There’s a nice description of Wiregrass country on the back cover blurb of the photography book, “Abandoned Wiregrass” – “a place where abandoned doesn’t always mean vacant, and vacant doesn’t always mean empty.”

Photographer Brian L. Braden finds familiar Southern places in the Wiregrass country that encompasses North Florida, South Georgia and parts of Alabama. 

Some backroad travelers may literally recognize some of the places photographed for this book. 

Still more will see places that look a lot like sites in their own hometowns. 

Braden details where each photograph is taken in the book’s captions but most of these pictures capture a uniquely Southern – uniquely Wiregrass – aura. 

For some folks, the book is as familiar as looking out a backdoor even if the person has never traveled to any of the locations photographed in “Abandoned Wiregrass.”

There are few South Georgia photos here because, when Braden was traveling for the book, many of the South Georgia areas he wanted to visit were considered COVID-19 hot spots, he writes in the book’s foreword.

Still, the photos capture a flavor of South Georgia.

As noted in the introduction explaining Wiregrass country: “This is the deepest of the Deep South. Go any farther south, and you’re going north, so to speak.”

“Abandoned Wiregrass” is worth a visit.