Category: Book Reviews
As a service to our readers AboutTheImage proudly publishes book reviews on topics relevant to our audience including, fine art photography books, how-to books, business books, and other publications and periodicals that serve our audience of Photographers, Art Buyers and Stock Industry professionals.
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Book Review: The Eternal Light of Egypt by Sarite Sanders
The Eternal Light of Egypt by Sarite Sanders
Thames & Hudson (September 30, 2008)
220 pages/hardcover/126 duotone photographs/$50.00
Sarite Sanders issues the results of a thirty-year reconnaissance mission in her book, The Eternal Light of Egypt: A Photographic Journey. Conquering the sensitivity of infrared, Sanders’ impressions of Nile treasures are most welcoming. As the full gray spectrum is no longer hidden, gods and goddesses, mummies, rulers, colossi, temples and portals reveal a new likeness with prideful charm. Along with her timeless subjects, Sanders can rejoice with this mammoth personal and professional achievement.
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Book Review: Animalia by Henry Horenstein
Animalia by Henry Horenstein
Pond Press (June 30, 2008)
80 pages/hardcover/64 duotone photographs/$40.00
Professor Henry Horenstein remixes his acclaimed photographs of land and sea creatures, adding 35 unpublished images, into his latest book, Animalia. His parade of subjects in sepia marches with pride and precision through the lens and into the mind’s eye. As an artist, Horenstein connects humans to animals though emotional macro studies. As a scientist, he patiently waits to press the shutter on an unsuspecting world.
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Book Review: Time Passes by Robert Adams
Time Passes by Robert Adams
Thames & Hudson (April 2008)
100 pages/hardcover/32 tritone photographs/$40.00
Robert Adams, master of recording transforming topography, releases Time Passes this year in conjunction with his recent Paris exhibition, On the Edge. Most of the book’s 32 plates show extending seascapes conveying Adams’ meditation on what he terms transience. His endless hours watching the Northern Pacific tides, catching dancing light and rolling liquid, have produced straightforward and submersing stills.
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Book Review: Mr Classic by Jeremy Hackett and Garda Tang
Mr Classic by Jeremy Hackett, Photographs by Garda Tang
Thames & Hudson, May 2008
200 pages/hardcover/136 photographs/$40.00
Jeremy Hackett is Mr Classic. Having a clothing label for decades plus writing a column for the U.K.’s The Independent on Sunday are excellent platforms for influencing men’s fashion. But what decidedly earns Hackett this moniker is his talented facility for reviving the proper styles once worn by Britain’s aristocracy with modern practicality. For his book, Mr Classic, London-based photographer Garda Tang shoots Hackett’s models with fitting technique. Every bow tie, every just-so lifted chin neatly accentuates Hackett’s vision of gentlemanly chic. The looks are respectable and refreshing, not stuffy or stagnant.
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Book Review: Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa by Hans Silvester
Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa by Hans Silvester
Thames & Hudson, April 2008
168 pages/hardcover/160 color photographs/$45.00
With photographs enchanting to behold, Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa by Hans Silvester is a sure selection for this spring’s required viewing list. Silvester, known for his protracted study of subjects, travels to Ethiopia’s Omo Valley a dozen times over four years for this new release. He infiltrates the fantastic body painting displays of two congenial tribes, the Surma and the Mursi. While this ancient African practice is uniquely noteworthy, the book also packs a universal message.
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Book Review: Living Proof by David Alan Harvey
Living Proof by David Alan Harvey
powerHouse Books, December 2007
112 pages/hardcover/52 photographs/$29.95
“Skip the pictures and go straight to the last page...read Uptown’s poem,” advises David Alan Harvey on perusing his latest book, Living Proof. Missing any of Harvey’s images is never recommended, even if he says so himself. Harvey gives us the impression that the cavern between the cryptically thunderous lyrics of a rising hip hop artist and the expert visual storytelling of a super-pro photojournalist is a gap too immense to bridge. Isn’t that unthinkable for someone as fly as Harvey?
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Book Review: The Polaroids by André Kertész
The Polaroids by André KertészW. W. Norton, November 2007
128 pages/hardcover/80 photographs/$35.00
The beautiful, bittersweet images in The Polaroids illustrate never-before-seen expressions of the amazing André Kertész (1894-1985). Mirroring his life and work, this little book is strong and sensitive, gripping and groundbreaking. Moreover, the unparalleled instant medium of Polaroid proves a fitting key to further understanding Kertész’s artistic intellect throughout his seventy-three year career.
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Book Review: Puppies Behind Bars by Christopher Makos and Paul Solberg
Puppies Behind Bars: Training Puppies to Change Lives by Christopher Makos and Paul Solberg
Glitterati Inc., October 2007
144 pages/hardcover/168 photographs/$50.00
Puppies Behind Bars: Training Puppies to Change Lives is a seamless collaboration between photographers Christopher Makos and Paul Solberg who document prison inmates training dogs to help those in need. The project hatched when Makos met an extraordinary Labrador, a recent graduate of the Puppies Behind Bars program, riding as if human on a flight to Houston. That was unusual enough to stimulate Makos’ eye and out came the camera instead of a much needed pillow.
