In August of '06 documentary photographer Gaston Callum journeyed to the heart of the Deep South to photograph some of the region's most endangered historic buildings. Over a three week period fifty-two antebellum plantation houses, quarters, and churchs were recorded by Callum from South Carolina to Louisiana. The endangered status of the fifty-two buildings results from the fact that most of the homes are currently residing uninhabited and unmaintained — a condition that is proving to be a lethal combination for idle Southern farmhouses. A large percentage of the recorded buildings illustrate that many of them are suffering from both short and long-term decay, and that many will not likely survive into the future unless rescue efforts are initiated very soon. But the news was not all bad, and one of the most uplifting stories of Callum's trip was visiting Hollywood Plantation in Mississippi which is currently undergoing a thorough restoration by its longtime owner.

Gaston Callum founded Southland Historic Preservation in 1997 and today serves as the organization's executive director. Callum's main purpose for reconnoitering the Deep South this year was to photograph specific endangered properties for SHP's ongoing photographic inventory of early Southern architecture. This documentation effort focuses on early farm and plantation houses that are disappearing from the Southern landscape in mass numbers each year with no apparent end in sight.

Two years in the making, the Deep South photo trek was SHP's most ambitiously produced reconnaissance effort to date. After months researching and identifying significant candidates to record, the second phase of the effort entailed opening lines of communication with property owners to request access to their property. As one can imagine, most endangered property owners are not usually enthusiastic about having their neglected historic structures thoroughly photographed by a preservation group whose eventual intention is to publish the pictures into book form. Realizing this, SHP makes every effort to initiate sincere and friendly dialogue with property owners as a way to establish an effective means of communication with them. By mid summer most of the trip's itinerary had been ironed out and in the pre-dawn hours of July 22nd Callum began weaving an intricate path through the former land of cotton. Once in the field, physically locating the precise location of the isolated buildings takes on a special quality all its own, especially in mid-summer when the heat is on and the vegetation consumes abandoned farmsteads like they were deep-fried jumbo shrimp. And since driving to the front doorsteps of these old farmsteads is not always an option, Callum pretty much knew the drill and found himself regularly packing in his equipment and hiking across fields and dense woods to get up close and personal with the subjects. In the following passage Callum briefly reflects on the trip:

I'm not going to tell you it wasn't hot, but the long humid days of July and August provided tons of warmly diffused sunlight to record the idle properties. Combined with some amazing light that occurred after a couple of thunderstorms, the favorable photographic conditions no doubt helped take my mind off the fact that I was usually drenched in sweat and there were lot's of snakes crawling around, though most of them didn't appear to be poisonous. One interesting occurrence took place while photographing a two-story Federal style home in southern Alabama that had a couple of young vultures living in the main upstairs bedroom. The nearly grown birds were cooperative enough to pose for a couple dozen pictures in front of the formal hearth -- a sitting that surely wouldn't have occurred if their parents had been home. Another encounter in central Georgia was celebrated by the fact that I simply got out ALIVE of a recently burned columned mansion who's roof appeared ready to cave-in at any point. Thankfully I was able to record some detailed interior pictures of the plaster and wood surfaces that were eerily distressed from the heat of the catastrophic fire. I met some really great folks during the trip, including a score of property owners who were all friendly and cooperative. Also, thanks to my Deep South colleagues who provided some crucial assistance before I embarked on the trip and gave me comfortable shelter along the way.

Gaston Callum's new Deep South photographs are currently being produced into an illustrative book in conjunction with his previous work of the region over the last decade.