Book Description
In 1965, Ron Stoner was the best surf photographer in the business. Every month, he shot the balmy beaches, bikini-clad girls, and achingly beautiful waves of Southern California for Surfer Magazine. Then, at the height of his fame, Ron Stoner walked off this sunny stage and disappeared forever. In Photo/Stoner, Stoner's strange story is recounted by surfing historian Matt Warshaw alongside Stoner's best photos, reproduced as never before. In these rare images, Stoner recorded more than just a beautiful wave or a perfect moment, he captured the effortless and innocent grace of coastal California pre-condominium. In word and in image, Photo/Stoner is a poignant ode to a lost era, and a lost man.
Customer Reviews:
Incredible.......2007-07-12
So happy to see Ron Stoner's work has survived and is in print. A must for surfing afficiandos.
Photo/Stoner: The Rise, Fall, and Mysterious Disappearance of Surfing's Greatest Photographer.......2007-04-12
Great, beautiful photoes and an excellent read of a social misfit in the same ilk as Van Gough
C L A S S I C .......2007-04-02
If you like Surfing and Photography this is for you, all the classic Stoner photos and much more, Matt Warshaw and Jeff Divine made an amazing book, showing not just the photos but also a deep insight on Stoner's life, when you end seeing the book for the first time you know you did a right thing buying it.
great pictures.......2007-03-11
This book brings back a lot of memories from when I surfed in the 60's in California. It is too bad where Ron eventually strayed, but the drugs caught up to him. Just a great table top book. Absolutely beautiful photography and written history.
Captures the moment of change.......2007-02-05
This is a beautifully photographed book and well presented with interesting but inobtrusive commentary. The book catches the moment in time that surfing changed into the modern sport, a period only just captured by Stoner during his short photographic career. The book captures the mood of surfing just before and just after the shortboard revolution and drug culture re-wrote the culture of surfing. I loved it.
Average customer rating:
- bonecrushingly slanted, I get the message
- Excellent photography, butý.
- Absolutely Unforgettable
- Wonderful
- Broken Empire, Broken Dreams
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Broken Empire : After the Fall of the USSR
Fen Montaigne
Manufacturer: National Geographic
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0792264320
Release Date: 2001-11-01 |
Book Description
On December 25, 1991, at 7:35 p.m., soldiers lowered the red Soviet flag flying over the Kremlin and raised the Russian tri-color in its place. The moment passed without pomp or circumstance, resulting in a strangely muted end to a regime that had, in many ways, defined the 20th century.
Christmas 2001 is the tenth anniversary of the demise of the Soviet Union. To commemorate the event, National Geographic presents a mesmerizing retrospective that captures all the turbulence of Russia's new beginning.
With 120 extraordinary photographs by Gerd Ludwig and incisive essays by Fen Montaigne, Broken Empire captures Russia in all its complexity. The book examines not only the fledgling country's notorious corruption and poverty—the only aspects of Russia covered by most Western media—but many lesser known facets, including the rise of a new urban generation committed to building a prosperous society. Taking us into the daily lives of Russians, from entrepreneurs to pensioners, Broken Empire's images and words come together to capture as no book ever has the poignant resilience of a country endeavoring to find a workable middle road between capitalism and state control.
Customer Reviews:
bonecrushingly slanted, I get the message.......2005-04-26
astonishingly shocking at times and bland at others, is this the Russia of modern day or is this the image the author sees? Certainly the latter and probably not the former. Wonder how the people of Russia feel about this commentary in pictures on their existence? Bleak and disheartening comes to mind. Could a similar tome be assembled on America...of course if one looks hard enough at any topic the horror can be visualized.
Excellent photography, butý........2003-01-19
Gerd Ludwig photography is first-class but I wish written text had been as creative as the photographer's eye. Nothing to discredit the author, Fen Montaigne. But Fen, must you be so boring and bland. A single image captured a thousand words and your text was a dreadful mono-tone grounded in a yawning choice of vocabulary.
If your looking for images and insight text read "The Home Planet" by Kevin W Kelley. Two different subject matters, but the written text illustrates where this book went astray.
