By Ashley Bates
Photo of Rick McAllister by Kate Gardiner
“I had a corporate job in New York City and during my lunch break, I would walk down 6th Avenue and stroll through the KODAK gallery. I got hooked, bought my first Canon camera, and the rest, as they say, is history,” says Rick McAllister, of his start in the world of photographic arts. McAllister, who draws his inspiration from artists and writers like Ernest Hemingway, Ansel Adams and Clyde Butcher, is a former corporate-executive-turned-visual-historian who took up photography in 1970 when he returned home from Vietnam. Although McAllister’s work covers a broad spectrum of subjects, history is what fuels him. When traveling through the backroads of the Southern United States, traces of southern history, heritage and traditions can be seen through the disappearing buildings and pieces dotting the region’s landscape. Capturing these images is what Rick McAllister’s mission was all about when he began The Olde South Series; a photographic journey along the back roads of the South.
The series began with a collection of 100 photographs from across the South, featuring abandoned homes, cabins, and other structures, and has now grown to over 400 photos.Over the years, Rick has photographed abandoned structures on the back roads of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. The Olde South series will be on display at the St. John’s County Administration Building in St. Augustine beginning in December and the exhibit will run through February.
“It is a brand new building with a two-story rotunda, and they invite artists to come in and do anywhere from a one to three month art exhibit. I’ve been invited to do the December, January and February exhibits,” said McAllister, who has lived in St. Augustine for 17 years. “The kickoff reception for the show is Dec. 19 from 8:15 to 9 a.m. They do it in the morning so all the county officials can come before they go to work that day.”
The Olde South Series will be a one-man show featuring approximately 40 pieces by McAllister.
“I’ll be displaying on both levels, the ground floor and the second floor. Upstairs, I think I’m going to do a sub-series of old forts and fortifications from the Southeastern coastal areas of the United States. The ground floor will be traditional cracker houses, barns and other old structures,” McAllister said.
“The newest part of the series are images the forts and fortifications that start up in Charleston, and go down the South Carolina coast, the Georgia coast and then the Florida coast — these are military forts and fortifications that Congress authorized along the coast of the United States”.
“My favorite is Fort Jefferson down in the Dry Tortugas, in the Florida Keys. Another of the interesting ones is Fort Sumpter at the mouth of the Charleston River, because that’s where the first shot of the Civil War was fired.”
Recently, McAllister has been asked to give lectures on the Olde South Series in the Northeast Florida area.
“I’ve been doing some lectures on the series. I guess the longer it’s out the more people want to learn about it,” he said.
Of the 420 images in the black and white series, there will be pieces available for purchase at the St. John’s County Administration Building. Each piece includes a documented history of the subject matter “explaining what it is and as much as I know about the dsite, which could be nothing more than an address or location, but many of them include a detailed history,” he says.
A history Rick McAllister is devoting his life to to preserving.
