--- description: With a recent announcement on Kickstarter, award-winning photographer Eugene Richards speaks to LightBox about his latest book, Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down, and his motivation to self-publish the project. title: Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down: Eugene Richards' Return to the South image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte57f3b8654770c3e/6987a778f887dc7ab5e8d111/01_003_rie1971001w00002-20a.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [LightBox](/tag/time-section-lightbox/) ## LightBox Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down: Eugene Richards' Return to the South  by [Paul Moakley](/author/paul-moakley/)  ## Paul Moakley Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 1, 2013 8:00 AM CUT  Reverend and Mrs. Landers, Hughes, AR, 1969 Reverend and Mrs. Landers, Hughes, AR, 1969Eugene Richards  by [Paul Moakley](/author/paul-moakley/)  ## Paul Moakley Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 1, 2013 8:00 AM CUT [_With a recent announcement on the crowd funding platform Kickstarter_](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/eugenerichards/red-ball-of-a-sun-slipping-down "undefined")_, award-winning photographer Eugene Richards speaks to LightBox about his latest book,_ Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down_, and his motivation to self-publish the project. The following text is adapted from a recent email correspondence._ **LightBox: Tell us about the book.** _Eugene Richards: Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down_ speaks of life in the Arkansas delta, a place that I came to know just over forty years ago when I spent more than four years there working first as a VISTA volunteer, then as a social worker and reporter. My book is about what it was like back in the late ’60s, early ’70s, a time when cotton, poverty, and racism shaped people’s lives. This is shown in black-and-white photographs that have never been published before. But the book is also about the place now, a place that has been called by some the heart of the south. I’ve interwoven recent color work with the black-and-white photographs and a short story that relates my relationship with an impoverished delta woman, but also addresses my own concerns with aging and mortality. **LB: How many years of work does it span?** ER: There are close to 50 photographs in my not-quite-finished design, approximately half black-and-white, half color. The black-and-white photographs were made between 1969 and 1972, although a few of these were made in 1986\. All but one of the color photographs were made in 2010. **LB: When did you realize that you have another book?** ER: It was in 2010 that I returned to the delta on assignment for _National Geographic_. My first impulse was to try to find evidence of what I experienced there during my early years, only to realize that, with a few exceptions, most everyone and everything that I knew was gone. But the memories of my time there persisted. And even as I was photographing for the magazine, it would seem that the past was overlapping the present. But it wasn’t until this past winter that I went back into my black-and-white contact books and found photographs that I had never noticed before, even though in 1973 I authored a book, _Few Comforts or Surprises: The Arkansas Delta_. First off, and this might sound strange to some, I never made contact sheets back then of the Arkansas work; I didn’t have the money to do so. So going back through the contact sheets that were eventually made in the late ’70s was a kind of discovery. And as I did so, I began to see the relationship between then and now in the delta. **LB: Why are you** [**turning to Kickstarter**](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/eugenerichards/red-ball-of-a-sun-slipping-down "undefined") **for support?** ER: I’m very fortunate to have been able to publish as many books as I have, though–and I’m speaking for other photographers here as well–authoring books can be a desperate business. You do them because you have to do them as part of what I guess you call the creative process. But on the other hand, they involve a huge amount of time and expense and small, if any, financial return. I’ve self-published books in the past, most notably _Dorchester Days_, a book about the neighborhood where I was born and raised. And rather than not have it published at all, I co-published _Exploding Into Life_, which chronicled my first wife’s battle with breast cancer. Then in 2010, after approaching something like seven publishers, I had no choice but to self-publish _War Is Personal_, my book which chronicles the human consequences of the Iraq war. So I’m not new to the idea of self-publishing. And because this book is one that encompasses issues of race, poverty, and aging, it’s one that would not be wholly embraced in a business sense by traditional publishers. After being unceremoniously turned down by two publishers that I’ve worked with in the past (who most likely don’t see a profit in it) and after being asked by a couple of others to provide as much as eighty percent of the production costs, I decided to go it alone again. Which may, in the end, be the only way to produce this book in a true-to-the-material and innovative fashion. So for all these reasons, I’m turning to Kickstarter as a way of asking people to assist in the publication of the book. --- [**_Eugene Richards_**](http://www.eugenerichards.com/ "undefined") _is an award-winning American photographer. His last book_ War is Personal _was_ [_previously featured on LightBox_](http://lightbox.time.com/2011/03/14/war-becomes-personal-interview-with-eugene-richards-on-capturing-the-aftermath-of-the-iraq-war-at-home/ "undefined")_. TIME recently_ [_sent Richards to photograph Guantanamo Bay_](http://lightbox.time.com/2013/05/30/inside-guantanamo-bay-photographs-by-eugene-richards/ "undefined")_._ **_Paul Moakley_** _is the deputy photo editor at TIME. You can follow him on Twitter_ [_@paulmoakley_](http://www.twitter.com/paulmoakley "undefined")_._ ---  Reverend and Mrs. Landers, Hughes, AR, 1969 Eugene Richards  The Kern children walking home, Crawfordsville, AR, 2010 Eugene Richards  Waiting, Brinkley, AR, 1970 Eugene Richards  Mrs. Viola Perkins, Widener, AR, 2010 Eugene Richards  Cummins Prison Farm, Lincoln County, AR, 1971 Eugene Richards  Billy D. Harris, Aubrey, AR, 2010 Eugene Richards  Sisters, Hughes, AR, 1986 Eugene Richards  Dorothy's ruby slippers, Lehi, AR, 2010 Eugene Richards  Broken doll, Hughes, AR, 1970 Eugene Richards  Kequsha, Crawfordsville, AR, 2010 Eugene Richards  After midnight, West Memhis, AR, 1972 Eugene Richards  Zenoria, Brinkley, AR, 2010 Eugene Richards  Mount Calver Baptist Church of Christ, Hughes, AR, 1969 Eugene Richards  Peter's Rock Church, Marianna, AR, 2010 Eugene Richards ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3802782/red-ball-of-a-sun-slipping-down-eugene-richards-return-to-the-south/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3802782/red-ball-of-a-sun-slipping-down-eugene-richards-return-to-the-south/"},"headline":"Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down: Eugene Richards' Return to the South","datePublished":"2013-10-01T08:00:26.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:40:40.207Z","description":"With a recent announcement on Kickstarter, award-winning photographer Eugene Richards speaks to LightBox about his latest book, Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down, and his motivation to self-publish the project.","url":"https://time.com/3802782/red-ball-of-a-sun-slipping-down-eugene-richards-return-to-the-south/","keywords":["LightBox","Kickstarter","Arkansas","Out There","Eugene Richards"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte57f3b8654770c3e/6987a778f887dc7ab5e8d111/01_003_rie1971001w00002-20a.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Paul Moakley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/paul-moakley/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte57f3b8654770c3e/6987a778f887dc7ab5e8d111/01_003_rie1971001w00002-20a.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Reverend and Mrs. Landers, Hughes, AR, 1969","caption":"Reverend and Mrs. Landers, Hughes, AR, 1969","creditText":"Eugene Richards","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-lightbox/","name":"LightBox"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3802782/red-ball-of-a-sun-slipping-down-eugene-richards-return-to-the-south/","name":"Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down: Eugene Richards' Return to the South"}}]}] ```