Photographer's book looks at intersection of faith, commercialism

Published: 2007-08-30

ST. LOUIS (CNS) -- "Bible Road: Signs of Faith in the American Landscape" visually captures what happens when America's love of commercialism intersects with its deep-rooted Judeo-Christian faith. The book of documentary photographs is the work of photographer Sam Fentress, a member of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in University City. It took him 25 years to collect the material and two decades to get his book published. The 160-page book came out earlier this year from the British publisher David & Charles. For two weeks after Fentress' Easter interview on a major network's morning show, his work was the No. 2 best-selling photography book in the country, excluding instructional books. It is continuing to sell steadily at major bookstores, which can't seem to decide whether to classify it as art or religion. Fentress, a 51-year-old graduate of Princeton University in New Jersey and the Art Institute of Chicago, leaves that up to the book chains. He's just happy they're carrying it, he said in an interview with the St. Louis Review, archdiocesan newspaper, in mid-August.

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