Edited by Henry O. Head, Bryan Schutmaat. Text by Alyssah Morrison.
A haunting photographic return to adolescent mysteries in the Ozarks
In this debut monograph, American photographer Henry O. Head reimagines the peaks and valleys of a defining teenage friendship in the Ozark hills where he spent his adolescence. From spring 2023 through summer 2024, Head revisited the terrain of northwest Arkansas and southwest Missouri—wild country with limestone bluffs shot through with quartz, where cottonmouths coil on exposed roots by slow creeks and alligator gar glide like phantoms through the dark. Twelve Acres recalls a boyhood outside city limits, away from institutions and the pressures of social order. In a progression through the seasons, a restlessness presses in, a longing to stave off the rupture of entering an adult reality, with its mundanity and responsibilities. In this meditation on personal history, worlds quiver in a chaos of past and present forms and stark flashes of image begin to wobble in an opaque well. Tops spin. Animals with thirst cup liquid light. Memory remains an ineffable mystery. Twelve Acres is a reverie, wherein the past reemerges as boys with tick-bitten feet, ears ringing from homemade explosives, clothes stained by the smoke of shoplifted cigarettes and arms stretched toward higher branches.
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Join us Thursday, October 2, from 6–9 PM, for the VIP Preview of the ICP Photobook Fest, and come back Friday through Sunday for a three-day, building-wide celebration of the best in photography publishing.
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With both literal explosions and the explosive feelings of boys coming of age, this image encapsulates the work in Henry O. Head’s first-ever photobook, Twelve Acres—a featured title at our ICP Photobook Fest booth this weekend, accompanied by a Saturday signing. An imagined documentation of two teenage friends growing up in the Ozarks, this refined, large-format collection from Twin Palms Publishers features an embossed cloth cover and a thick, text-free photo jacket that transforms the book from well-considered monograph to superb and mysterious photobook. It features the short essay, “Girls of My Youth,” by Alyssah Morrison, alongside 50 tritone images that blend portrait, landscape and documentary photography. Head’s eye balances the playful abandon and mischievous antics of boyhood with the stoic beauty of the rural Midwest, remaining metered and reflective without losing a sense of fun. A meditation on a similarly impactful friendship from his own upbringing in the area, the work reflects Head’s thoughts on how such a tight, masculine bond has continued to impact him. “This work was inspired by the friendship that defined my teenage years,” he writes, “and the Ozark creeks and hills that we called home.”
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Published by Twin Palms Publishers. Edited by Henry O. Head, Bryan Schutmaat. Text by Alyssah Morrison.
A haunting photographic return to adolescent mysteries in the Ozarks
In this debut monograph, American photographer Henry O. Head reimagines the peaks and valleys of a defining teenage friendship in the Ozark hills where he spent his adolescence. From spring 2023 through summer 2024, Head revisited the terrain of northwest Arkansas and southwest Missouri—wild country with limestone bluffs shot through with quartz, where cottonmouths coil on exposed roots by slow creeks and alligator gar glide like phantoms through the dark. Twelve Acres recalls a boyhood outside city limits, away from institutions and the pressures of social order. In a progression through the seasons, a restlessness presses in, a longing to stave off the rupture of entering an adult reality, with its mundanity and responsibilities. In this meditation on personal history, worlds quiver in a chaos of past and present forms and stark flashes of image begin to wobble in an opaque well. Tops spin. Animals with thirst cup liquid light. Memory remains an ineffable mystery.
Twelve Acres is a reverie, wherein the past reemerges as boys with tick-bitten feet, ears ringing from homemade explosives, clothes stained by the smoke of shoplifted cigarettes and arms stretched toward higher branches.
