Kickstarter

      My name is Julie Dant and I'm a photographer from Southern Indiana. I'd like to introduce you to a black and white photo project of mine that I hope will interest you.

     I became interested in photography in the mid 90's when I began to photograph old abandoned houses and buildings and it soon became a driving passion of mine to document all that I could before they were either torn down by the land owners, or destroyed by mother nature and the passage of time.

    Some years ago my husband and I were traveling through the Mississippi Delta for the first time and I remember being absolutely enthralled with the old share-cropper's houses that were just sitting empty all along the roadsides there. I naturally took many photographs of them along with abandoned churches, deserted businesses, and several small town main streets that had become virtural ghost towns. It became very important to me to document as many of these old abandoned buildings as I could, simply because, along with a quickly fading Delta way of life, they were disappearing right before our very eyes.

     The black and white images I took that summer represent, to me, an essential portion of the Mississippi Delta's history, especially around the city of Clarksdale, which is situated at the crossroads of hightways 49 and 61. It's here that they say the legendary Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil...just to be able to create and play the Delta Blues that he became so famous for.

     When I began editing, I decided that I wanted to share my black and white images with as many people as I could in the form of a book. The working title of my book is "A Vanishing Delta". It will be a photo documentation of that area of Mississippi...it's places, it's buildings and the uncommon beauty that can still be found there in the rural areas.

     In the book, you'll find not only the pictures of the old share-cropper's homes, but there is an old cotton gin, old abandoned cars and trucks, and a few of those deserted small town main streets that I mentioned earlier. I discovered a beautiful old cypress swamp where children still go fishing with their cane poles, and an old general store that is still in operation being a real necessity to the surrounding rural community there.

     One of the real gems for me was the Shack 'Em Up Inn located on the old Hopson Plantation near Clarksdale. It's a group of authentic old share-cropper's homes that the owners of the plantation rent out nightly to tourists. My husband and I stayed in one of those old cabins and it was such a unique experience I've never forgotten it.

 

   People from all over the world have come there to hopefully get a deeper understanding of the roots of Blues music. I have many photographs of the old plantation's out buildings, the plantation store, and the huge old Hopson Cotton gin. Since then, the gin has been converted into a little more modernized accomodations called..humorously..The Cotten Gin Inn.

     My project would not be complete if I did not inclued my images of actor Morgan Freeman's Blues Club "Ground Zero" where we enjoyed listening and dancing to some great local blues bands. People might wonder why the owners don't paint over all the graffiti, but they make it a point to leave it 'as is' to keep it looking like the old authentic juke joints. Blues fans want to come to listen to their beloved music surrounded by a truely authentic bluesy atmosphere. It is part of an on-going effort to try to preserve the Delta's musical culture.

    

My plan for the book is to have aproximately 100 pages with between 50 to 100 of my black and white images with a minimal amount of text. I need only to take it to a printer,  This is where you come in.

    It is my hope that through Kickstarter and with your financial backing, my long time dream of publishing my Mississippi images in a high-quality coffee table book will finally come true.

   Thank you so very much!

Julie Dant