Overview

This is a photographic art book featuring 110 full-color renderings of watermills still standing on the landscape in North America (United States and Canada), with brief captions (location, year built, type of mill,etc.). It will be an oversized coffee-table format with introductory front matter on history of mills and closing back matter on mill interiors and functions.

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9780817320157

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Reviews

The text in this book reminds us of the historical importance of watermills in America's earliest communities, a significance that been largely forgotten today. But here Boyd does more than write about the central role watermills had in the founding of America and then offer up photographs of old, oft-forgotten buildings. In his photographs, as he's done previously in his books about locomotives, Boyd invents a new way of looking at old forms. Here Boyd manipulates the images of watermills into pristine historical monuments. These photographs record the original watermills and their surroundings, but in Boyd's rendering of them he reveals something new and sometimes almost mystical about these once imposing and important structures. Boyd's book gives us a history of watermills and also, something beyond. Historical Watermills of North America is a visual delight that runs deeper than the presentation of beautiful photographs. --Carl Schinasi, Visual Artist and Retired Professor of English Ken Boyd's recent book Historic Watermills of North America is a scholarly and visual treasure. As I read the book and looked at each photograph I thought of a quote from the great photographer Minor White: 'Do not just photograph things for what they are, photograph for what else they are.' The mills are photographed showing the life and activity and importance of water. Ken Boyd's mastery of light and environmental perspectives seem beyond human accomplishment. This is not merely a historical account, the book is a life account of the reverence of work, water and structures of beauty. Ken Boyd's photographs are evidence to his mastery of all aspects of photography, using his technique in service to dignify his subject. In his photographs we view the placement of these mills within the environment and the radiant light enlivens not only what we know of the importance of the mills, we are deeply touched with emotions to preserve such beauty and history. I am thankful to have been touched by this work and to learn how the water and mills have worked sustainably built within the respect for water. Water provides energy and is returned to the rivers clean and pure. Ken Boyd's book is a treasure that allows us to advocate for beauty and significant preservation of this way of life. I thank Ken Boyd for the years of patience and deliberate work to bring this account to hold and know. --Karen Graffeo, professor of art, University of Montevallo

Author Information

Ken Boyd is a photographer and writer who has taught photography for the community at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Samford University since 1985. He is author of The Art of the Locomotive and Historic North American Locomotives: An Illustrated Journey. A retired assistant to the chief environmental and research officer at the Southern Company, Ken and his wife, Dori, live in Hoover, Alabama.

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