Absolutely Unforgettable.......2002-01-09
Broken Empire leaves an indelible mark on the memory. This stunning work presents a passionate and proud people, ravaged by the merciless process of political change. The book's coverage of the effect on the Russian environmental landscape alone, makes this a documentary of great importance. But most unforgettable, are the images which capture the entire spectrum of human experience that the nation's new self-image has imposed - from humiliation and despair, to dignity and triumph of the spirit against all odds - making this work an uncompromising testament to the historic realities of post-communistic Russia.
Wonderful.......2002-01-09
Contrary to the cover image of the book, this work clearly takes the blindfolds off in delivering a superb body of photographic work.
I have been traveling to the former Soviet Union now for the past twenty-five years and have always been surprised by how ignorant the world was about this marvelous nation. Ludwig clearly has an intimate feel for the soul of this great world. The images breathe and display the majesty of this people and empire wonderfully, warts and all. This is not a tragic populace, but a noble collection of races and groups who share a common pride, humanism and patriotism with a unique perspective and outlook on life that is both refreshing and vital.
I thought that the Western world would never get it right about the great land and her people, but Ludwig's masterpiece clearly and artfully reveals the nuances of an emerging colossus whose rightful place in history, commerce, politics, art and culture is assured by its dogged determinism to continue, to live, to strive to express the essence that is "Mother Russia".
And to do all of this with photography...what an achievement!!
Broken Empire, Broken Dreams.......2001-12-31
An incredible journey through the remains of the former Soviet Union both in pictures and words. Broken Empire puts the lie to the "Workers Paradise" promised by the USSR's once all-powerful communist regime, revealing the harsh realities of environmental and spiritual decay left in its wake. The images are dazzling and heartbreaking. A must see and read book for anyone who loves truth.
JH
Amazon.com
If Chicago is an architecture lover's paradise today, it is largely due to the efforts of a single individual. Richard Nickel (1928-1972) was not "just a photographer who happens to take pictures of buildings," as he modestly called himself. He was a soft-spoken missionary whose passionate one-man campaign to preserve Chicago's ornate 19th century architectural masterpieces--earmarked for destruction by Mayor Richard J. Daley in the name of progress--inspired a nationwide movement. Richard Cahan's superb biography of Nickel depicts the photographer's heroic and ultimately tragic struggle to salvage everything he could get his hands on, first with his trusty view camera and then with a hacksaw and chisel.
Book Description
"Richard Nickel, whom I had the delight of knowing during his all too brief life, is one of the unsung heroes of Chicago architecture. He was not an architect himself, nor a designer. He simply took pictures, but what pictures! He was, for want of a better description, one of the most sensitive of architectural photographers. More than that, his life—and ironically, tragically and poetically, his death—were fused to Chicago architecture. How he died tells us how he lived: for the beauty in the works of Sullivan, Wright and the others. His story is one that must be told." —Studs Terkel, author "He was completely understanding of architecture and genius and of the quality of the work he was dealing with. He was single-minded in his pursuit and dedication to quality in history, art and architecture. That is an increasingly rare quality." —Ada Louise Huxtable, former New York Times architecture critic "Richard was an excellent photographer—sensitive and intelligent, and a very good craftsman". —John Szarkowski, former Director, Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York "Richard Nickel was one of those who saw architecture, and who passionately and skillfully pursued its portrayal. He was one of a very small number, and to make his work known would be a fundamental service to architects, students, and teachers as well as to the art of architecture." —Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., architectural historian
Customer Reviews:
A Treasure for Architectural Preservationists.......2002-01-17
Richard Nickels was a strange fellow, and I don't know if most people would be comfortable in his company. He desperately wanted to save what he considered to be Chicago's architectural landmarks, but in the end grew terribly disconsolate, finding few allies in Mayor Daley or others within the city's power structure. He managed to save many bits and pieces before the wrecker's ball arrived, some of which went to Southern Illinois University, but tons of which ended up in landfills after his death. Do you need this book? If it sickens you to see a beautiful old building torn down, then yes. If you read "Lost Chicago" and were amazed at the priceless treasures we've squandered, then yes. If you think the now burgeoning architectural salvage industry is a good thing, then yes. Nickels fought to save buildings, but when that failed, he saved everything he could. The book doesn't claim he was a pioneer or innovator in that regard, but then I haven't heard of anyone else who dedicated their life to the field. The Trading Room from the Stock Exchange Building - where Nickel's died - survives in the Art Institute of Chicago today only because of his efforts. We almost certainly owe him a far greater debt than the book has claimed, since he helped to publicize the threat to our architectural heritage and started building a consensus towards preservation and salvage. The book will amaze and annoy you. You'll learn much more about Nickels' personal life than you would want to know. You'll wish he had finished some of the writing projects he started. And you'll wonder how much more he might have accomplished if he had lived a bit longer. It's a book that makes you think, and one you won't soon forget. - tjm
Outstanding.......1999-04-26
I ate this book up! Nickel's photgraphs are outstanding, and his dedication to salvaging historical buildings is heroic. The historic preservation movement owes an enormous debt to this man.
