One Family

by Vaughn Sills

One afternoon in the fall of 1979 photographer Vaughn Sills set out from Athens, Georgia, with a load of camera equipment, a tape recorder, and a caring spirit, seeking a family in a setting that would "call" to her. Running across a settlement of simple frame houses "that seemed to belong" on a country road near town, Sills parked her truck, walked in unannounced, and commenced a twenty-year collaboration with the extended Toole clan that One...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0820321990
• ISBN13: 9780820321998
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 2.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 10.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Elegancing the rough

This book is the result of Sills' consuming photographic affair with a rural family in Georgia. After thousands of photographs we see this basic American Southern family grow and develop before our eyes. Sills' eyes and camera allow us to discover beauty where others may see ... trash and dirt. Tina Toole develops into a Frida Kahloesque sort of chameleon-like woman, often pretty, sometimes tough, but always mesmerizing. This is one of those books that every photographic aficionado should buy.

Southern Books Competition Award for Book Design

This book won the 2000 Southern Books Competition Award of Excellence in Book Design from the Southeastern Library Association. This award is given in recognition of the book's aesthetic appeal and design and for fine craftsmanship in its printing and binding. Congratulations to author Vaughn Sills, designer Kyong Choe, printer C & C Offset, and the University of Georgia Press.

"One Family" captures the larger, human family

Vaughn Sills' One Family has done something, but done it very sublty; by focusing for twenty years on photographing the Toole family from Georgia, Sills has managed to photograph many families, represented by this proud and tenacious family whose corner of world happens to be the American South. You could easily call this a book "a photgraphy book looking at the rural south"; and it is, the dialogue and writings in the book sometimes show that Southern vernacular; the scenery sometimes seems typically "Southern"; but to stop there at "Southern" as a despricition is missing the larger picture. To stop there would be to miss the wonderful, wide, world of people in every day life, engaged in just simply living. The writing included in the book is revealing, personal and touching, Some of it is dialogue with family members and some is poetry by Tina Toole Truelove. These words and feelings are what help tie the book to the world at large because we see that, even in the South, people feel a certain way, have certain experiences. Yes, this book would be a great source for a vew on a part of the American South,but don't stop there on your journey with this beautifully photographed book. I treasure mine and treasure the truths I see in their faces.