Amish Life

In Indiana's Amish country, families work, play, and worship muchas they have since they arrived in the 1800s. Here there are fewmodern-day conveniences to distract people from the importanttasks of living plainly and serving their God. In this lovely book,well-known photographer Darryl D. Jones captures the spirit of theAmish people, their land, and their daily lives.Jones's photographs are at once inspiring and intimate, expressiveof the landscape and those who work the land. They do show theAmish as many have come to see them-plowing a field behind ateam of horses, going to market in a black buggy, and dressed insuspenders and plain smocks. But Jones's photographs go beyondtourist caricature. In them we glimpse faces lined by hard work andwrinkled with pleasure; tasks performed in ways that seem timelessand tasks done with the aid of modern machinery; young peoplewho make a sport of harvest and join eagerly in a game of baseball.In them we glimpse as well the deep satisfaction of living inharmony with the rhythms of life.Amish Life: Living Plainly and Serving God is a pictorial memento to betreasured.Darryl D. Jones has exhibited his photographs in New York, in Boston, andthroughout the Midwest. Among his books are Spirit of the Place (IUP, 1995)and Indianapolis (IUP, 1990). He lives in Freedom, Indiana.