The Gift to be Simple: Life in the Amish Country
Twenty-five years ago, professional photographer Coleman helped reset a wheel on an Amish farmer's buggy. In return, the farmer invited Coleman to visit--an unusual thing for anyone from the very self-contained Amish community to do. Coleman became a regular visitor and learned how to photograph inoffensively that particular Amish aggregation, which avoids the ways of the world more rigorously than do many others. Some results of his persistence constitute this lovely album, and they rank with George Tice's pictures in the classicFields of Peace(rev. ed., 1998). Whereas Tice printed his work in sepia to lend the images the monumentality he found in Edwin S. Curtis' famous sepia photos of American Indians, Coleman conjures the same largeness of spirit with a palette full of the velvety hues of various cloudy skies and the earth tones of farmland. Because the community he worked with discourages portraiture of adults, Coleman only shows the faces of children. Their innocent beauty suggests that this kind of simplicity is a gift all children should share.Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved