The Reposed

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Summary: These cemetery photographs convey the spirit of life
Review: I have seen William Greiner's work at galleries and have wished for years that this particular series of photographs would be published in book format. Finally it has been! How can I begin to describe the colors one sees in these cemetery pictures? They are positively unearthly. I have never seen anything like it and will never be able to convey the ethereal effect of his photographs. Of course, seeing images on a computer screen will only get you about 10% of the way to how tremendously beautiful this book is. There are a number of lovely photography books covering cemeteries in New Orleans and Louisiana, but this is the most extraordinary one I have ever seen. The others I have seen are in black and white and seem somehow about death and stillness and architecture. Greiner's color photographs show the most intimate little details and mementos of these burial places...I feel like I am seeing something about a LIFE and a PERSON and LOVED ONES and an AFTERLIFE rather than death and concrete and marble. I am peeking into some kind of secret world where the deceased linger. I have looked at so many of these haunting images and thought maybe I could imagine something about the lives or souls of these "reposed" of the book's title. I'm sure I'll never know a thing, but it's remarkable that a book of cemetery photographs can have that effect on me. There's a depth here that is unmatched in this area of photography. My words are nearly useless to describe it. I'll probably get several copies to use as gifts this holiday season so I can SHOW people instead of trying to tell them. (Too bad All Saints Day isn't one of those gift-giving occasions...)

Rating:
Summary: Life after Death
Review: If one picture is worth a thousand words, then this book is worth sixty two thousands words to describe the surreal photographs. Definitely not enough room here to convey what I think is a remarkable look at cemeteries in and around New Orleans. William Greiner is a genius with a camera,who has taken the cemetery photograph and made it into a haunting, beautiful work of art.

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Summary: Astounding and touching tribute to the dead
Review: If you only buy one photography book in your lifetime, this is it. Nobody has ever said so much with pictures about a dead subject.

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Summary: 62 stunning photographs of Southern Louisiana cemeteries
Review: In sixty-two stunning color photographs, William K. Greiner captures the visual landscape of these ghostly neighborhoods. A colorful respite from the gray conventions of graveyard photography, his images leap off the pages with brilliant hues. His pictures are not just about graves, but also about the lives and values of the people who inhabit and visit them. Most of his photographs are of humble and inconspicuous burial grounds. Located somewhere between city and country, they exsist as geographic testimony to our comprehension of the graveyard as the transitional space between heaven and earth. In these photographs, there is no great divide; streetlamps and telephone wires intrude into the heavens, supermarkets and mausoleums share parking lots, and religious and secular symbols vie for attention

Rating:
Summary: These cemetery photographs convey the spirit of life
Review: Thomas Lynch writes a transcendant introduction, as usual. William Greiner's photographs are beautiful and original to view, but also convey their own graveyard poetry from the bottom to the top of the human spectrum. I couldn't recommend this gorgeous book more highly.

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Summary: Stunning.
Review: Thomas Lynch writes a transcendant introduction, as usual. William Greiner's photographs are beautiful and original to view, but also convey their own graveyard poetry from the bottom to the top of the human spectrum. I couldn't recommend this gorgeous book more highly.

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Summary: Small Models of the Barren Earth
Review: To capture the ironies, poignancies, and soulful idiosyncrasies of the grave sites pictured in this book, William Greiner spent several years traversing the cemeteries of New Orleans and South Louisiana....Despite Greiner's obvious debt to William Eggleston, who is often cited as the father of modern color photography, his photographs stand out as originals. The compositions are provocative, and he renders garish colors into a lushly seductive palette..... Mr. Greiner's small, Louisiana-style models of the barren earth combine with Thomas Lynch's elegant foreward to make The Reposed a fascinating book. Nov/Dec 1999

Rating:
Summary: Life after Death
Review: William Greiner is definitely an artist to watch! This book is wonderful! The color photographs are haunting and the presentation honors a most memorable subject - graves and memorials to dead. Not just any dead people - but those quirky graves of New Orleans and vicinity are photographed here. The setting often combines the commonplace with the ethereal. A brillant theme photographed by a genuis at capturing the unusual around us. It's really a wonderful book to own and display.

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Summary: Haunting book of color photographs reflecting life in death.
Review: William Greiner is definitely an artist to watch! This book is wonderful! The color photographs are haunting and the presentation honors a most memorable subject - graves and memorials to dead. Not just any dead people - but those quirky graves of New Orleans and vicinity are photographed here. The setting often combines the commonplace with the ethereal. A brillant theme photographed by a genuis at capturing the unusual around us. It's really a wonderful book to own and display.

Rating:
Summary: A fine color portrait of common places.
Review: William Greiner's first monograph is a welcome selection of photographs from his many years of work in color. Greiner's view of the world, mainly in his native Louisiana, is alternately witty, tender and rhetorical. THE REPOSED is a book that the viewer will want to look at again and again.

-- Deborah Bell, Private Dealer of Photographs, New York City