This volume provides a much-needed reassessment of the life and work of Clarence John Laughlin (1905-1985). Born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Laughlin lived most of his life in New Orleans, He discovered the literature of Baudelaire and the French Symbolists in the mid-1920s and began writing poetry and Gothic fiction at that time. In 1934, influenced by the work of Stieglitz, Strand, Weston, Man Ray, and Atget, Laughlin took up photography. Devoted to the documentation of historic buildings and artifacts, Laughlin was at the same time committed to a highly personal application of photography to evoke the underlying mystery of the world. He used multiple exposures, theatrical arrangements, and lengthy captions to bridge the gap between the visible world and an allusive, metaphorical realm of intuition and fantasy. Laughlin's work seems particularly relevant today. The last decade of American photography has been characterized by an artistic focus on issues of theatricality, the tension between photographic truth and invention, and the linkage between world and pictures.

A biography of a New Orleans photographer of worldwide acclaim

Called "Edgar Allan Poe with a camera", Clarence John Laughlin (1905-1984) reveals New Orleans at its most brooding and mysterious in 69 never-before-published images. Compiled by the Historic New Orleans Collection, this volume brings together an eerie gallery of French Quarter facades, funerary sculpture, and other details that summon up the Acadian gothic described by six distinguished writers. 69 illustrations.

Many photographers have been intrigued with the baffling distortions--both subtle and disquieting--that can occur when the camera "captures" the real world. Not always intentional, some images dazzle with impossible juxtapositions or disorienting spatial orders, while others confound the viewer's belief in the documentary promise of photography. Drawn from the highly respected collection of Allan Chasanoff, the photographs in this intriguing volume confront viewers with the challenge of doubt and confusion in so-called "straight" pictures. Featured are perceptually provocative images by Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Clarence John Laughlin, Imogen Cunningham, and Lee Friedlander, among others. The book's essays raise awareness of the interpretive nature of the lens and the interpolative nature of the medium. Distributed for the Yale University Art Gallery Exhibition Schedule: Yale University Art Gallery (October 7, 2008 - January 4, 2009)