Outstanding.......1999-04-26
I ate this book up! Nickel's photgraphs are outstanding, and his dedication to salvaging historical buildings is heroic. The historic preservation movement owes an enormous debt to this man.
Wonderfully engaging story of an archetecture 'nerd.'.......1997-12-08
The story of Richard Nickel, who loved buildings of Adler & Sullivan fame. A wonderfully well-written book. I saw it in the library, and to my own amazement, could not put it down when I got home. Even if you know little about archetecture, you will love this book for it's story, the life and love of Nickel. Who I call with slight tongue-in-cheek a nerd.
Amazon.com
The last decade of the 19th century was, for some Americans, a time when great fortunes were to be made. For many others, however, the period was a time of economic dislocation, when the gap between city and countryside, rich and poor, grew ever wider. As the Indian Wars ended and the Gilded Age extended into America's first Imperial Age, social critics such as Mark Twain and William Dean Howells began to examine the dark side of the American dream: violence, poverty, degenerate behavior, suicide, and insanity.
In the late 1960s, another desperate time, historian Michael Lesy took a long look at fin-de-siècle America. Examining a collection of several thousand glass plate negatives and historical documents from Jackson County, Wisconsin, he concocted a sprawling treatise on a past that had been willfully forgotten, a brooding rejoinder to Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology. First published in 1973, Lesy's Wisconsin Death Trip, now reissued in a handsome paperbound edition, became a key text of the counterculture, a book to shelve alongside Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Custer Died for Your Sins--and it sometimes reads like a hip product of its time. Lesy documents the unsettling record of one small corner of rural America, turning up accounts of barn burnings, attacks by gangs of armed tramps, threatening and obscene letters, death by diphtheria and smallpox (the Wisconsin townsfolk had, some years, to attend several funerals a week), alcoholism, madness, business and bank failures, and even a case or two of witchcraft.
After reading Lesy's texts and viewing the sometimes unsettling images he's turned up, you would be forgiven for thinking that no one in small-town Wisconsin in our great-great-grandparents' time was well-adjusted--which is, of course, not the case. Hyperbole notwithstanding, this is a remarkable study, one that Lesy himself rightly calls an experiment in both history and alchemy. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
First published in 1973, this remarkable book about life in a small turn-of-the-century Wisconsin town has become a cult classic. Lesy has collected and arranged photographs taken between 1890 and 1910 by a Black River Falls photographer, Charles Van Schaik.
A shocking portrait of a small town crumbling—socially, morally, physically and emotionally—under the impact of the great depression of the 1890s. This “cult classic” is now available again in paperback.
Customer Reviews:
Accurate,but not singular.......2007-06-14
"Wisconsin death trip"is an accurate documentation,not only of "agrarian white"culture at the end of the 19th century but,in many ways,the whole of white culture in america at that time..Contrary to popular belief,the"good"old days were not really so good..Yes,they may well have been less complex,but infant mortality was very high,illnesses which today are highly treatable being killers not only of children but of adults as well,daily life being,for most,a drudgery,with little to show for one's efforts...There were few saftey nets,no antibiotics,no pensions to speak of,no recourse against the harshness life,or against a system that,like today,favors the wealthy..
