Book Description

In November 2003, the musician and photographer Bryan Adams began photographing a cross section of influential American women dressed in new and vintage Calvin Klein. Shot mainly in New York and Los Angeles throughout 2004, American Women is a tribute to the beauty, strength, and character of American women. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Katie Couric, Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank, Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Lindsay Lohan, Christie Brinkley, Sarah Jessica Parker, Eartha Kitt, Aerin Lauder, Marlo Thomas, Nan Kempner, Paula Zahn, Cindy Crawford, Alice Sebold, Amber Valletta, Katie Holmes, Eve Ensler, and Lauren Hutton are just a few of the women Adams selected from among America’s most notable actors, journalists, musicians, artists, businesswomen, athletes, and philanthropists, all lovingly and glamorously captured by the camera of a rising star in the field. Produced in close collaboration with the Calvin Klein company, American Women is Adams’ third book of important women. His first, Made in Canada (Key Porter, 1999), benefited the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation and featured influential Canadian women such as Linda Evangelista, k.d. lang, Shania Twain, and Pamela Anderson. Based on its success, he published a second book, Haven (Trebruk, 2000), in the U.K. Benefiting the Haven Trust, a breast cancer support center in London, the book raised a considerable sum for the charity and received widespread press. For that book, Bryan photographed HRH Queen Elizabeth II, the Duchess of York, Vanessa Redgrave, Elizabeth Hurley, Kate Moss, Julie Christie, Joan Collins, and forty other influential British women. Proceeds from American Women will benefit the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in support of their ongoing breast cancer research programs. ... Read more

Book Description

Color and light, the passing storm, a freckled girl, a screened porch--a summer's day--from 1976-1981, mostly photographed on Cape Cod. Lush, dreamy, sun-baked color. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Summer's Day
My grandfather, a Bostonian, purchased a home on Cape Cod, berore 1910. About five generations of his progeny have enjoyed The Cape since that time. A part of most of my summers - since 1935 - have been spent on the Cape. Mr. Meyerowitz's photographic essay truly captures the essence of The Cape. The beach, the redheads, the old home scenes all strike a chord of memories. I recommend it to all Cape Codders, wash-ashores, and prospective visitors. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Medical Photography ? techniques and equipment
Sections on patient photo-techniques, type of camera and flash equipment are very well detailed, are excellent and very well illustrated. However, chapter on digital photography was poor and not consistent with the quality of the information found in the rest of the book. In summary, this is a very good resource for interns/residents/fellows, medical photo technicians and physicians in practice. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

What a work of creative and artistic genius!
What a work of creative and artistic genius!

What to say about such an amazing work? For the first few times I
mainly absorbed the photos of his works, with only reading the
little captions and it wiped me off my feet. After a few rounds
of these I decided to read all of the writing in the book that
accompany the works he made and it totally blew me away. This
book has definitely altered something deep inside about the way
Ilook at nature, change, the seasons and time in general.

Time, as the title of the book suggests is the main topic of the
book and Andy Goldsworthy's art in general or at least his
approach and intention towards it. The body of work presented in
numerous photos and with corresponding writing in the form of a
journal covers the whole range Goldsworthy's work. For example
works made from stone, wood, leaves, snow, ice,...

As a result it gives an excellent overview and introduction of
his work and via the numerous writings a very deep, personal and
detailed insight into how he approaches different places, how he
reacts to change and works with the weather. The writing is on
par with his work. Very clear, direct, honest and poetic.

His insight into the concepts of time and change and seasons and
nature is truly breath taking. The introduction he wrote for the
book is a wonderful example illustrating this. Part of it can be
read by using the "Look inside the book" feature of Amazon.

Spending time with this book really cracks ones mind wide open
about time, change, nature and seasons and how to look at it and
perceive it.

And honestly I don't know what's more amazing. These amazing
and unbelievable pieces of art. Or the incredibly crisp and poetic
writing, deepening so much ones understanding of the works and
give insight into Goldsworthys view and approach and thoughts. Or
simply that out there somewhere a human being is walking this
earth with such an amazing understanding of time and nature and
able to transform this into amazing art an writing.

