Jerry Siegel, a native of Selma, graduated from the Art Institute of Atlanta. After twenty-nine years as a much-sought after commercial photographer in Atlanta, Siegel relocated to Birmingham where he continues to shoot for commercial clients while also pursuing his fine arts work, which also includes documenting the unique cultural landscape of the South, focusing on the Black Belt region as well as his ongoing series of portraits of southern artists. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia in Atlanta, the Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art. A commissioned body of work for the Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia, was featured in the 2009 solo exhibition Now and Then, Snapshots of the South.   Julian Cox is chief curator of the de Young Museum, San Francisco, and has formerly served as curator of photography at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.   Dennis Harper is the curator of the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University.   Marilyn Laufer, Ph.D., is director of the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University and coauthor of Myths and Metaphors: The Art of Leo Twiggs.