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The original
Dorchester Days is a classic self-published edition, chronicling life in Eugene Richards' home town of Dorchester, Massachusetts, in the 1970s.
Although all the photographs are taken within a few streets of each other, the book represents a snapshot of small town America in the 1970s, and as such has a far more wide-reaching resonance. Racial tension, violence, poverty and crime: it is a powerful portrayal of a town and a nation in a state of transition and decline.
In this new and revised edition Richards reorders and expands the book from the original edition, tackling subjects such as racism and the Ku Klux Klan head-on in a way that he did not feel able to pursue at the time of the original publication.
About the author
Eugene Richards (b.1944) is the one reportage photographer who, tellingly, is most intensely and consistently revered by other reportage photographers. On the basis of his
Dorchester Days he became a member of Magnum Photos in 1978, but left in 1994 to work independently. His style has set the standard and the trend for leading photojournalists such as James Nachtwey and Gilles Peress. A former social worker, there is a political edge to his work, and his treatment of hard-hitting subject matter demonstrates a distinctive and compelling compositional style, combined with an extraordinary ability to get under the skin of his subjects. Accepted and trusted widely, he puts us in the front row of his subjects' fascinating lives.
Summary
A photographic portrait of small town America in the 1970s.