If the idea of Goldsworthys work is for him to work with time and
change and nature and to further his awareness of these concepts
and make sense of them in the most beautiful way then that is
exactly what this book excells marvelously at for the reader.

Another superb look at Andy Goldsworthy's ephemeral art
Andy Goldsworthy's artwork is utterly ephemeral and fleeting, and perhaps because of this, utterly transfixing. There is something of the ancients in the way Goldsworthy puts together stone, or wood, or leaves--or even in the way he lays himself down on a dry patch of ground in the rain so that when he gets up, we see a sort of reverse shadow of his body. There is an astonishing intellect at work here, and a soul which sees the value in what some art snobs might term "mere beauty."

Goldsworthy's many mediums are covered in "Time," which features sumptuous photography by Terry Friedman. We see perfectly constructed stone cairns--some pyramidal, some only half done and all the more startling for what isn't there as for what is. We see ruddy sandstone arches four times the height of a man. But Goldsworthy's most consistently inviting work is done not in stone, but in the ephemera nature leaves for him everywhere he looks. Goldsworthy's work is sometimes so fleeting as to question the very nature of whether it constitutes art when it lasts only minutes or hours. The frost shadows, for instance, are simply photographs of the still-iced patches of grass over which Goldsworthy stood in the early morning, then stepped aside so that a photograph could be taken. Of course these are gone within minutes as the sun warms the now-exposed grass. Is this art? Merely the fact that you question it shows your engagement with the work--Goldsworthy fosters a kind of subtle dialogue between reader and artist and the dialogue is consistently engaging. Another heat-destroyed piece is the thinnest imaginable sheet of ice, laid against a moss-covered rock, and Goldsworthy's handprint visible on it. As it thawed, it buckled and disappeared and we see its disappearance in the photographs. It's lovely, it's witty and it is, improbably art.

Other things disappear, too, but not from the sun's warmth. There is a "stick hole" Goldsworthy built early one spring which he and Friedman came back to photograph throughout the summer until the final photograph shows it utterly covered with the lacy ferns which grew up around it. There are the perfectly circular or perfectly ovoid leaf rafts Goldsworthy stitches together, then sends on their way down a meandering stream, having their path photographed before they disappear. There are the piled of rocks he constructs leading into the ocean so that the tides swallow them up--each stage meticulously recorded on film.

Perhaps the most transformative art in the book is the mud wall displayed on the cover. Goldsworthy applied mud to walls and floor in such a way that when the mud cracked and dried, it showed the meandering, snakelike pattern he'd put into it. It has become something entirely different solely through the passage of time. This book is filled with surprises and delights, and will have you utterly absorbed, charmed, and astonished. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Mature Work by a Great Artist
This is perhaps Goldsworthy's most elegiac and moving book, a profound meditation on time and change. If you like his work, you won't be disappointed. This volume and "A Collaboration with Nature" are wonderful and permanent sources of inspiration.

Time
Entropy. Order versus Disorder, structure versus chaos, these are the forces that we all deal with, and Andy Goldsworth displays this primal struggle elegantly in this beautiful new book. What the artist creates nature returns to itself. We see the process from inspiring begininng to intriging end with the key player being Time. It is hard to envision a more perfect book of this artists' work.

The best yet
If you are already an Andy Goldsworthy fan, this book is an essential coming together of his various design phases. It explains chronologically his life's work. The commentary describes his methods and his feelings. The photography as always is breathtaking making every page a joy.

If you are not already a fan this book represents a 'best of' summation of his work and makes his other three books a more indepth look at each phase of his working life. So buy this one first. ... Read more

Book Description

An intimate photographic journey through Edward Gorey's home. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

A specialty item for the true Gorey collector
Even dedicated fans of Edward Gorey will probably know very little about his personal life: he was an enigmatic recluse and few were permitted past his front door. Photographer Kevin McDermott's Elephant House will delight students of architecture and photography, providing rich duotone works of Gorey's intriguing home and its contents. A specialty item for the true Gorey collector, Elephant House is an impressive photographic showcase and a welcome addition to both architectural studies and photographic studies reference collections.

