Book Description
"Russell Lee's sense of the possibilities of photography was almost as generous, open, and democratic as photography itself. His appetite as a spectator was as wide as the prairie, and his sympathy for his fellows appeared seamless."
—John Szarkowski, from the foreword
Russell Lee is widely acclaimed as one of the most outstanding documentary photographers of the twentieth century. His images of American life during the Great Depression, created for the Farm Security Administration between 1936 and 1942, hold a preeminent place in one of history's best-known and most useful photographic collections. This famous body of work demonstrates Lee's extraordinary ability to reveal the humanity of his subjects and to become a part of the communities he photographed. It also displays Lee's superior technical ability—his legendary skill in using a flash enabled Lee to create some of the finest candids in the history of photography.
Russell Lee Photographs is the first book to show the full range and quality of Lee's entire oeuvre beyond the FSA work, as well as the first major publication of his photographs since F. Jack Hurley's 1978 book,
Russell Lee: Photographer (long out of print). The book contains over 140 images, 101 of which have never appeared in book publication. The photographs are grouped into suites of images that represent all of Lee's important, non-FSA subjects: early work from New York City and Woodstock; the Spanish-speaking people of Texas; the mentally and physically disabled; political campaigns, including the Kennedy-Johnson campaign of 1960; commercial work for chemical and other companies; a portfolio of images of Italy; and quintessential scenes of small-town life.
Setting Lee's images in context are a foreword by John Szarkowski, one of America's leading photography curators and critics, and an introduction by Lee's friend and fellow photography educator J. B. Colson, who offers fascinating personal insights into Lee's life and career.
Considering Russell Lee's stature in American photography, it is surprising that much of his post-FSA work is unknown to the public and has been seldom seen even in the photography community. By making these images readily available for the first time, this book gives long-overdue recognition to the full range and excellence of Lee's work. Russell Lee Photographs is the essential book on this major American photographer.
Customer Reviews:
Images for heart and mind.......2007-06-25
A wonderful large format and beautifully produced book of 140 photos by Russell Lee made more worthy because 101 of them have not been published together in book form. Lee is rightly famous for his FSA work though none of that output is included here. Instead there are photos from the Texas political scene from 1935 to 1965, Italy in 1960 where he did a portfolio of work commissioned by the Texas Quarterly, Saudi Arabia in 1955. The majority of the photos are of the US with plenty showing small town life.
I'm not convinced that the absence of FSA work was a wise editorial choice, clearly this aspect of his career has been well documented in other books but perhaps in this one there could have been a chapter devoted to Lee's extensive 1940 work in Pie Town, New Mexico. The photos of this small town seem to be the high point of his career, also he was experimenting with color at this time (seventeen shots are shown in Bound for Glory: America in Color 1939-43) and I hope some publisher would consider a book just on Lee's Pie Town photos.
'Russell Lee Photographs' compares very favorably with Jack Hurley's 1978 'Russell Lee Photographer' (ISBN 0871001500) though the reproduction, with 250+dpi gives a much better showing than the 200dpi used in the Hurley book, which has 121 photos and a more comprehensive biography of Lee.
Both books celebrated the work of a dedicated humanist photographer whose creativity will equally stimulate your heart and mind.
***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
Perhaps the best of the best.......2007-06-11
Russell Lee was one of the group of photographers that were assembled by the government during the Great
Depression to document and publicize the poverty that had hit the heart of the nation, and the ways - through
various federal programs - those that were hurting the worst could be helped. Today, that group, which included Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Marion Post Wolcott, Eudora Welty and many others who worked for the Farm Security Administration and other agencies, has been recognized as perhaps the greatest collection of documentary photographers ever gathered. Russell Lee was one of many, some of whom became much more famous, but who was recognized by them as perhaps the best. This collection strengthens that
reputation as the best of the best. He wasn't fancy, and took what he saw - he did not pose subjects for his
camera, but shot the truth. This book covers not only the Depression years, but continues with photographs in other countries, politics and of course, his chosen home state of Texas. This book is getting a lot of attention - well deserved. Center For American History and University of Texas, Hardcover, with over 140 b/w photographs, some never previously published.
Book Description
Censored by the U.S. Army, Dorothea Lange's unseen photographs are the extraordinary photographic record of the Japanese American internment saga.
This indelible work of visual and social history confirms Dorothea Lange's stature as one of the twentieth century's greatest American photographers. Presenting 119 images originally censored by the U.S. Army—the majority of which have never been published—Impounded evokes the horror of a community uprooted in the early 1940s and the stark reality of the internment camps. With poignancy and sage insight, nationally known historians Linda Gordon and Gary Okihiro illuminate the saga of Japanese American internment: from life before Executive Order 9066 to the abrupt roundups and the marginal existence in the bleak, sandswept camps. In the tradition of Roman Vishniac's A Vanished World, Impounded, with the immediacy of its photographs, tells the story of the thousands of lives unalterably shattered by racial hatred brought on by the passions of war. 104 photographs.
Customer Reviews:
Great photography and history.......2007-01-12
Outstanding description and photographs documenting the terrible injustice done to American citizens and residents solely because of their Japanese ancestry throughout the Second World War. The indecencies suffered by these people can barely be described adequately, but this book attempts to further illustrate the horrors that can be inflicted on an ethnic group if racism is allowed to influence government policy, as it did in this country during that war.
Text, yes. Photographs, no.......2007-01-10
These important photographs taking during WW2 in the Japanese internment camps scattered around the American west are almost unreadble. The are reproduced very small, and without the requisite skill to make deteriorated images look half decent on the printed page.
The text is informative, especially about Dorothea Lange's trials in gaining access to the camps in California.
Impounded: Important Photography of the Internment and American History.......2007-01-08
Dorothea Lange's photographs document an important American event that is still unknown to a large number of Americans. The fact that the government impounded the photographs speaks for itself.
Heartbreaking images of a shameful past........2006-11-06
Although the text is informative in telling the history of Japanese internment during World War II, the images speak for themselves, page after page in stark black and white, the young and innocent, the old and careworn, carrying rope-bound suitcases and cardboard boxes, standing in long lines, waiting to be processed by indifferent jailors, an entire race herded into the camps that will be home for the war years, disenfranchising them of investment in community and the pride of being Americans. As history has proven over and over, fear is a monster that cannot be contained once the public is infected, the vulnerable a source of suspicion, marked by the color of their skin and the shape of their eyes.
Whole families gather in these telling photographs, leaving treasured belongings behind, grandparents to infants, all swept up in an infamous display of mistrust in a country suddenly driven to panic by a surprise attack, demanding a quick response from their government. Lange has a particular talent for capturing the very human face of the internment camps, children with ID tags attached to their coats, chain link fences topped with barbed wire circling the arid landscape, family laundry hanging from a window, the barren rows of housing units assailed by constant dust storms, women working on camouflage nets for the War Department.
Famous for her Depression era photos of migrant farm workers, this series of photographs, while ordered by the US Government, were censored for the duration of the war. The most striking feature of the collection is the very American look of these people, standing proud while saluting the flag, teenagers trying to act cool in spite of their surroundings, family gatherings that are familiar Americana. It is also important to mention that, in spite of the extreme measures undertaken, "no Japanese-American was ever found guilty of espionage". Lange's work is enhanced by the two essays that precede the collection of photographs, Linda Gordon's biographical essay on Lange's life and work and Gary Okihiro's "An American Story", outlining Japanese immigration to America and the history of Japanese internment, with personal anecdotes by detainees. This is a moving portrait of a country's response to threat, reminding us to value the precious tenets of freedom. Luan Gaines/2006.
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- The Truth Hurts
- The Truth Hurts
- Great Photos of el Che
- Best photos
- A very interest book . . .
