In 2021, Herman Ellis Dyal walked past Riverside Baptist Church in San Antonio on a weekday afternoon and, after more than fifty years away, noticed an open door. He stepped inside. He began to return regularly to document the interior and the many rooms and spaces no longer in use, without electricity and slowly deteriorating. Over two years he photographed the church that had been the centre of his family’s life since the 1940s. The resulting photographs form his first monograph, The Things Not Seen Are Eternal, published by GOST Books in 2023.
People are absent from the photographs, but the images are heavy with the echoes of past human presence: chairs, toys, robes, furniture, artificial flowers, and books, relics of an earlier time. Dyal’s background as an architect is evident in his portrayal of the building, its details, and negative space. Multiple doorways lead the viewer through the book, and objects in the photographs often appear as sculptural inventions. The sequence moves through the church’s interior without relying on human figures.
At the end of the book, a series of archival black-and-white photographs shows the church in its heyday, offering a counterpoint to what remains. Although the project is firmly rooted in one church, the images are representative of a wider pattern of diminishing church attendance across the United States. The book is 128 pages, hard cover with a screen print, and published in English by GOST Books in 2023.