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Book Review: Iraq: The Space Between by Christoph Bangert
Iraq: The Space Between by Christoph Bangert
powerHouse Books, October 2007
118 pages/hardcover/74 color photographs/$35.00
Christoph Bangert enters an allegorical hallway in his photographic essay, Iraq: The Space Between. Unable to turn back, he must decide which door to open next. As he anticipates views beyond each new portal, he occupies himself by taking pictures inside the corridor. While languishing in the slipstream, Bangert captures the places where things like socks go when they don’t come out of the dryer.
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Book Review: Extraordinary Circumstances by David Hume Kennerly
Extraordinary Circumstances by David Hume Kennerly
The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford
University of Texas Press, October 2007
224 pages/hardcover/125 tritone photographs/$49.95
Extraordinary Circumstances documents the unusual life acceleration of Gerald R. Ford as he takes his place in history during times of heightened political turmoil. As Ford’s personal photographer, David Hume Kennerly, who has a rather nonchalant shooting style, set the White House darkroom standard in the 1970s by developing fly-on-the-wall shots of the powerful comings and goings of a U.S. President. There isn’t a grip-and-grin or was-my-face-red snap to be found in this book. Dave, as Ford called him, was a trusted friend.
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Book Review: Freeze Frame by Douglas Kirkland
Freeze Frame by Douglas KirklandGlitterati Inc., October 2007
352 pages/hardcover/450+ photographs/$50.00
Douglas Kirkland intrigues film and photography lovers with a fifty-year roundup of rarely seen intimate shots of actors and crewmembers taken on more than a hundred motion picture sets. Freeze Frame gets off to an auspicious start in the 1960s and accelerates without pausing right through the millennium.
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Book Review: Magnum Magnum edited by Brigitte Lardinois
Magnum Magnum edited by Brigitte LardinoisThames & Hudson, November 30, 2007
564 pages/hardcover/ 400+ photographs in color and duotone/$225.00
“If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big,” goes the quote from Donald Trump. Those behind the planning of Magnum Magnum moved beyond big and into the realm of colossal thinking. In fact, the book is the largest and most ambitious volume Thames & Hudson has ever published. The 14-pound behemoth surpasses another huge book about the legendary agency of decorated photographers: the 512-page Magnum Stories published in 2004 by Phaidon Press. Magnum’s kingdom keeps growing even when traditional high-end photojournalistic channels seem to be disappearing.
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Book Review: A New England Autumn by Ferenc Máté
A New England Autumn by Ferenc Máté
Albatross Publishing, September 2007
160 pages/hardcover/103 color photographs/$39.95
Novelist, master sailor, winemaker and yes, photographer, Ferenc Máté’s new book, A New England Autumn, showcases the region’s most pristine forests and tranquil locations. The book lives up to its promise: “For lovers of nature and fine writing.” Unfortunately, this marquee pronouncement is mistakenly placed in an obscure location on the inside jacket flap. Until readers peruse the contents pages and beyond there is little on the face of this book to indicate the riches inside.
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Book Review: Small World by Martin Parr
Small World by Martin ParrDewi Lewis Publishing, November 2007
96 pages/hardcover/69 color photographs/ $45.00
We’ve seen photo requests for soft-filtered shots of children running through flowery fields for real estate ad campaigns, insisting there should be no house in sight. It seems to follow that in the near future, travel clients won’t need photos of the actual attractions anymore when it comes time to feature the highlights of their destinations. To meet that spec when it arrives, you’ll find just the right images in Small World by Martin Parr.
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Book Review: Image Makers, Image Takers by Anne-Celine Jaeger
Image Makers, Image Takers by Anne-Celine Jaeger
Thames & Hudson, May 2007
272 pages/paperback/218 illustrations/ $34.95
If your summer book list didn’t include Image Makers, Image Takers, then now is the time to pick up your copy of this handbook that examines the creative methodology of today’s leading image makers and shapers. The book provides Q&A-style interviews with some of photography’s heavy hitters. There are also plenty of well chosen images to study and their addition to the text greatly enhances the book’s value. Various quotes are pulled and presented in large font and sprinkled throughout for even more punch.
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Book Review: Vanishing Point by David Plowden
David Plowden: Vanishing Point
Fifty Years of Photography by David Plowden
W.W. Norton & Company, October 2007
340 pages/hardcover/280 duotone photographs/ $100.00
Pulling the cellophane wrap off of David Plowden: Vanishing Point feels like blowing away years of dust from an old box of keepsakes. Inside, the images taken by the prolific master photographer David Plowden have been righteously preserved. Plowden deserves a big heap of recognition with the publication of this tribute to his examination of America over the last half century. Journalist Steve Edwards reveals much we didn’t know about Plowden in the book’s introduction. For example, there is the impressive fact that he studied with Minor White, but what is more informative is to discover that when they first met, Plowden was so intimidated by White’s room displaying works by Edward Weston and Paul Caponigro, “I almost turned around and fled,” he says.
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