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Che: Images of a Revolutionary
Oscar Sola
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Similar Items:
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The Che Handbook
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El Che - Investigating a Legend
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Fidel's Cuba: A Revolution in Pictures
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Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
-
Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara
ASIN: 0745317006 |
Book Description
Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928-67) is the twentieth century's most famous revolutionary. Che grew up in a bohemian family drawn from the landed gentry and went on to train as a physician. As a young doctor his travels in Latin America produced a political awakening that altered the course of his life. He joined the1952 riots against Juan Peron in Argentina, joined agitators in Bolivia, worked for the pro-Communist regime of Jacobe Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala and, when Arbenz was overthrown in 1954, fled to Mexico, where he first met Fidel Castro. Che became one of Castro's closest and most trusted friends, and after the 1956 rebel invasion of Cuba became his chief lieutenant. Che proved to be a resourceful guerilla leader and was instrumental in establishing the Communist state in Cuba. He continued to foster revolutionary activity in other countries until the time of his death in 1967 when he was captured and executed by government troops in Bolivia while directing a guerrilla group there. Che: Images of a Revolutionary features nearly 400 photographs--many of them never previously published. The book follows Che's life from early childhood to his career as a political activist. Writings by Che, including a number of his speeches and examples of literature written about him, by Fidel Castro and Allen Ginsberg and others, complement the visually stunning photographic collection. The book is a result of exhaustive research in public and private archives in Cuba, Argentina, Bolivia, Europe, and North America. A concluding chapter discusses the "Guevara myth" from his death until the present day.
Customer Reviews:
The Truth Hurts.......2002-12-07
This is not a book for the general public but for leftists.
And it isn't about HISTORY but about Communist mythologie.
Contains several omissions:
.It forgets to informate the readers about what Che Gue Vara did
when he and his guerrileros went to Bolivia to "Liberate" the Bolivian peasants: they assassinated about 50 people ( peasant and soldiers in ambushes ) BEFORE he himself was captured and executed.
The Bolivians felt strange about this "Liberation" and not even one (!) joined his "red terror" band ( they actually told the Bolivian army the precise local where the che's band was ).
In other words, CHE GUE VARA TASTED HIS OWN POISON but the author (and some reviewers) made him a martyr and think America is the real guiltie....
it hurts the intelligence of a rational person
.it says very little about Che's cruelty and crimes: in Las Cabanas prison he ordered the execution of hundreds of people( some of them former brothers in arms which refused communism and stayed democratic ).SOME OF THEM WERE SHOT BY HIM, to give the example...
CHE incentivated their followers during those executions: « DON'T WAISTE TIME WITH THE CAUSES, THIS IS A REVOLUTION, DON'T USE LEGAL METHODS OF THE BURGUEOSOIS, THE PROVE IS SECONDARY.
IT'S NECESSARY TO ACT BY CONVICTION!»
We bet they did.
And the Mass Killings of the "enemies of the people" in Santa Clara Prison (some years later )is practically omissed by the author.
etc etc i could go on AD INFINITUM..
Omited too is the TROPICAL GULAG, the concentration camps and prisons system( or "REEDUCATION" CAMPS like CHE used to called them),where have been imprisioned since 1959 until today about 100 000 political prisioners.
Read how they were and still are beaten and forced to drink they own urine in AGAINST ALL HOPE of Valladares in Amazon.com
The Truth Hurts.......2002-12-07
This is not a book for the general public but for leftists.
And it isn't about HISTORY but about Communist mythologie.
Contains several omissions:
.It forgets to informate the readers about what Che Gue Vara did
when he and his guerrileros went to Bolivia to "Liberate" the Bolivian peasants: they assassinated about 50 people ( peasant and soldiers in ambushes ) BEFORE he himself was captured and executed.
The Bolivians felt strange about this "Liberation" and not even one (!) joined his "red terror" band ( they actually told the Bolivian army the precise local where the che's band was ).
In other words, CHE GUE VARA TASTED HIS OWN POISON but the author (and some reviewers) made him a martyr and think America is the real guiltie....
it hurts the intelligence of a rational person
.it says very little about Che's cruelty and crimes: in Las Cabanas prison he ordered the execution of hundreds of people( some of them former brothers in arms which refused communism and stayed democratic ).SOME OF THEM WERE SHOT BY HIM, to give the example...
CHE incentivated their followers during those executions: « DON'T WAISTE TIME WITH THE CAUSES, THIS IS A REVOLUTION, DON'T USE LEGAL METHODS OF THE BURGUEOSOIS, THE PROVE IS SECONDARY.
IT'S NECESSARY TO ACT BY CONVICTION!»
We bet they did.
