio Light and Air: The Photography of Bayard Wootten. Powerfully recounting the story of Wootten's trials and tribulations while providing a critical examination of her work, Light and Air is most memorable for its selection of 136 black-and-white photographs that stir and captivate the soul. . . . With Light and Air Cotten has crafted a powerful reintroduction of the photographer to the modern audience, and he has given us through Wootten's lens an artist's haunting glimpses of people and places from a long-gone South. In the bargain, he has also given us a picture of a woman whose rough-and-tumble life was as buoyant and interesting as the life of any fisherwoman or mountain craftswoman she ever photographed." -- Bland Simpson, Raleigh News & Observer

"A wonderful book. From its striking design and production quality to Jerry Cotton's insightful and informative essay, Light and Air honors an important southern woman photographer and hints at the ways in which local commercial photographic archives can provide richly textured portraits of their communities." -- Journal of Southern History

"The book is elegantly designed, and the 136 main illustrations are handsomely reproduced. . . . This meaningful and balanced book brings the work of this photographer to a place it clearly deserves." -- CHOICE

"The first biographical and critical text on this fascinating North Carolina artist. . . . Light and Air tells the tale of a most unusual and talented woman, whose name and work had almost fallen into obscurity. In a few more years, the remaining people who had known and worked with Wootten would have passed away. Part of the thrill of reading her story lies in realizing that Cotten, with the help of Wootten's family and former colleagues, has snatched it from the edge of oblivion. . . . Cotten has done a fine job of conveying the story of this adventurous woman and showing us how Wootten's intensity of spirit expressed itself in her work. Whether she was imaging landscape, architecture or people, Wootten invested her pictures with emotion, drama and often a moving intimacy. Cotten excels at placing Wootten in the context of her times and of photography's development, but even if you only care to look at the pictures, Light and Air is a wonderful book." -- Independent Weekly

"The 136 sepia-toned images in Light and Air introduce Wootten to a wider audience, transporting viewers to a mythical pre-industrial South unencumbered by debilitating poverty, illiteracy, or racism. . . . Cotten analyzes Wootten's life and work with a scholar's scrutiny and an artist's eye. This handsome volume, as elegant and visually appealing as Wootten's photographs, is a book to savor. A monograph on Wootten was long overdue, and Cotten has remedied that lack admirably." -- North Carolina Historical Review

"These images are perhaps her most enduring legacy. This is a striking volume, in both content and design, and a major contribution to the rich and growing history of southern photography." -- Georgia Historical Quarterly

"This absorbing biography of Wootten, North Carolina's most significant early female photographer, should kindle interest in Wootten's remarkable work." -- The Picture Professional

"This book, with 136 duotones, recovers the images of a little known but highly accomplished regional artist." -- Women's Art Journal

About the Author

Jerry W. Cotten is the former North Carolina Collection photographic archivist at the University of North Carolina.