Insanity was not understood,and "treatment"such as it was,often did little to help the afflicted...Wisconsin did not have a monopoly on such things,anymore than,say,los angles has a monopoly on street gangs,or newark has a monopoly on ghetto housing...
The novelty is perhaps in the seeing of the photographs and the documents all together in one volume,so that one can peruse the sorrowful aspects of that period as it affected one particular area...
Wisconsin Death Trio.......2007-01-19
This is an interesting and slightly macabre book which is strangely beautiful. My son, who is Sam Witt, the poet, told me about it because he had been so moved by it that he wrote a poem associated with it in his soon to be published book, SUNFLOWER BROTHER. The old photos are stunning from the horses to the dead children. I am hoping to get the dvd soon.
American Gothic Death Rattle.......2006-12-15
I read this book over 16 years ago. It left a lasting impression that will stay with me forever. It may not have the same affect on others but reading some of the reviews posted here, I know that it has on most. You can't really ask somebody "did this really happen?" becuase they either died then or in the 100 years that have past. We have no perspective on these people, places and times other than to read books like this. If any of these folks were alive today and heard someone say, "those were the good old days." They might be inclined to give the speaker a quick education. This book will do it for them. I have pictures just like this in a family archive. You wonder how anybody lived into middle or old age. Disease, starvation, hypothermia, and farm accidents all took their toll. Winters are hard enough in the south. Why did these people decide to stop the wagon in Wisconsin or if they lived thru their first winter there, why didn't they head south? I went to a Brewers baseball game at the end of May some 25 years ago and wore a down parka and was cold. You can still see houses in small towns outside of Milwaukee that look like the houses in this book and you can feel the desolation, pain and suffering looking out at you thru 100 year old panes of glass.
My Favorite Book.......2006-12-03
"The pictures you're about to see are of people who were once actually alive." So begins historian Michael Lesy's masterpiece - a by turns touching and disturbing examination of life and death in a small Wisconsin town during the final 15 years of the nineteenth century. Lesy stumbled across a cache of 30,000 glass plate images made by a local town photographer named Charley Van Schaick and spools of microfilm from the local newspaper - and combined the most compelling of these images and newspaper excerpts to create a vivid examination of Victorian prairie life. Although there are numerous post-mortem memorial photographs to add morbid appeal to the book, the newspaper and insane asylum excerpts are what I find absolutely enthralling. If ever anyone tries to suggest to you that times were better "before", you might want to refer them to these matter-of-fact tales of murder, suicide, insanity, and lethal pestilence. Death was a constant threat and entire families of 6 children could be wiped out by diptheria in a matter of days. It's no wonder that so many were driven to suicide: the depth of despair that these people must have gone through is at times palpable.
To give you an idea of the sort of macabre fascinations you can find in these olde newspapers, here are some excerpts:
"The 60 year old wife of a farmer in Jackson, Washington County, killed herself by cutting her throat with a sheep shears"
"Mrs. James Baty... died suddenly of a hemorrhage of the lungs. She leaves a husband, her family of 6 children having died of diptheria last summer"
"Mrs. John Larson... drowned her 3 children in Lake St. Croix during a fit of insanity... Mrs. Larson imagines that devils pursue her"
And my personal favorite:
"Mrs. Carter... was taken sick at the marsh last week and fell down, sustaining internal injuries which have dethroned her reason. She has been removed to her home here and a few nights since arose from her bed and ran through the woods... A night or two after she was found trying to strangle herself with a towel... It is hoped the trouble is only temporary and that she may soon recover her mind"
You don't see entries like that in newspapers anymore!!
Old Photographs and Newspaper Clippings.......2005-09-25
Michael Lesy combined his work as a photographer and a historian to produce this book as his Ph.D. thesis at Rutgers University in 1973. From around the 1940s media censorship presented American history like the 1890s as "The Good Old Days", a time of happiness and prosperity, like the magazine covers illustrated by Norman Rockwell. Many historians believe there was a "major crisis in American life during the 1890s". This refers to the worst economic depression in American history. This book is an antidote to that manufactured propaganda myths. The problem with creating a book from unknown photographs and random newspaper clippings is the lack of a unifying outlook. By not telling about the context of those times the book continues that cover-up. There is no explanation to diet, drugs, hunger, malnutrition, poverty, alcoholism, syphilis and other causes of the mental illnesses listed here. Presenting only such news distorts history. Similar news is usually censored nowadays, unless it is part of a reported crime. Back in the 1950s the local newspaper used to have a back page with such news. Many of the items were for men indicted "for unlawful carnal knowledge". The editing of newspapers stories must represent a tiny portion of those twenty years, as realistic as items from a weekly tabloid newspaper.
