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Photo Book Reviews

Isles of Eden: Life in the Southern Family Islands of the Bahamas (Benjamin Publishing) by Harvey Lloyd Reviewed by José M. Gonzalez Article rating: 6.55

In Isles of Eden: Life in the Southern Family Islands of the Bahamas, photographer Harvey Lloyd explores the southern islands of the Bahamas with images that showcase the rich beauty of the islands and its people. The southern islands he focuses on stretch from 90 miles southeast of Nassau, which includes Great Exuma, San Salvador, Rum Cay, Long Island, and Crooked Island.

Lloyd manages to steer clear of the Caribbean island clichés of warm sunsets, tanned people in crisp white suits holding pineapples, and people smiling. Lloyd documents the cluster of islands as is. Much like in his book with Stephen Trimble Our Voices, Our Land, Lloyd approaches Isles of Eden as a documentary piece.

Though the occasional sunset, gorgeous sapphire and aquamarine waters and small hut houses in bright colors do make an appearance; they set a space for setting and place. These images do not dominate the book. That is not the book’s intended purpose. The books intended purpose is to show real people in real life, with their thoughts, history, and future in their words.

Isles of Eden is mainly a book of portraits in brilliant color, the only way to view the Bahamians and their islands. The color is a stark contrast to their hard history and their simple way of living. Lloyd captures them simply posed in front of the camera, not posing for the camera.

The portraits are spectacular in their simplicity. They tell a greater story about the people. This is how the South Bahamians live. Lloyd in showing them as they are; he invites the onlooker into their world; a world without the complications of the urban world, but with its own joys and sorrows.

The personal reflections of the Bahamians are the glue that holds this book together. These reflections range from tales about their history, to ideas about the future and the loss of the younger generations moving to the north for work and opportunity, to the diminishment of the churches on the islands that were once overflowing to capacity, that now are deteriorating.

Isles of Eden, by Harvey Lloyd has about 60 large-format color pictures of farmers, fishermen, ministers and schoolchildren paired with the subjects' comments on their islands' history, present, and future.

It is an exciting documentary piece in that it shows another side to the islands and peoples of the Bahamas, not the side that one would expect. The book is warm and heartfelt, and shows a love for that edge of the world. It was published the year of Columbus’ Quincentennial and shows the land he first set on in the new world five-hundred years later.

>>Click here to purchase Isles of Eden: Life in the Southern Family Islands of the Bahamas by Harvey Lloyd...

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A wonderful, colorful book, bringing out the true life in pictures of the true Bahamas. Posted by: Charisse D. Gardiner Oct 2, 2007 @ 2:48 PM EST

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