In their photo essay “Sweet Ride – Low Country Travelers of Charleston County”, Nancy Marshall and John McWilliams explore the history, mission, and significance of the Low Country Travelers, an African American car club in the South Carolina town of McClellanville. This exhibition is in the Ted & Gloria Maloof Gallery at APG.

From the porch of their studio John & Nancy watched the line of beautiful old cars parade down Pinckney Street, lending color and majesty to the Lincoln High School Homecoming and the Fourth of July Celebration. Who had restored these relics from the past and where did they come from?  Even before they knew what these classic automobiles meant to their owners, and before they had met the members of the Low Country Travelers Car Club, they knew they wanted to photograph the men and their cars.

They took the first photographs in 2009 in collaboration with the members. Standing next to their cars, they basked in the joy of ownership and achievement and generously sharing the pleasure that comes from connecting to a kindlier, friendlier, less hectic past.

Exhibition: Oct 12 – Nov 30
Artists’ Reception: October 18, 7:30-9:30pm
The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

Speaking of Photography: A Conversation with Chip Simone, John McWilliams & Nancy Marshall

Conversation: Oct 18, 6-7:30pm at MocaGA

Atlanta Photography Group presents a conversation with Chip Simone, John McWilliams & Nancy Marshall and original APG members. This conversation marks the beginning of a series of events that will highlight the roots of the Atlanta Photography Group and Atlanta’s vibrant photographic community.

Free and open to the public, limited seating is available.

John McWilliams, a renowned photographer, was born in July 1941 in Pittsfield, Maine. He received his BFA and MFA degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, and afterward traveled to the South in search of inspiration for his photography. In 1969 he began teaching photography at Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta, eventually becoming director of the GSU School of Art and Design. During his tenure, McWilliams also served on the Fulton County Arts Council and as a board member for Nexus (later the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center, cofounded by Steven Foster) and the Atlanta Photography Group.Among the numerous accolades McWilliams has received are the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in photography. His work is represented in the collections of the Modern Museum of Art in New York City and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. In 1989 McWilliams published Land of Deepest Shade: Photographs of the South, a book of seventy black-and-white images, in collaboration with the Aperture Foundation and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

After retiring from GSU, McWilliams moved to McClellanville, South Carolina, where he continues his work in photography, as well as in relief printmaking and drawing. His photographs Alabama, Ireland ’78, and Washington County, Georgia, are part of Georgia’s State Art Collection.

Nancy Marshall is a native Atlantan now residing in McClellanville, S.C. She received her M.F.A. in Photography in 1996 from the School of Art and Design at Georgia State University. Marshall served as Senior Lecturer in photography at Emory University from 1988-2005. Photographs are in the collections of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; MOCA GA, Atlanta, GA and Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, AL. She received the Nexus Press N.E.A. Book Award and the Southern Arts Federation Fellowship in Photography. She was also a Genesis Project Fellow at the Genesis on Ossabaw Island. She has photographed the southern landscape extensively and is interested in the antiquarian photographic processes.

Sweet Ride is online at www.southernspaces.org, a peer-reviewed, multimedia, open-access journal published by Emory University.