And the Mass Killings of the "enemies of the people" in Santa Clara Prison (some years later )is practically omissed by the author.
etc etc i could go on AD INFINITUM..
Omited too is the TROPICAL GULAG, the concentration camps and prisons system( or "REEDUCATION" CAMPS like CHE used to called them),where have been imprisioned since 1959 until today about 100 000 political prisioners.
Read how they were and still are beaten and forced to drink they own urine in AGAINST ALL HOPE of Valladares in Amazon.com
Great Photos of el Che.......2001-09-02
Filled with photos of Che from childhood until his death, if you want to know more about him thru photography then this book is a fine start. Also to read Che: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson, the best biography ever written about him.
Best photos.......2001-07-18
Anyone interested in one of the 20th centuries most enigmatic and charismatic figures will love this book. This is an excellent source to compliment the book by Jon Anderson or to enjoy by itself. Filled with over 400 photgraphs, many rare and never seen before, this book captures the image of the man in the various years of his life, most notably his years spent in Cuba. To see the man in all his glory, whether it be sipping his beloved mate, smoking a cigar or fighting his guerrilla war somewhere, his face is unforgetable and this book shows the many facets of his personality. The text is an easy read that can be read in one sitting but the pictures are priceless and require one's attention over and over. This is a book that sits prominently in full view in my house for quick browsing. The photos are exquisite, taken from various sources including one's taken by Che himself. Of particular interest is a section of the book that deals with the now fanous photo taken by Korda that is the image most people know of Che. This is the image that adorns everything from t-shirts to money that was taken during a service for for the victims of an explosion on a ship in 1960, one of the images of our times. The contact strip is included and the various degrees of differences can be noted. Of even more interest is the image of Che's corpse that was displayed by the Bolivian authorites and a comparison to the art of Mantegna's Dead Christ. The resemblance is uncanny. The open eyes of Che, even in death, are more alive than many of the people alive who walk around with tombstones in their eyes. This is an excepional book that chronicles the life and times of Ernesto Guevara, portraying an image in text and magnificent photographs of the man, not the myth, known as Che.
A very interest book . . ........2001-05-22
I think this is the best book of Che Guevara that I've read, and im really read a lot of him. It's perspective it's ecuanimous and objetive and show to the readers, many pictures of his life than we never know. I'm not triying to write some kind of promotion but i feel compromised to say my experience with the book.
Book Description
Two hundred color photographs by David Muench show rock paintings and petroglyphs in the arid regions of western North America, extending from Baja California north to Washington and from Wyoming west to California. Most of the locations are remote; many are secret. The photographs are organized into ten geographically-based styles: Great Basin and Mohave Desert, Green River, Colorado River, Little Colorado River, San Juan River, Gila River, Rio Grande, Columbia River, Chumash and Anza Borrego, and Baja California. Anthropologist Polly Schaafsma describes the cultural and physical context of each of these stylistic traditions, which range in age from six thousand years ago to the historic era.
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|
Light Writing and Life Writing: Photography in Autobiography
Timothy Dow Adams
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
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Picturing Ourselves: Photography and Autobiography
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Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
ASIN: 0807847925
Release Date: 1999-11-10 |
Book Description
On the surface, the use of photography in autobiography appears to have a straightforward purpose: to illustrate and corroborate the text. But in the wake of poststructuralism, the role of photography in autobiography is far from simple or one-dimensional. Both media are increasingly self-conscious, argues Timothy Adams, and combining them intensifies rather than reduces the complexity and ambiguity of each taken separately.
Focusing on works by Paul Auster, Maxine Hong Kingston, Sheila Ortiz Taylor, Sandra Ortiz Taylor, N. Scott Momaday, Michael Ondaatje, Reynolds Price, Eudora Welty, Wright Morris, and Edward Weston, Adams explores the ways in which text and image can interact with and reflect on one another. Photography may stimulate, inspire, or seem to document autobiography, he demonstrates, but it may also confound verbal narrative. Conversely, autobiography may mediate, motivate, or even take the form of photography. Because both media exist on the border between fact and fiction, Adams argues, they often undercut just as easily as they reinforce each other. Exploring the interrelations between photography and autobiography uncovers an inherent tendency in both to conceal as much as they reveal.