If you hear talk about "the good old days" you should know that life then was often "short, mean, and nasty". If we neglect this lesson of history will these times reoccur? Look and see for yourself. One thing is different. Suicide is rarely mentioned in the newspapers, they call it "died at home" in the obituary columns. You are seven times more likely to die of suicide than murder at home in America. Children are always safer in school than at home.
The dates on the newspaper items for "1885-6" suggest it was a weekly. The 'Conclusions' recalls and mocks the science of yesteryear. Is fiction like "The Jukes" repeated in today's books? What will the future say about the psycho-babble here? Lesy is wrong in imagining that the suicides and murders in the rural country were not occurring in the city. Lesy's comments about "paranoia" and psychology seem like a compulsion for a historian. Is this a fitting ending to his work? There is no mention of food and diet here, even while scientific research was examining the causes of pellagra! Now that Lesy is older and wiser, how would he rate this book? Why are there no page numbers?
Book Description
"A stunning sequel to the James Agee–Walker Evans' classic, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. It is at times astonishing, at all times deeply moving."-Studs Terkel
"A book that reaches into this country's heart of darkness. . . . A tragically human story more telling than a thousand polls. The photographs by Mr. Williamson are eloquent."-Herbert Mitgang, New York Times
"Mr. Williamson's photos are spellbinding and should become instant classics."-John Elvin, Washington Times
In this paperback reissue, an author/photographer team returns to the land and families captured in James Agee and Walker Evans's inimitable masterwork Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, extending the project of conscience and chronicling the traumatic decline of King Cotton. In 1936, during a brief window of national attention to the topic, Fortune magazine commissioned from Agee and Evans a story on poverty among tenant farmers in Alabama. Agee was famously ambivalent in his role, calling himself a spy and ultimately delivering a book-length manuscript unpublishable in magazine form. With this continuation of Agee and Evans's work, Maharidge and Williamson not only uncover some surprising historical secrets relating to the families and to Agee himself, but also effectively lay to rest Agee's fear that his work, from lack of reverence or resilience, would be but another offense to the humanity of its subjects.
Williamson's 90-part photo essay includes updates alongside Evans' classic originals.
Dale Maharidge (Homeland, Journey to Nowhere) has been a visiting professor of journalism at Columbia University and Stanford, and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1998.
Michael Williamson is a photographer for the Washington Post who won a second Pulitzer for his coverage of the war in Kosovo.
Customer Reviews:
Honors the legacy.......2007-01-31
For readers of the original Agee/Evans collaboration, "And Their Children" is well worth the time. The reporter and photographer tracked down the 116 living offspring of the pseudonymous Gudger, Ricketts, and Woods families, as well as those who were part of the original book (12 of 22 who appeared in "Let Us Now" were still alive when they began their research in 1986). Not all were willing to be interviewed or photographed, but many were.
As with the first book, the tale here is not a particularly happy one. The author begins by recounting the suicide of Maggie Louise Gudger, age 10 in 1936, a particular favorite of Agee's, and dead at age 45--the same age at which Agee himself died from drink. And yet there are varying degrees of hope in many of the stories, such as that of Maggie Louise's daughter Debbie and her children.
The structure of the book follows each family through different periods: 1936-1940; 1940-1960; and 1960-1986. The author also includes sections on one of the local landowning families (which was far from rich!) and an African-American sharecropping family. Along the way, we learn surprising things about the evil (and Faulknerian) Fred Ricketts, the fate of Clair Bell (she did not die at age 4, as Agee had feared she would), the struggles of George Gudger, and the families' views on Agee, Evans, and the original book. About the children and grandchildren, we find out about those who ran away (and usually came back) and those who stayed; marriages; children; the end of farming; attempts at succeeding at school and at work; closeness and bitterness. It's all grippingly told. And the photographs that allow one to compare the state of things in 1936 and 1986 are excellent. Several photos exactly re-capture the originals.
