Image of the Day

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A spread from photographer Christian Patterson's book Redheaded Peckerwood. Patterson self-published 10 copies of the book last year and a newly expanded edition is now available from MACK.

Christian Patterson's Redheaded Peckerwood retraces the steps of 19 year old Charles Starkweather and 14 year old Caril Ann Fugate who murdered ten people, including Fugate's family, during a three day killing spree across the mid-West in 1958. The true crime story was the basis for Terrance Mallick's masterpiece "Badlands" which had a profound aesthetic influence on Patterson as he matured as a photographer.

Beginning ominously with the tragic handwritten confession by Chuck and Caril, Patterson revisits the locations of the crimes and retraces their flight across Nebraska and Wyoming. By incorporating forensic photography, artifacts and press photos from the period with landscapes and still-lifes of his own Patterson weaves an enigmatic narrative deliberately mixing fact and fiction, past and present, myth and reality.

The book is presented as a sort of vintage crime dossier, including three documents found in the wallet of one of the victims that have been reconstructed and bound in. They serve as further evidence of the senselessness of the crimes and the rich mythology that has evolved from these random artifacts.

If you're in New York, stop by Dashwood Books tomorrow from 6–8PM to pick up a signed copy of Redheaded Peckerwood.