Books by John Huddleston
The Northern Forest of North America—stretching from New England and eastern Canada into the Upper Midwest is one of the world's largest contiguous forests. Complex and beautiful, it supports a wide variety of life, and its woodlands offer an interconnected vastness that gives American and Canadian lives perspective and balance. This book is timely, for the Northern Forest is at the heart of important environmental and economic.
The very existence of this forest is extraordinary. For instance, in 1870 the forest covered just twenty percent of Vermont, but today nearly eighty percent is woodland. This remarkable turnaround has taken place on what is overwhelmingly private land. As environmentalist Bill McKibben observes, “This unintentional and mostly unnoticed renewal of the rural and mountainous East represents the great environmental story of the United States and, in some ways, the whole world.” But forest acreage has begun to decrease in every state in New England, as trees are removed for commercial development.
Renowned photographer John Huddleston brings a contemporary vision to show the unique and transitory character of the amazing Northern Forest. His photographs were made with precise attention to ordinary beauty and circumstance as he hiked in the Vermont woods he has known for thirty years. Through his photographs we gain a deep appreciation and understanding of the Northern Forest and how proper forest management enhances both commercial and ecological interests. Under Huddleston's care, natural change is embodied in a new type of photographic composite created from exposures made of similar scenes in different seasons. This difficult, labor-intensive process elicits direct comprehension of cyclic time. Coupled with his straight photographs, the book reveals the dynamic forms and processes of the Northern Forest. And an array of text references explores the biology, economics, history, philosophy, and vulnerability of this vast regional landscape.
“A wonderful book! The stunning photographs infuse landscape with piercing meditative depths—whether in the revelatory Time Composites series, with its dramatic effects; or in the seemingly more conventional images, with their subtle insights and surprises, clarities and beauties. This is work that can transform the way you see landscape, or anything else.”—David Hinton, Author
2021 Independent Publisher IPPY Silver Medal Book Award for best Regional Book Northeast
Published by George F. Thompson Books, 2020
In Killing Ground, John Huddleston embarks on a photographic odyssey through the modern-day landscape of the Civil War. He pairs historical images of the conflict from sixty-two battle sites across the nation—battlefield scenes, soldiers living and dead, prisoners of war, civilians, and slaves—with his own color photographs of the same locations a century and a half later, always taken at the same time of year, often at the same hour of the day. Sometimes Huddleston's lens reveals a department store or fast-food restaurant carelessly built on hallowed ground; other images depict overgrown fields or well-manicured parks. When contrasted with their mid-nineteenth-century counterparts, these indelible images challenge the meaning of place in American culture and the evolving legacy of the Civil War in our national memory.
"Killing Ground is a significant contribution, a new way of looking at highly familiar images."—Shelby Foote, Author and Historian
"These haunting photographs of then and now offer a new and powerful perspective on the tragedies and triumphs—above all, the human cost—of the Civil War. John Huddleston's photographs of selected spots on dozens of battlefields of that war, juxtaposed with photographs of soldiers killed or wounded there and other contemporary illustrations, make telling points in a unique manner. This book does more than prove the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words; it tells the poignant story of the Civil War in a way that goes beyond words."—James McPherson, Author and Historian
"Killing Ground situates us uncomfortably in a terrain where living memory has only recently completed its transformation into history. John Huddleston has photographed the scenes of this vast communal hurt, from the mightiest battles to obscure actions involving a few combatants; in every instance he asks the land itself to yield up what traces it may hold of the mortal issues contested there. Suburban intersection, brushy tangle, murky pool, well-tended battle park—all are joined by a commonality that Huddleston insists we not forget: Americans died here, killed by other Americans."—Frank Gohlke, Photographer
"Huddleston has paired archival images of the first modern war with his own, contemporary color shots of the same locations, at the same time of year, at the same time of day. Some sites of suicidal charges have become Kmarts, mini-malls or swamps strewn with metal and plastic trash. The juxtapositions possess surprising power. In an overexposed and damaged archival shot of the Confederate prisoner of war camp at Andersonville, Ga., a filthy crowd of anonymous men packs the frame, while on the facing page Huddleston presents his own fine-tuned image of a muted, borderless sky. For an instant the viewer vaults beyond history and aesthetics to a visceral understanding of what it meant to be a prisoner of war. ''Are physical and spiritual traces of the great slaughter still present in these places?,' Huddleston asks. The answer is 'Yes.'."—Frederick Kaufman, New York Times Book Review
"Huddleston's photographic project reveals the American landscape as a profound site of memory, loss, history, indifference, natural beauty, and urban sprawl."—Lincoln Journal
"Of all the books this season that can be related to the 140th anniversary of Gettysburg this July, this may be the most immediate and provocative . . . Without a trace of didacticism, Huddleston's photos, especially presented in juxtaposition with the past's open spaces, brilliantly testify to the ways in which history is literally forgotten, ignored or paved over. They are also beautiful."—Publishers Weekly
"His [Huddleston's] only agenda is the very general one of a call to pay attention, and the feel provided by the individual photographs and the book's set-up is as much artistic as it is documentary."—Matthew Stewart, War, Literature, and the Arts
Nominated for the Lincoln Prize
Published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003
John Huddleston looks closely at a landscape of farmland east of Lake Champlain which has been continuously farmed for centuries. Here the family farm endures bolstered by a new interest in local, sustainable food production.
Huddleston records agricultural cycles of life and death and the seasonal transformations of the fields with a democratic attention. His work draws on the ordinary and emphasizes a commitment to place. While acknowledging problems, the imagery affirms the beauty of a productive, working landscape. Huddleston has also created a number of sculptures in the fields employing natural forms and materials to reflect and comment on climate, geography, and agricultural practice. His work demonstrates that art can be a meaningful part of our daily lives and can be actualized in our daily spaces.
In the essays environmental leader Bill McKibben and Huddleston consider notions of progress, ecological issues in farming, modern economic values, and the mythology of agriculture. This book is not an elegy for small farms but a call to support the farmers who remain. Healing Ground passionately argues for an agriculture that will be fruitful but not damaging to the earth.
“John Huddleston’s pictures of small-scale agricultural lands are fresh and deeply felt. They are documentary in the sense that a lyric poem can be documentary, a convincing record of the poet’s affection.”––Robert Adams, Photographer
“This is the most intense and intimate look at the landscape of farming I’ve ever seen. It’s free of sentimentality and full of devotion, which are precisely the casts of mind we’ll need to rebuild a working farm system for our future. What Wendell Berry does with his pen, John Huddleston achieves with his camera.”––BillMcKibben, Environmentalist and Author
Published by the Center for American Places at Columbia College Chicago, 2011
Books that include and comment on Huddleston’s work
