Photography

“At the time of the photo,” writes Joanie Stephens, who worked with Jim Owen in the last few years of his life, “Table Rock Dam had been under construction for almost two years. Jim put up a good fight against the dam because it would change the White River. In Jim’s letter edged in black, he mentions the White River was his ‘bosom pal for 25 years.’ As I looked at that picture again, I could imagine Jim grieving one more time.”

“As I looked at that picture….” More than just collections of pretty images, photography is a powerful force, artistic, social, even political. These Ozark hills have more than their fair share of talented photographers.

Dogpatch USA: A Reflection

by Tenille Blair-Neff

It was a cool, cloudy October morning in the year 2000. My little sister and I sleepily shuffled into the car and set off on an adventure. Growing up in the shadow of Joyland — an old amusement park in Wichita, Kansas — had instilled in us a taste for that potent mixture of thrill-seeking and historical decay. Each night we fell asleep to the sound of locusts mixed with that of screams as people flew down the drop of a rickety wooden roller coaster. Many a night I awoke in a flop sweat, having dreamed of a terrifying clown who played the piano at the park entrance.