Viewing war through the lens of a camera afforded Frank Braden an unyielding eye, though his photography is not documentation or a straight retention of a moment. Rather, he tries to evoke a mood. Braden's pictures often depict places of transition -- doors, walkways, the movement of the city at night. Though these places hold their own energy, the life of the moment is really captured through the harmony, and disharmony, of color and black and white.
Praise for Humours of Folly
“Ellie Davis’s words and Frank Braden’s pictures capture the edgy poetry of Folly Beach. A must have for the beach-bum in all of us. ”
RICHARD GARCIA, Pushcart Prize winner and author of The Flying Garcias
“Frank Braden’s photographs of Folly Beach exude a sense of whimsy and of the ephemeral moment as defined through light, wind and waves. They celebrate the beach not only as a place of freedom and fun, but also of contemplation and solitude. … Braden’s images help define why life “on the edge” is a capsule metaphor for so much that is profoundly human. ”
TOM BLAGDEN, International League of Conservation Photographers fellow; photographer, First Light: Acadia National Park
REVIEWS
“Braden hits you over the head with color … more often than not [his photographs] are full of humorous observations on life… He focuses on quiet and often elegant landscapes and [has a] penchant for whimsy.”
JOE FARACE, Shutterbug
the humours of folly
by Ellie Maas Davis & Frank Braden
2009, 224 pages
isbn-13: 978-0981873572
hardcover
$50.00 BUY NOW
The humours of folly
by Ellie Maas Davis & Frank Braden
Folly Beach, South Carolina – with all it quirks and warts, its stretch marks and beauty marks, its playful goofiness, its dark underbelly – is the inspiration behind The Humours of Folly.
The ancient theories of the bodily humours – black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood – tie to the elements of the earth, seasons of the year and the many moods of human expression. These serve as the construct for this photographic jaunt by Texas photographer Frank Melvin Braden. His images are mated with a poetic narrative by Charleston writer Ellie Maas Davis. Photographer and writer both turned up rocks, stirred the pluff mud and spent considerable time with some of Folly’s finest characters to unearth stories told in pictures and words.
Educated at Southern Methodist University, the University of Kansas, and the University of Witswatersrand in Johannesburg, Ellie Maas Davis has written extensively on the environment and issues of human rights. She is the owner of Pressque, a publishing consultation firm located in downtown Charleston that offers editing, ghostwriting, and marketing services to authors and publishers.