Fruitful Coursework
M. McDermott's luxuriant photos admirably capture the subversive hermeneutics of desire at work in every compartment of Edward Gorey's capacious mind. To judge from these photos, at home as much as in his work Gorey enacted a subaltern erotics of duplicity and dialectic: the precise, almost fussy, arrangements of salt shakers and stones, frog spectators and secret guests which echo the Edwardian-styled detail of his famous books and their ecstatic decodification of heterosexual longing into a polysemous weave of interleaved multitextuality illuminate a life's work spent dancing on a metacritical pin. Queer and gender theorists take note: Elephant House will reinvigorate your every critique -- about Edward Gorey and his work, and of course, the texts his prism redacts.

At Home With Edward Gorey
Kevin McDermott's Elephant House is an impressive new photography book. The photographs, taken only days after Edward Gorey's death, afford us an intimate portrait of the man as he lived. The book contains insightful photographs that capture the fine details of the way Edward lived and worked in his own space. Gorey clearly had a fascination with light and texture. He scattered a massive array of objects all about his home with a nearly curatorial eye. McDermott's well composed photos not only capture this aspect of Gorey but illustrate a common thread between these two artists: texture. One photograph depicts groups of small stones as they congregate idly on the rough wood of the porch. The cityscape of salt and pepper shakers and a plate of gourd-like, spherical shapes are beautiful studies in the texture and form of ordinary objects abstracted from their normal contexts, while many others are still lives made of the house's windows and the eclectically arranged objects in front of them. The blue bottles in a few images glow like stained glass as the washed-out light of a cloudy day streams in through them. What makes many of the color images so interesting is the spare, nearly monochromatic palette of colors in the rooms which are offset by only the blue luminosity of bottles or the green leaves of spring showing in the background. These are beautiful photographs independent of their connection to Edward Gorey, but serve also to enhance our understanding of him. The text is an entertaining and candid glimpse of Gorey as a friend knew him, and provides a nicely guided tour through each room. This book is handsomely crafted and thoughtfully designed, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in photography or Edward Gorey.

Elephant House or the home of Edward Gorey
Edward Gorey was a mysterious personage. His works often leave one thinking "what next?". Elephant House by Kevin McDermott helps relieve much of this worry. Mr. McDermott has captured through his photographs and text what it was like to spend time with the elusive Mr. Gorey. This is a personal and moving tribute to a friend that never feels intrusive, but rather illuminates Mr. Gorey and the daily world he invented and inhabited. For those of us who have made Mr. Gorey a part of our own daily lives, Elephant House lets us spend some quality time with the man through his surroundings. A gem and a gift.

Elephant House, Or the Home of Edward Gorey
This Fabulous book gives us a photographic incite into Edward Gorey, the man. It enlightens the reader with an increased knowledge of the sources of the characters and whimsy of the Groey books. The personal anecdotes of McDermott, made you wish you could have known the man in real life. Gorey would have been pleased with his friend's understanding of who he was. The photographers eye, saw the "art" of Gorey in his everyday surroundings. It was like walking in Gorey's shoes from room to room. A must have book for every Gorey fan. ... Read more

Book Description

In the early 1970s, the sport of skateboarding had so waned from its popularity in the 1960s that it was virtually non-existent. In the Dogtown area of west Los Angeles, a group of young surfers known as the Zephyr Team (Z-Boys) was experimenting with new and radical moves and styles in the water which they translated to the street. When competition skateboarding returned in 1975, the Z-Boys turned the skating world on its head. . Dogtown The Legend of the Z-Boys is a truly fascinating case study of just how an underground sport ascended on the world. These are the stories and images of a time that not only inspired a generation but changed the face of sport forever. The Legend of the Z-Boys has been described as "The Dogtown text book" and an insightful companion piece to the movie: "DogTown and Z-Boys". . Spanning 1975 – 1985, the first section of the 240 page book includes the best of the "DogTown" articles written by C.R. Stecyk III as they originally appeared in SkateBoarder Magazine. The second half compiles 100’s of never before seen skate images from the archive of Glen E. Friedman - many of which appear in the movie. Both Stecyk and Friedman acted as executive producers and advisors for the award winning film, Dogtown and Z-Boys to be released nationwide simultaneously by Sony Picture Classics in April 2002. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

