Eugene Richards first came to the southeastern part of Arkansas?the so-called Delta?in 1968 as a VISTA volunteer. After nearly two years in that organization working to set up a daycare center and recreation programs, he and some of his associates in it left to found RESPECT Inc., a private social-action program providing paralegal services, publishing a community newspaper, and distributing food and clothing in West Memphis (across the Mississippi River from Memphis, Tennessee). As he lived and became increasingly involved in the black community, Richards, a skilled photographer, began to use his camera to record what he observed?not only the poverty and suffering of these people but also their laughter, contemplation, and triumphs. His subjects range from children at play to an African-style wedding to scenes of work and home life. Death, religion, and imprisonment are major elements of Delta existence, and so of these photos. The 110 photographs collected here express the quality of life in a part of the South where 60 percent of the black families barely earn $2000 a year, and 70 percent of the dwellings are deteriorated and without plumbing. Richards' camera catches the cotton compresses, the cement mill, the broken fields and small cafes, Logan the mortician, the two blind brothers Willy and Isaiah McCowan, and the Reverend Ezra Greer at the state capitol in Little Rock, while his few but carefully chosen words complement these images. Together they hold the people and the place in a world that Richards feels "slipping by, while I merely observed its disappearance. "I feared being only eyes, only a cameraman," he says, but through his camera his eyes become ours, and the power of his feelings, ours too.

Few Comforts or Surprises: The Arkansas Delta

Politics & Social Sciences

Richards, Eugene

Social Sciences

MIT Press]

Eugene Richards first came to the southeastern part of Arkansas—the so-called Delta—in 1968 as a VISTA volunteer. After nearly two years in that organization working to set up a daycare center and recreation programs, he and some of his associates in it left to found RESPECT Inc., a private social-action program providing paralegal services, publishing a community newspaper, and distributing food and clothing in West Memphis (across the Mississippi River from Memphis, Tennessee). As he lived and became increasingly involved in the black community, Richards, a skilled photographer, began to use his camera to record what he observed—not only the poverty and suffering of these people but also their laughter, contemplation, and triumphs. His subjects range from children at play to an African-style wedding to scenes of work and home life. Death, religion, and imprisonment are major elements of Delta existence, and so of these photos. The 110 photographs collected here express the quality of life in a part of the South where 60 percent of the black families barely earn $2000 a year, and 70 percent of the dwellings are deteriorated and without plumbing. Richards' camera catches the cotton compresses, the cement mill, the broken fields and small cafes, Logan the mortician, the two blind brothers Willy and Isaiah McCowan, and the Reverend Ezra Greer at the state capitol in Little Rock, while his few but carefully chosen words complement these images. Together they hold the people and the place in a world that Richards feels "slipping by, while I merely observed its disappearance. "I feared being only eyes, only a cameraman," he says, but through his camera his eyes become ours, and the power of his feelings, ours too.

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

Mit Pr

In some countries, they call them the "abandonados," the abandoned ones. They're the impoverished mentally ill and mentally disabled patients being warehoused in psychiatric asylums that are more run-down, more uncaring than the most brutal American prisons. Confined in cage-like cells, tied to beds soiled with human waste, medicated to the point of senselessness, or wandering naked in unheated and garage-like wards, they live in what can only be called the shadows, their plight unseen and too easily ignored by the rest of the human family. Working first as a journalist, later as a volunteer for the human rights organization Mental Disability Rights International, photographer Eugene Richards gained access to psychiatric institutions in Mexico, Argentina, Armenia, Hungary, Paraguay, and Kosovo. His wrenchingly intimate images reveal the often inhumane treatment suffered by the mentally disabled. Offered little that would qualify as effective care, patients are denied even the most basic human amenities: privacy, protection from harm, clean clothing. Accompanying the book, A Procession of Them, is a DVD of a short film of the same name. Directed and narrated by Richards, this unique and expressionistic film speaks of the chaos, claustrophobia, and loneliness of these living hells. Making us face some hard truths, A Procession of Them drives home the point that when it comes to the plight of the mentally disabled, "no one much cares." As Richards concludes, it's "as if there is a kind of worldwide agreement that once people are classified as mentally ill or mentally retarded, you're free to do to them what you want."

A Procession of Them (William and Bettye Nowlin Series in Art, History, and Culture)

Individual Artists

University of Texas Press

This is Eugene Richards' 1972 photographic essay, a social document of his home town of Dorchester, Massachusetts, previously only self-published. The book includes additional pictures and a text that speaks of racial tension, violence, poverty and crime, tackling such subjects as the Klu Klux Klan in a way that he did not feel able to at the time of the original publication. On the basis of "Dorchester Days", Richards became a member of Magnum Photos in 1978, leaving to work independently in 1994. His style has set the standard for leading photojournalists such as James Nachtwey and Gilles Peress.

Dorchester Days

Phaidon Press

Eugene Richards (b.1942) has created a body of work that is considered one of the most outstanding of contemporary photojournalism. His images unflinchingly confront the less than pleasant truths of modern life and are testimony to his commitment to social justice. Recently he has turned to documentary film-making, again highlighting social issues. 
Other artists in this series include: Eugene Atget, Mathew Brady, Wynn Bullock, Julia Margaret Cameron, Joan Fontcuberta, David Goldblatt, Nan Goldin, Graciela Iturbide, Andre Kertesz, Dorothea Lange, Mary Ellen Mark, Joel Meyerowitz, Boris Mikhailov, Lisette Model, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Eadweard Muybridge, W. Eugene Smith, Shomei Tomatsu, Joel-Peter Witkin

Eugene Richards (Phaidon 55s)

Bowden, Charles

Phaidon Inc Ltd

Award-winning photographer Eugene Richards was asked by a magazine to report on what happens inside a typical emergency room. Once inside, he took photograps, talked with doctors and nurses and made friends with paramedics. He discovered a world he never knew existed. The Knife And Gun Club is the fascinating account of his exploration of emergency room medicine. Serial in LIFE magazine.

The Knife and Gun Club: Scenes from an Emergency Room

Atlantic Monthly Press

Includes personal revelations of doctors, nurses, and health aides working in emergency rooms, accented by the photographic impressions of the author

Atlantic Monthly Pr

Science & Math

A best-selling photo-essay by an award-winning photographer captures the day-to-day drama of a Denver emergency room in more than a hundred black-and-white photographs, interviews with hospital personnel, and transcripts of radio communication. Reissue.

Below the Line: Living Poor in America

Captures the extent of poverty in the United States, evoking such scenes as the hopelessness of urban youth and the struggle of midwestern farmers

Altongy, Janine

Consumer Reports Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Richards, Eugene. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Richards, Eugene

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Richards, Eugene. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Few Comforts or Surprises: The Arkansas Delta

Few Comforts or Surprises: The Arkansas Delta

A Procession of Them (William and Bettye Nowlin Series in Art, History, and Culture)

Dorchester Days

Eugene Richards (Phaidon 55s)

The Knife and Gun Club: Scenes from an Emergency Room

The Knife and Gun Club: Scenes from an Emergency Room

The Knife and Gun Club: Scenes from an Emergency Room

The Knife and Gun Club: Scenes from an Emergency Room

Below the Line: Living Poor in America