Book Description
The ninety-five African American contemporary photographers represented in this volume have used their cameras as tools of social commentary and personal and artistic exploration, bearing witness to changes in the American experience over the past fifty years. These uncompromising, thought-provoking, often highly politicized images cover subjects such as the daily life of African Americans; the struggle of the Civil Rights movement; the history of Black musicianship; and the influence of African American art, literature, and ideals of beauty on American society at large. Black artists, philosophers, writers, poets, musicians, politicians, and sports heroes are featured throughout. Some of the images address the most personal issues of philosophy and identity. The photographers featured, all working today and most of them at the height of their productivity, come from every region of the United States; together, their work represents a far-ranging exploration of contemporary African American identity.
Customer Reviews:
The Image is Beautiful.......2002-08-03
A wonderfully illustrated compilation of interesting photography. Decent. Somewhat reminds one of G. Parks' work (some does appear here). One does not have to be a photographer to appreciate this book. Explosion of creative expressions. Contemporary photography, --indeed!
The Beauty Of - And Within - A Culture.......2001-05-01
A wonderful book, revealing not only those things that make a culture unique, but showing the individual uniqueness of those operating and living within that culture. This books dispels myths that suggest we all think alike, look alike, perceive alike. There is vision here; there is perspective, and it's uniquely African-American, and highly artistic as well as educational.
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- Ode to Joy!
- Gordon Parks does it again with a Star For Noon
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A Star for Noon: An Homage to Women in Images, Poetry and Music
Gordon Parks
Manufacturer: Bulfinch
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Similar Items:
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Eyes with Winged Thoughts: Poems and Photographs
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A Hungry Heart: A Memoir
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Choice of Weapons (Borealis Books)
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Half Past Autumn: A Retrospective (Half Past Autumn)
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Learning Tree
ASIN: 0821226851 |
Product Description
In A Star For Noon, Parks ? a photographer, poet, composer of music and writer ? has turned all of his gifts toward the universally appealing theme of love. This beautiful book combines exquisite female nudes with still lifes, poetry and original music. Gordon Parks is a beloved figure in the history of the arts in the 20th century and the story of his struggles against racism and in the pursuit of beauty have inspired generations. A Star For Noon is a lyrical and unabashedly romantic gift book that will appeal to Parks many followers as well as lovers everywhere. Also includes a CD specially composed and performed by Parks, as well as 18 poems.
Customer Reviews:
Ode to Joy!.......2001-06-18
This book contains wonderful poetry, outstanding photography, and a delightful CD of piano music with the accompaniment of a small orchestra. As superb as each element is, the overall structure, design and concept are even more wonderful. I feel like this work is a breakthrough into a new type of communication. Mr. Gordon Parks has created here one of the most moving works to honor women that it has been my pleasure to enjoy. I strongly urge you to acquire this work and be inspired by it!
Before going further, let me mention that the book contains many beautiful nude images of women that would earn its contents an R rating (or even a bit more) if the book were a motion picture. The images will remind you of Edward Weston's work, as the ambiguous line between landscape and the female form are portrayed.
The book is divided into the themes of awakening, longing, remembering, waiting, returning, and homecoming. Each section has its own previously unpublished poetry, color, and thematic photographs. The images alternate among female nudes, landscapes, nudes superimposed on landscapes (like the cover image), flowers, and still lifes. The photographs' compositions, reproduction quality, and connection to the themes and each other are stunning. Although the work is unformly of high quality, I liked the flower photographs best. They will remind you of Robert Mapplethorpe and Georgia O'Keeffe.
Of the many elements in this work, I actually enjoyed the poetry the best. You should play the music as you read the book to deepen your emotional connection and experience.
Here are a few samples of Mr. Parks's understanding of how much meaning women bring to our lives.
"I lie here abandoned,
longing for you to give
the thinnest hope to my heart.