Quibbles: Naturally, I think, the sections on the two families who did not appear in the first book are less interesting. They could have been abbreviated. Also, the author's (negative) take on the state of America in 1986 is garden-variety journalism for that time. These sections are easily avoided, however, and do not detract from the writing about the original families.
Counter to the author's gloomy opinions, his stories indicate that many of these descendents of share-croppers emerged from the Depression to enjoy a slow but steady material progress. Maggie Louise's grandchildren, now in their thirties, should do even better over the course of their lives. One hopes that another writer-photographer team will venture to Hobe's Hill in 2036 to test that proposition.
Quite interesting........2005-07-25
While I have Let Us Now Praise Famous Men on deck to read as well, the friend who loaned me the books explained she found And Their Children After Them first, and actually liked reading them in reverse order. So, I chose to follow her lead.
The book, even standing alone, is an intensely personal and touching look into the lives of people who many of us who enjoy the luxury of writing reviews on the Internet can never really understand. The backgrounds, upbringings and challenges were so vastly different, and the book does a good job of showing us something different, something very real.
I can understand the retiscence of some to participate in the book -- while reading passages in this book I often thought to myself what it would feel like to be the person being written about and to see the things about them in print. Like our society, there is a great deal of judgement in the book -- while they try to avoid it, it is there, and it's painful at times.
But it's all worth it, in my opinion, to uncover the many thought provoking things that relate to our world today, and that give me a better understanding of history and people's place within it.
Poignant and thought-provoking.......2000-10-19
This book should be read right after reading James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Mem. Unfortuantely I read it over four years before I read Agee's work. When I read this book--in Feb 1996--I wrote to myself: This is a book Newt Gingrich and the crazy House freshmen should read--people who are so intent that those who cannot make it on their own should not make it.
A "Must Have" for Anyone who liked "Let Us Now Praise....".......1999-03-20
First introduced to "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" by James Agee and Walker Evans through a PBS Documentary, which inspired a dash to the library to read the book iteself, it wasn't until years later I went back to the library to see if anyone had ever followed up on the story. Confronted with the then new computerized "card catalog" system, I wondered how I might search for any related writings when it dawned on me what a perfect title would naturally evolve from the verse the first book title was taken: ..And Their Children After Them. Imagine my amazement when I tried that title, and there it was! Maharidge and Williamson have followed in Agee and Evans footsteps to give readers "the rest of the story" of the tenant farmers' families and grandchildren, as well as the stories of Agee and Evans themselves. I congratulation them on an excellent book, and offer thanks to the families and their descendants for sharing their lifestories. Their lives did not take the path predicted for them by Agee: life refuses to be harnessed by prediction. Some went farther than anyone could have anticipated, while others came to a place, if possible, even worse than expected. As a second generation American, descended from Polish and Prussian immigrants who lived comparable lives, but who were blessed to own their own land, I identified closely with these stories, from the first page of "Let Us Praise" to the last page of "And Their Children".
Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction 1991.......1997-05-02
Unfortunately, the synopsis left out that this book won the Pulitzer for Non-fiction in 1991. Maharidge and Williamson followed the footsteps of James Agee who had profiled sharecroppers during the Depression. They found their decendants, and showed that while cotton and sharecropping had died, rural poverty for these families had been passed down to new generations. The front section of the book is a series of photographs by Williamson, and they are tremendous. Moreover, in their reporting, they filled a gap left by Agee by finding a black family of sharecroppers to add to the others profiled. This is a tremendous book. It works on multiple levels, giving both the sweep of Southern social and economic history and bringing it down to individuals. Beyond that, the book is a metaphor for our own time. "If we understand the death of cotton," Maharidge writes in this book, "we understand many things about modern America." This is a tremendous work, highly readable and moving. The recognition these two craftsmen received for it is well-deserved
Book Description
The perfect keepsake for those who cherish the most colorful time of year in New England.
Professional photographers Jerry and Marcy Monkman have selected the most stunning shots from their years of photographing New England to create this beautiful, appealing gift book.
