HEART OF A SMALL TOWN is Robin McDonald's paean to a time when small rural communities all over this country bustled with life. Concentrating on Alabama, he draws many of his subjects from those areas of the state that have been bypassed by major highways and left somewhat deserted. Places like Verbena, Mentone, Win-field, Burnt Corn, Newbern, Epes, and Enterprise; places in the Black Belt, in Wiregrass Country, in the Piedmont. There he records common objects— screen doors, broken sidewalks, storefront displays, neon signs, rusting pickup trucks, vine-covered walls, and church windows—with an uncommon sensitivity.
Matched with quotations from writings that grew out of these places, the images take on an unusually vibrant life. They echo with the hopes and joys and the struggles and grief of folks who have called these small towns "home." Robin McDonald's photographs are animated and enriched by the lyrical quotations