AWESOME- PERFECT- AMAZING - COOL!
Friedman and Stecyk went all the way on this one. After seeing it at a film festival I thought the movie was amazing, but this book just took it all the way over the top. For sure, the only two people who could have done it, did it! Now I know more than ever why all these guys are living legends. Stecyk's original stories from the 70's and all of those previously un-released Friedman images from the 70's (100+ pages of them) are even more than I expected. The whole thing is nothing less than cool, inspirational and beautiful. This small format but thick book is amazing, it really does feel like a textbook on Dogtown that everyone who loves the movie or culture will have to own. I can't believe Friedman was so young when he shot those pictures! Stecyk's words will inspire, excite, and really entertain anyone who reads them, he's an awesome writer.

Almost as good as having my old Skateboarders...
Finally, collected in one hardback book are all of the "Dogtown" articles from the mid 70's Skateboarder magazine. What a treat!

In their original incarnation, these articles (especially the single page "Who's Hot!")festooned the walls of my bedroom. Even if the originals hadn't disappeared over the years, most probably never survived the pillaging of their contents; thus, a hardback reprint is a treasure! But the real surprise is how well these articles were written.

Your average 13 year old skate nut is hardly a literary critic. So, I didn't really expect the articles themselves to still hold up nearly 30 years down the road. SURPRISE! They are extremely well-written, in a very adult voice. I'm amazed so many of us read these as young teens, they are really quite sophisticated. Whether Stecyk is writing as "John Smythe" or himself, his voice is intelligent and never descends to the "whoa, dude rad!" depths unless quoting a specific skater. The skaters themselves sound quite self-aware, and each has a distinctive attitude that comes thru, even in the first articles. Stacy Peralta is the proto-typical laid back SoCal surfer guy, into peace & inner-growth. Tony Alva is always & forever the rock star, fully into the babes & bling bling being thrown his way, but never losing sight of skating. Jay Adams is the unpredictable, mischievious imp, while Bob Biniack is thuggish & Wentzle Ruml is devil-may-care & funny.

Friedman's photos are awesome of course, & the color seperations & printing quality lavished on these photos is really impressive. This could have easily been a throw-away done for nostalgia or to cash in on the resurgence of "old school" skating, but instead someone took the time to do it right. The cover alone is a masterpiece of photo-reproduction. "The Legend of the Z-Boys" is a major bargain at this price.

A Great Companion To The Movie...
Glen Friedman is one of the pioneers of skateboarding. Of all the famous pictures you've run across through the years, of skating in the 70's and 80's, he probably took most of them. From Tony Alva, to Tony Hawk. This book is great for someone like me who was skating in both decades and is still an avid follower of the genre. For anyone who remembers SKATEBOADER MAGAZINE, you will love this book.

********
I bought this book a couple of months ago and I constantly find myself going back to look at it. The pictures keep me in awe and the articles are fascinating. The one thing I don't like about the book is that although they acknowledge Peggy Oki's part in the Z-Boys Revolution they have almost no photographs of her. She was female skateboarding at that time. Other than that the book is fantastic and fascinating a great coffee table book but also a great read.

Worth Buying
I think the Z-Boys were very lucky to have Glen Friedman and Craig Stecyk around during their moment in the sun. Both obviously knew something dynamic was happening and were able to capture this early culture of skating and the Dogtown days. The photographs are great and the articles and interviews give you a taste of the Z-Boys' personalities as they were. The pool pictures are more intimate as if the photographers were camera-crashing their parties, and it just looked like they were having fun hanging out. Very well put together. I think if you buy the DVD, CD and this book you'll feel complete. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Animal portraits
Walter Schels fotos are stunning portraits of creatures great and small. They provoke a whole range of feelings on the viewers side, some are witty, some proud, some rather funny, clever, serious etc., but always admired beings in their own rights. The book is a statement of the authors underlying love for the animal kingdom.

Recommended for photography and animals enthusiasts!
Walter Schels' photography of animals provides oversized, black and white pages filled with close-up portraits of farm animals and others, displaying striking differences in features and expressions. Artists with a special passion for animals will find this packed with diverse images which, when seen under one cover, do a fine job of displaying animal characteristics and animal art. ... Read more

Book Description

Like a restless ghost, James Dean (1921-1955) continues to haunt us. Though he died nearly 50 years ago, the enigmatic star of East of Eden, Rebel without a Cause, and Giant still symbolizes the mystery and torment of adolescence-an image that his sudden, violent death fixed forever in the public mind.

