中文简介：

Colby Deal是一位摄影艺术家，出生和成长在德克萨斯州休斯顿第三行政区。本书是Colby Deal的首本专著，记录了他家乡的人、物和日常生活环境。这个正在进行的项目目前由一千多张底片组成，Deal打算为被忽视的社区和逐渐被绅士化抹去的文化特征提供一个视觉记录，重新描述被描绘成负面的有色人种社区。

通过这些原始的黑白照片，Deal诚实地记录了他所表达的主题，时而直率而模糊，时而从容而敏锐，该系列作品传达了第三行政区的家庭、社区和个人生活的活力和生机勃勃。留在底片上的划痕和灰尘反映了生活的痕迹，同时也暗示了这些文件的脆弱性，以及它们经常描述的社会生活结构的不稳定性。Deal对话式的语调，带着一种愉悦感和直观的玩味，吸引着观众更多地了解这个社区。这些交替上演和纪实的图像重新描述了这个被刻板描绘为负面的地方，赞颂了摄影媒介所能提供的作用和自由。

英文简介：

Beautiful, Still. is the first monograph from photographer Colby Deal, documenting the people, objects, and environments of everyday life in the Third Ward neighbourhood in Houston, Texas, where the artist grew up. In this ongoing project, currently consisting of over a thousand negatives, Deal sets out to provide a visual record of overlooked communities and the cultural characteristics gradually being erased by gentrification, as well as a depiction of communities of colour whose members are often portrayed with negative connotations.

Through these instinctive black-and-white photographs, Deal's down-to-earth approach to his subjects is made apparent; at times candid and blurred, other times poised and sharply focussed, the series builds to convey the dynamism and vibrancy of family, community, and individual life in the Third Ward. The scratches and dust left on the negatives reflect the marks of lived life and simultaneously suggest the fragility of these documents and the corresponding precarity of the fabrics of social life they often depict. Deal's almost conversational tone ― the anthesis of media portrayals of the neighbourhood ― invites his viewers in with a sense of joy and intuitive playfulness. From these alternately staged and documentary images, a new narrative emerges about a reductively and oppressively narrativized place, celebrating the agency and freedom that the photographic medium can offer.