More than 75 full-color photographs highlight spectacular scenery from the Berkshires of Massachusetts, the Green Mountains of Vermont, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and the forested wilds of northern Maine. In addition, the Monkmans provide regional maps highlighting their recommendations for the most scenic New England routes to travel during foliage season. Full-color throughout, 3 maps.
Customer Reviews:
A Beautiful Souvenir of a Fall Day in New England.......2003-10-12
This is a book for people who love the fall season in New England. New Hampshire photographers Jerry and Marcy Monkman have masterfully used their cameras to capture the beauty of autumn in this region of the country in their book THE COLORS OF FALL. The two are authors of Appalachian Trail guides to the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Arcadia National Park (as a matter of fact, they love Arcadia National park so much, the even named their first child Arcadia). Their knowledge and love of the area is evident in the photos presented in the book. Some of the shots are of familiar places, others are less well known. Many of the photographs contained in this book are grand scenic shots of the mountains in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont, or the raging rivers in New Hampshire. Yet they also include close ups of smaller detailed subjects that are often ignored when we make foliage trips. Many of these shots demonstrate the Monkmans mastery of the camera.
Those who have not had the opportunity to visit New England in the fall can take a vicarious trip with this book. For those of us who live in New England, the book gives us the opportunity to appreciate the beauty of this place we call home.
Average customer rating:
- The Best Photo Book I've seen in years!
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Autrefois, Maison Privee
Bernard Fall , and
Prince Sirik Matak
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ASIN: 1576871800 |
Book Description
Photographer Bill Burke has taken annual trips to Indochina ever since he first traveled to Asia in 1982. Although he usually photographed the people, Burke became aware of how the architecture absorbed as much as reflected the region's history. Transfixed by buildings like the municipal offices built by the French in the 1860s, the vaulted railroad stations and post offices of the 1930s, and the art-deco fantasy cinemas of the 1960s, Burke saw the region as an architectural museum, rotting in the humidity and untouched by economic ambition, and began to trace the cultural changes in the area through its architecture. In Autrefois, Maison Privee - the title means "once a private house," and refers to prevalent reappropriation of once private houses for municipal and government uses - Burke captures the dramatic history of the area, from the influence of French colonialism through the rise of communism and the devastating effects of the Vietnam War, to the repopulation of Cambodia after the fall of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rough and the opening of the area to capitalism. Burke's first entree into Indochina occurred during the period of Soviet control, a period of recovery that allowed for the the current explosion of capitalism, which has already begun to devaste an architectural heritage that was well preserved in the deep freez of socialism. What the B-52s and tank didn't destroy during the decades of war, developers from neighboring countries are busily replacing
Customer Reviews:
The Best Photo Book I've seen in years!.......2004-08-04
Wow! A photographer friend called me up from New York City on a Saturday night to tell me about this book. He said it was so good it made him "want to be a photographer again." After he rang off I went on-line and ordered a copy from Amazon. A week later I got it and my spirit was renewed, too.
There's no mistaking this for anything but a Bill Burke book. The hand written captions on the photos, the unique design that serves to enhance the photos, not some designer's ego and the immediacy of the image that puts the reader right there when the photo was made, all of Burke's trademark elements are here. The stunning four color black and white reproductions were made from scans of the black and white enlargements Burke made from his black and white Polaroid negatives. The photos are reproduced in warm tones with creamy whites so that many of them resemble 19th Century albumen prints by Baldus or the Bonfils.
While no one but Burke could have made these photos, at times he seems to be channelling the spirits of Atget, Evans and Sander. The second photo in the book of the "man with pigs" took my breath away. If August Sander had left the Westerwald for Cambodia he might have made this photo of a farmer taking pigs to market on his bicycle in a basket that looks like something out of "How to Wrap Five Eggs". The pig farmer looks out at the photographer from under the brim of his hat with a stoicism that bespeaks his acceptence of a hard life in the hot sun of southeast Asia and his quiet pride in being chosen to have his portrait made (Burke often gives his subjects the orginal 3 x 4 inch Polaroid photo, keeping the negative to make larger prints when he returns home).
