{{short description|American photographer (born 1951)}} {{Infobox person | name =Birney Imes | image = | caption = | birth_date = 1951 | birth_place = Columbus, Mississippi | death_date = | death_place = | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | other_names = | known_for = | education =University of Tennessee | employer = | occupation =Photographer | title = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | party = | boards = | spouse = | children = | parents = Vinton Birney Imes, Jr.<br/>Nancy McClanahan Imes | relatives = }} '''Birney Imes''' (born 1951) is an American photographer. He is best known for his photographs of the American South, especially his home state of Mississippi. His work is exhibited in museums across the United States.
==Biography==
===Early life=== Birney Imes III was born in 1951 in Columbus, Mississippi.<ref name="latimesgrover">Grover Lewis, [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-08-07-tm-24472-story.html Juke Joints, Roadhouses and Southern Parables : The Documentary Lyricism of Photographer Birney Imes], ''Los Angeles Times'', August 07, 1994</ref><ref name="agallery">{{Cite web |url=http://www.agallery.com/pages/photographers/imes.html |title=A Gallery for Fine Photography |access-date=2014-01-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140121064637/http://www.agallery.com/pages/photographers/imes.html |archive-date=2014-01-21 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="judith">Judith H. Bonner (ed.), ''New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture'', Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, Volume 21, 2013 [https://books.google.com/books?id=uj4vqIjD-_AC&dq=%22Birney+Imes%22+photographer&pg=PT529]</ref> His father, Vinton Birney Imes, Jr., owned the town newspaper, ''The Commercial Dispatch''.<ref name="latimesgrover"/> His mother is Nancy McClanahan Imes.<ref name="judith"/> He attended desegregated public schools in Columbus and graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History in 1973.<ref name="latimesgrover"/><ref name="judith"/>
===Career=== Imes began photographing after graduation from college and is largely self-taught. In the mid-70s,<ref name="birneyimes">birneyimes</ref> he worked as a photographer for his family's newspaper in his hometown of Columbus.<ref name="latimesgrover"/> Later, he opened his own studio above the Princess Theater in Columbus. Along with his personal work, Imes shot commercial work for local clients and took assignments for magazines like ''Rolling Stone'', ''The Village Voice'' and ''Texas Monthly.''<ref name="latimesgrover"/> Drawing inspiration from the photographs of other Southern artists like Eudora Welty and William Eggleston, his work concentrates on the American South, especially blacks in the Mississippi Delta.<ref name="latimesgrover"/><ref name="agallery"/><ref name="latimessmith">Robert Smith, [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-09-11-bk-37012-story.html n Eye for the Essential : Imes' subjects may be aware of the photographer, but they don't mind him being there], ''Los Angeles Times'', September 11, 1994</ref><ref>Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (ed.), Leon F. Litwack (ed.), Darlene Clark Hine (ed.), ''The Harvard Guide to African-American History'', Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001, Volume 1, p. 173 [https://books.google.com/books?id=DCmt2sqJI_YC&dq=%22Birney+Imes%22+photographer&pg=PA173]</ref><ref>''The South by Its Photographers'', Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1996, p. 17 [https://books.google.com/books?id=hqOMaKNIaW0C&dq=%22Birney+Imes%22+photographer&pg=PA17]</ref>
Imes photographs are included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, both in New York City; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris and numerous museum and private collections in the United States. His work has been exhibited widely in solo and group shows, including The Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, Louisiana.<ref name="latimesgrover"/><ref>[http://www.artsneworleans.org/events_framed/detail/4738/AN-EVENING-CELEBRATING-BIRNEY-IMES-and-his-exhibition-SELECTIONS-FROM-PARTIAL-TO-HOME-PHOTOGRAPHS-OF-MISSISSIPPI Arts New Orleans] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140115041833/http://www.artsneworleans.org/events_framed/detail/4738/AN-EVENING-CELEBRATING-BIRNEY-IMES-and-his-exhibition-SELECTIONS-FROM-PARTIAL-TO-HOME-PHOTOGRAPHS-OF-MISSISSIPPI |date=January 15, 2014 }}</ref>
In 1991 University Press of Mississippi published "Juke Joint," the first of Imes' three books.<ref name="birneyimes"/> University Press followed "Juke Joint" with the 1994 publication of "Whispering Pines." That same year Smithsonian Press published a collection of his black and white work, "Partial to Home."<ref name="birneyimes"/>
===Personal life=== He lives in Columbus, Mississippi<ref name="latimesgrover"/> with his wife Beth. They have three children: Peter, John and Tanner.
==Bibliography== *''Juke Joint'' (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1990).<ref name="latimesgrover"/><ref name="latimessmith"/><ref>[http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1519 University Press of Mississippi]</ref> *''Whispering Pines'' (Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1994).<ref name="latimessmith"/> *''Partial to Home'' (Smithsonian Press, 1994).<ref name="birneyimes"/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Imes, Birney}} Category:Living people Category:1951 births Category:People from Columbus, Mississippi Category:American photographers Category:Businesspeople from Mississippi