Magnum photographer Dennis Stock met Dean in Hollywood in 1954 and began to capture him on camera. Shot over a three-month period just as the young actor's star began to rise, these iconic photographs are the greatest pictures ever taken of Dean. Together with Stock's text and an introduction by Dean biographer Joe Hyams, the images provide an extraordinarily intimate view of the cult legend whose brooding good looks captivated fans by illuminating the troubled depths of his character. Published on the 50th anniversary of his death, this is the definitive photographic portrait of James Dean in both his professional and his private worlds-the real man behind the lingering legend. AUTHOR BIO: Dennis Stock has been associated with Magnum Photos since 1951, and his photographs are in the collections of many major museums. Stock is the author of 16 books, including California Trip, on the surrealistic landscape of that state. He lives in Connecticut. Joe Hyams is the noted author of 28 books, among them James Dean: Little Boy Lost, the definitive Dean biography. Immediately after Dean's death, he was the first authorized by the actor's family to write about him. ... Read more

Book Description

LIFE captures all the drama...passion...and excitement of the world's greatest adventures across the centuries - collected in one stunning volume!

Now, for the first time, in one lavishly illustrated heirloom volume, the editors of LIFE have captured the riveting drama and endless fascination of the greatest adventures the world has ever seen.You'll be enthralled by gripping storytelling wedded to stunning art, photography, and richly detailed maps drawn from the archives of the Royal Geographical Society, the Smithsonian, the Bettmann Archive, and the Time Inc. library.

You'll be privileged to journey with Marco Polo along China's Silk Road at the dawn of the 14th century... join Lewis and Clark on their exciting exploration of the American West... and attempt to conquer Everest in 1922 with George Herbert Mallory.

For these legendary men and women, no obstacle was ever too formidable, no endeavor too daunting.Their heroic deeds have shaped our world.Join them all now on their quests for fortune, fame, and the thrill of discovery. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

0 stars for the forward by Robert sullivan
The stories and photos are both excellent and engrossing, although the essays are needlessly truncated for the modern one minute attention span.This could have benefited greatly from a bit more detail, a bit more fleshing out of the characters and circumstances.Something of a Cliff Notes for recent explorations.

What I and two other people I spoke with found utterly offensive was the forward by Robert Sullivan.This guy literally says there were no "adventurers" before 1900.He discounts everyone from Columbus to Lewis & Clark to Leif Erickson, and his reasoning is wholly specious, as if modern explorers did not have patrons or ulterior motives.Do yourself a favor and skip his naive and offensive ramblings and get right to the lusty tales of the ambitious souls who have bravely expanded our horizons.

This book should never have been called the "Greatest Adventures of All Time" since it's really only the greatest adventures of the last century, but in the end that is sufficient.It was an amazing Century and an amazing time to be alive.

Life the Greatest Adventures of All Time
All the major adventures of the previous century that you really ought to be familiar with! Simply impossible to put down once you've picked it up, this book is required reading. Illustrated with contemporary photographs throughout, most have been seen before and much of what is written and illustrated is to be found elswhere. What you have here, though, is the whole lot - end to end. If this doesn't fill you with awe - nothing will! ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Cool fashion book
This book is cool. Vogue is definitely the place to see all the latest and greatest fashion trend and the art of photograhing and show them.