Speak to me." -- Dayspring
"I lie haunted in the ashes
of shapeless memories." -- Memories to Forget
"How could you let him caress hands
I held just one love ago?" -- I'm Not Close
"You and longing are as one." -- I Breath Deeply and Want
"Nothing
can
be
more
indiscreet, or arduous,
than love." -- I Know
"Yet I still know
what I am in search of --
one unending love that claims
the need to be remembered." -- Friendly Advice
"If you would have a star for noon,
it shall be yours." -- A Child Arriving
You can feel the vibrancy of the work from these words, I'm sure. What's amazing to me is that Mr. Parks is now 88. Yet his vision here is that of a quite young man. Remarkable!
After you have enjoyed this outstanding milieu Mr. Parks has created for us, I suggest that you think about what women have inspired you to accomplish that would not otherwise have happened.
To me, above all women are muses making the heavens' silent potential resound with meaning!
Gordon Parks does it again with a Star For Noon.......2000-11-08
Gordon Parks, an American renaiisance man, is one who will never cease to amaze us. A remarkable man with a remarkable vision, he invites us into his world with his new book, A Star For Noon. The book is a compilation of poems and photographs of his greatest muse...woman. Parks, a photographer who gained fame in the 40's, 50's, and 60's as a photographer of Life magazine, publishes still lifes and nudes for his concept piece. The photographs, very tasteful and moving show the reader that this is a man who truly loves women for their strength, intellect, beauty and sensitivity. Through his aesthetic work, we find that he teaches us that women are the most beautiful people in the world. The best way to experience this book is to look at the photographs and read the poetry while listening to the music. The accompanying CD of Parks' music is a welcomed joy for those of us who've appreciated the man's work for a number of years. Although performed live various times, Parks' music has never been available on the market until now. The soothing and moving music of his "A Star For Noon" suite will drive you to tears and joy. My hat goes off to the concertmaster Kermit Moore for helping Dr. Parks bring his musical vision to fruition. We know that Art books dont geniunely sell, but I hope that more and more people know about this book. His previous, "Half Past Autumn", was a great success as a exhibit and a book. A genius and an inspiration, may Gordon Parks keep on keeping on with more great works to come. *If one may be interested in the creative process of Parks' work, HBO will be showing a documentary of Mr. Parks and his work in honor of his 88th birthday on Nov. 30th at 9pm.
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The American image: Photographs from the National Archives, 1860-1960
United States
Manufacturer: Pantheon Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: 0394507983 |
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Photographic Memories: Private Pictures, Public Images, and American History (Interfaces: Studies in Visual Culture)
Rob Kroes , and
Donald Pease
Manufacturer: Dartmouth College Press
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ASIN: 1584655933 |
Book Description
Photographic Memories explores the ways photography has helped Americans and Europeans form and share a store of remembered images, thus giving them a sense of their shared past. This gracefully written narrative weaves together impressions, memories, and analysis, negotiating history in a thoroughly original way, and moving deftly from photographic memories of the American Civil War and the Cold War to the iconic images of September 11.
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- Precious history.
- Let the eyes tell us what the picture means
- Precious Images
- A Picture is Worth...
- Great Pictures - Commentary Stinks
|
Hidden Witness: African American Images from the Dawn of Photography to the Civil War
Jackie Napolean Wilson
Manufacturer: St Martins Pr
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ASIN: 0312245467 |
Amazon.com
The image is striking: A woman gazes serenely at the camera, baby cradled in her arms in classic Madonna-and-child pose. More striking is the fact that the sitters are black, and the photograph dates from 1860. Few photographs from the mid-19th century feature African Americans, enslaved or free. Those that do are often staged and reflect the biases of the photographer or the printmaker who published them. Others, however, provide glimpses of daily life before the abolition of slavery.
Renowned collector of early photographs Jackie Napolean Wilson has compiled 70 such images in Hidden Witness. Each photograph--whether an outdoor scene, where slaves are afterthoughts in the frame, so-called Mammy portraits of slaves holding white children, studio portraits of proud freemen and women--is accompanied by a brief explanation, contextualizing the image and speculating on the nature of the pictured relationships. Some of the subjects are famous, such as Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass; others, though unknowns, carry a force of their own: the exuberant grin of the prizewinning boxer, the proud stance of a Union soldier, the quiet dignity of a slave nurse. A handsome addition to the history of African Americans and photography. --Sunny Delaney
Book Description
Whether as slaves or as freedmen, African-Americans were virtually invisible in American history during the l9th century. Although photography was introduced to this country in l840, precious few images of African-Americans survive today. Even after the Civil War there were not many African-American photographers, and very few black people had the time, money or freedom for a portrait sitting. Consequently, little photographic evidence remains to bear witness to the lives of four and a half million Americans of African descent.
