Abandoned buildings, country churches and modern constructions combine in an online presentation about Southern Culture.

David Wharton, director of documentary projects for the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, explores this relationship between the past and the present in his photo essay “Roadside Architecture.”

The photo essay is the first to be displayed on southernspaces.org, a Web site supported by Emory University, the purpose of which is to explore various topics of Southern life and culture. Southern Spaces, what its creators call an “Internet journal and scholarly forum” on its Web site, chose 18 of Wharton’s black-and-white photographs from six groups of sample work he submitted.

The images include several buildings and rural churches. They are found primarily in Northern Mississippi, though some come from Louisiana and Florida. Wharton said Southern Spaces is a great site for learning about the contemporary South. His photo essay on architecture is just one of the many ways the site is promoting thought about Southern culture, he said.

Wharton said he believes all architecture, “not just old beautiful buildings,” is important to culture and remains significant in the South.

“I think the buildings reflect the values of the people,” he said.

On a good day of photographing, Wharton said he takes between 80 and 100 pictures. Fifteen of these he may consider interesting, and of those, he may personally develop only five to 10. The lighting, time of day and relationships visible within the picture are all key factors in choosing a good photograph, he said. Wharton’s photography career began when he was 27, after he took a four-month trip to South America with his wife. He said he saw “amazing things” he wanted to capture on film.

“After that, I got a camera and learned how to use it,” he said.

Wharton worked in Texas capturing small town landscapes before coming to the university in 1999. He has done several photography projects, including “Old Ways: Church and Family,” which chronicles life at Hurricane Creek Primitive Baptist Church and Rocky Mount Primitive Baptist Church in Lafayette County.

He said he photographed these rural church communities for a period of nearly two years to collect the 22 pictures for the “Old Ways: Church and Family” photo essay.

“Particularly that kind of photography, you can’t just swoop in and snap the shutter a few times,” he said.

Being willing to invest time, he said, is crucial to good photography.

Although he considers photography to be “in the now,” he believes photographers, especially students, need to realize what is really important about their work. He emphasized the importance of occurring experiences rather than the photographs themselves.

“It’s not the picture that’s important,” he said. “It’s what’s going on out there.”

This summer, Wharton plans to begin a project on general tourism in the South. He intends to photograph tourism topics ranging from Civil War tourism to beaches and casinos.

“I am never going to run out things to photograph,” he said.

originally published online here: http://www.thedmonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/04/01/424d3b6e3ad28