A PEOPLE APART

Breathtaking black-and-white photographs of Old Order Mennonite life, with an accompanying text that explores their culture in a slightly reverent tone: origins, churches, dress, leisure activities, work, etc. The photographs have a great deal to offer from a purely technical view as well their fascinating images: Captured by a modern eye and shot through a modern lens are clothes, buildings, and objects that seem to be from another time. Furthermore, the people, never before photographed, display an explicit reaction to the lens—excitement, amusement—in poses and expressions that are never found in the old photographs that the content of these most resembles. Visual contrasts—hand lotion and Joy of Gardening behind a woman sewing by kerosene lamps—vividly convey the enlightening contradictions that Kenna and Stawicki's first book amply records. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 8+)