Jackie Napolean Wilson, whose own grandfather was born a slave in South Carolina between l853 and l855, has assembled the most comprehensive and significant collection of such images ever brought together in one place. The concrete reality reflected in daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes presents these men and women in situations and attire that bring the truth of their daily lives much closer to us. Such scenes of maternal affection, matrimony, friendship, war and the grim reality of the master/slave relationship help focus our perception of the African- American experience in America in ways not otherwise available to the modern reader. Among these images is the only picture of Abraham Lincoln in the company of an African-American and the earliest known daguerreotype of Frederick Douglass (circa 1843).
Often anonymous, these photographers have left us a mirror, focussing distant light on the past of African-Americans in this country and putting an often invisible people on the historical record once and for all time.
Customer Reviews:
Precious history........2004-06-25
This book has photographs to treasure. To see black people at this period of history recorded in photographs is a precious thing. However, I must agree with the consensus that the text is worthless, which is why I didn't give the book five stars. I was not interested in the author's guesses about these people and many times he was actually obnoxious in his anxiety to make sure the reader saw the photographs with his spin on them.
Particularly moving, besides the portrait on the front of the woman and child were the memorial photograph of the dead baby, and the couple of photos of slaves lined up in front a plantation. It was interesting to see, although it was not the common experience that there were already so many black middle-class pre-slavery, or at least, so many blacks managed to dress up for even a one-time portrait. I have some older photos in my family and I know from that that people put their best foot forward and rented clothes that were better than their usual ones and so forth for portraits. Also, even in the 19th century it was possible to retouch photos and remove things that they did not want to be seen.
Let the eyes tell us what the picture means.......2002-05-20
The photographs are great!! I just wish that the author had let them speak for themselves, or if he felt that he must say something, tell us what he felt when looking at the photos. I don't think that there is a person over the age of 8 that doesn't know about the difficult times that African American faced and still face, but to add them as facts to the photographs is just a bit much. God I want just one book that has photographs of us that talk about our pride and strength seen in our eyes by the len.
Precious Images.......2002-01-26
These photographs are gorgeous. Many of the readers have probably never seen early photos of free and even prosperous proud ante-bellum black people. I would give this book five stars were it not for the commentary. Jackie Napoleon Wilson tries so hard to interpret the photos that he makes ridiculous assumptions. There is no way to know what was going on in these people's heads. As other reviewers have pointed out, becuase of the daugeretype's long exposure time the man in the photo on page 3 didn't just get caught in the scene he must have been posed. When Wilson says the woman and daughter on page 13 didn't have a close attachment he's speaking nonsense. How on earth can you tell that? Despite the commentary this book is a worthy addition to the bookshelf of anyone who is interested in history.
A Picture is Worth..........2001-12-29
Normally a picture is worth a thousand words, not so in Wilson's case. This book would have been better left without text. Still, as a picture book, as a real hidden witness to a past that does not show much in the way of photo documentation, the book has worth. The daguerreotypes and rare photos give a glimpse to the lives of African-Americans before abolition. If the reader will become a looker only and search the photos for the truth, then this book will be a valuable source of enlightenment and understanding.
Great Pictures - Commentary Stinks.......2001-10-04
I picked this book up at the library. As I am also a collector of old photographs, I was intrigued. The book does contain a wonderful collection; it's worth looking at.
But as everyone has observed, I too found the commentary a source of concern and irritation. Much of it is total fabrication. That is definately a pair of rosary bead around the woman's neck on page 46. To claim otherwise is a deliberate intention to misdirect. The woman was far from thinking of her roots. She just wanted to leave a picture for her family to enjoy and remember her by.
Mr. Wilson is an author I will avoid from now on.
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- Simple Gifts : Four Heartwarming Christmas Stories : Just Curious / Miracles / Change of Heart / Double Exposure
- Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing, and Retouching Faces and Bodies
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- Suite Française
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