There are many other photographs in "Autrefois..." besides the portraits. The architectural photos often show clasic old buildings with a barnacle like covering of late 20th Century design elements and advertising, other bear the legend, "demolished" or are shown before and after style with a superficial changes like a coat of modern window walls. The "Hanoi Hilton" is shown in 1995 unchanged since its days as a POW camp and in 1998 with the modern Singapore Hotel rising inside the former prison walls.
I would recommend this book to lovers of fine photography, Viet Nam vets, architecture buffs and any library in a community with a southeast Asian population.
The book itself is a pleasure to hold, large, beautifully printed on heavy stock, sturdilly bound, even the panoramas aren't lost in the gutters between the pages. And it's a bargain at twice the price! Buy it today before it sells out.
Average customer rating:
- Zanoncello Stefano (Verona, ITALIA)
- Contextually befitting Beauty of the Season
- My favorite season and a beautiful capturing of color
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Fall: Photographs
Walt Whitman , and
Philip A. Rea
Manufacturer: powerHouse Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Leaves and Pods
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Foliage
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Autumn
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Fall Foliage: The Mystery, Science, and Folklore of Autumn Leaves
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Beach Stones
ASIN: 1576872262 |
Book Description
The idea for Fall came to photographer Christopher Griffith while he was living in a Manhattan brownstone, finalizing the design for his first monograph, States (powerHouse Books, 2000). "It was mid-November," Griffith recalls, "and the ivy on the side of my building seemed to be literally glowing outside my window. I picked a single leaf off the vine and saw that, dependent upon the angle of light and the position of the leaf, I could see the most incredible texture and color through the leaf." Excited by this discovery, Griffith spent the next couple of days experimenting with how to capture it all onto film. That was four years ago. He has now perfected the technique of both photographing the foliage and getting them to his studio and on film before they wilt or turn brown, quite a feat as many of these fresh and delicate leaves were collected and transported personally by Griffith from hundreds of miles away. A hyper-macroscopic analysis of the color transformations characteristic of tree foliage in the Northeastern United States autumn, Fall features vivid and brilliant images of nature's gifts, which we often take for granted. Fantastically backlit, glowing colors are transmitted through the leaves, illustrating structural and textural elements of nature never before captured on film. For this former student of research biology, the project transported Griffith back to his early days of plant biochemistry, but this time as an artist, not a scientist. "When you look at a tree that is turning, it appears to have an overall uniformity of color," Griffith observes. "But it is only when you literally get into the tree and get personal with the individual components of that breathtaking color, that you see the truly astounding variety of that color transformation. For me, leaves are like snowflakes; no two are ever the same." Exhibition at The powerHouse Gallery, 68 Charlton Street, New York, October 21-November 20, 2004.
Customer Reviews:
Zanoncello Stefano (Verona, ITALIA).......2006-10-23
Of all the books i have about fall and the changing colour process in leaves this is definitely the best one. Nothing rapresents Fall like the variety of trees you find in the forests of North Eastern U.S. A well deserved tribute to the most common (but most fascinating too) product of nature: leaves indeed.
Contextually befitting Beauty of the Season.......2005-01-02
This marvelous book displays crisp, colorful, full-page photos of some of falls best colors seen through its best medium, leaves. The specific leaves chosen are vivid and they seem almost pressed in the book rather than photographed. I'd recommend this book to ANYONE interested in macrophotography or fall in general.
My favorite season and a beautiful capturing of color.......2004-10-27
Christopher has made my favorite time of the year come alive with all the color of fall. Deep browns, orange, red, greens and the actual feeling of the season come through in this collection of spectacular photographs.
He has used some very interesting techniques to create images and colors that at the same time capture and enhance nature's beauty.
This is a unique and truly wonderful coffee table book that inspires and amazes with the feelings and spirit of the peaceful and mysterious passing of summer into fall. Well done!
Book Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program.
Books:
- Photographs at the Frontier: Aby Warburg in America 1895-1896
- Photography Speaks: 150 Photographers On Their Art
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- Silver Is For Secrets
- Spanish Dagger (China Bayles Mystery)
- Sunrise (Sunrise Series #1)
- Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
- Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving
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