Site of the house used as the set for the 1956 film Baby Doll written by Tennessee Williams and directed by Elia Kazan. The movie starred Carol Baker, Karl Malden and Eli Wallach. It was banned in much of the United States because of its "steamy" content.

By chance, nearly fifty years later, I found the house sitting in a field about two miles from Benoit Mississippi. The derelict house seemed abandoned. The photographs I made that day became the basis for this series.

The house, also known as the Burrus House, is the last remaining antebellum home in Bolivar County, Mississippi. It has recently been beautifully restored by descendents of the original owners.

Ruins can result from numerous causes. Droughts, hurricanes, fire, war, the silting in of a harbor or even the abandonment of a belief can result in the sudden or gradual decline of the structures that civilizations have built. A contemporary ruin can be similar to, or different from, a classical ruin. Ruins of Mississippi and Other Places is an attempt to compare and contrast the ruins I saw on the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina with ruins I have seen elsewhere in the world.