Still Standing

A Postcard Book of Barn Photographs

By Michael P. Harker

Bur Oak Books

30 b&w postcards, 7 x 4 3/4 inches, 2006
$9.95, 0-87745-977-0, 978-0-87745-977-4

The result of a seven-and-a-half-year undertaking to document Iowa’s barns and all they represent, Harker’s Barns: Visions of an American Icon featured seventy-five stunning black-and-white photographs by Michael Harker. An impressive and well-received collection, the book helped preserve the glory of one of rural America’s most elemental icons. Still Standing continues that mission of preservation.

Michael Harker is a documentary photographer who started photographing barns in 1993. A commercial photographer for more than twenty-five years and an ophthalmic photographer for the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Harker is author of Harker's Barns: Visions of an American Icon (Iowa 2003, text by Jim Heynen). He is currently taking photos for books on one-room schoolhouses and courthouses of Iowa.

Praise for Harker’s Barns

“Harker’s Barns, with sensitively written text by Jim Heynen, tells a poignant story of Iowa’s barns. And the photographs, an homage and memorial to these barns, ensure that they will never be forgotten. Harker’s Barns is a keepsake for young and old who want an understanding of America’s rural heritage.”—Jacqueline Andre Schmeal, president, Iowa Barn Foundation

“[Heynen’s] commentary and Harker’s wonderful eye help us notice details we might normally miss: a glorious cupola, patches of sheared-off shingles, doors with contrasting cross-braces, a broken lock. But it's the barns that are the stars, and they come in all sizes and shapes. . . . The photographs are beautifully sharp.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“[Harker’s] barns are as gorgeous as those painted by American precisionist master Charles Sheeler or even Cézanne.”—Booklist

“Harker’s Barns is a type of epiphany on barns and old-style rural life. Michael Harker’s photos genuinely display empathy for the barns he has photographed.”—Iowa Source

Midwest