Very helpful & informative
I just recently purchase this book, at a time when I was getting a bit discourage as a stylist. It helped me to realize that there are good days and bad days and to keep my head up! I believe that the book chosed me at that very moment. It is very helpful in terms of preparation for production shoots. Also informative in knowing the different ways each photographer preps and how Mrs. Coddington binds with each photographer's concepts. I have had the pleasure of working with Mrs. Coddington as a model, and I can confirm that she is a down to earth person which makes one feel comfortable when working for her. Thank you for sharing your 30 yrs!

stylist supreme
Grace: Thirty years of fashion in Vogue is a delightful collection of some of the most memorable and influential fashion photographs since the nineteen seventies.....all of them touched by the imaginative and chic eye of super stylist and editor Grace Coddington. The range of fashion fantasies is impressive. From the tough erotic chic of helmut newton, whimsical femininity of sarah moon on thru the joyful, innocent sexiness of bruce weber, Miss coddington helps each image become something entertaining and memorable. The printing is terrific , layouts are elegant , plus, perfectly boxed in a delicious and very chic pumpkin. Well worth it's luxe weight.... ... Read more

Book Description

For the last twenty years, James Casebere has constructed increasingly complex small-scale architectural models that are carefully built and then subtly lit and photographed in the studio. These table-sized models are made of simple materials, pared down to essential forms, empty of both extraneous detail and action. Casebere's disconcerting ''sites'' recall prisons, monasteries, tunnels, factories, and other archetypal spaces. Casebere has gained increasing international acclaim in recent years as the leading proponent of what has become known as ''constructed photography.'' This is the first publication to comprehensively survey Casebere's career in its entirety, and provides an important contextual and visual framework in which to posit his soaring international reputation. His oeuvre can be seen in the full scope of its development, from his early preoccupation with the genre of the Western and the suburban home, to his concern with institutional buildings, to his recent investigations into the relationships between social control and social structures. Clothbound hardcover, 176 pages, 9.5 x 12 inches, 48 color, 15 b&w, and 49 duotone illustrations. ... Read more

Amazon.com

It looks like a gorgeous nostalgia trip to judge by the cover imagealone. The photo is of an old school record player that lies unplugged, awhite label test-pressing waiting on the turntable, while a band of paperwrapped around the cover announces the title in ye olde woodblock-lookingtype, American Music. A reading of the small type on the back coverreveals the image to be the very record and turntable left in ElvisPresley’s bedroom the day he died, and the mind reels, thinking aboutwhether the King listened to this record on that day or not, and who are theStamps, anyway? An excellent selection of musician portraits interspersed with crumblywooden jook joints and wide open fields in the South, American Musiccovers a wide gamut of jazz, blues, punk, country, hip-hop, rock and roll,folk and gospel musicians. And while most of the pictures were shot between1999 and 2002, some go back to the early 1970s, when Leibovitz first becameRolling Stone magazine's chief photographer. Some of the artists arevery well-known (Michael Stipe, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan) and some of themare not (Jessie Mae Hemphill, Other Turner, Carlos Coy). Leibovitz reallyhas a way of relaxing her performers, and this is a great part of her gift.Even when the pictures are so posed as to be ridiculous (like, what'sMichael Stipe doing on that bedbug-ridden mattress—-the guy's abillionaire?), she catches her subjects at their most "real."They are lostin their music, or just doing some "real person" thing (look, there is Beckin his car—does Beck really drive his own car?). The presentation may be alittle hokey, but this book is sure to please most any music fan.--MikeMcGonigal ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Classical?
OK, think for a minute what it means deep down to chronical AMERICAN music.
That would be music that comes from the Delta and from Chicago and spread from there as essential Blues, Jazz, Rock and Roll and later forms of Pop. Classical came to us from Europe, what these artists represent are the outcome of truly American born music. I'm staggered that anyone would not make that connection..
And yes, we know that some may find Iggy Pop "ugly", but American Music isn't all about chicks that look like Britney Spears..

Don't know what these other folks are talking about.
Gee. I've never heard that poor aesthetic quality is an essential element of art. I'm not even sure what "poor aesthetic quality" means. But if it describes the heartbreaking, iconic portrait of Johnny Cash and June Carter, then I surely want more of it. These are beautiful, sometimes funny and often emotionally moving pictures in which the subjects collaborate with the artist to present a certain face to the world. Maybe not all the faces are completely honest ones, but they're interesting and beautifully photographed.

Popular Music Gets Really Ugly
A few of the pictures here are very good, but for the most part, this presents Pop Music in the same manner that "Sunset Boulevard" portrayed the movie business. Most of the photos are dull (scores to choose from), moronic (The White Stripes, Eartha Kitt), or just plain ugly (Iggy Pop, Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash,at least another dozen).

While some peeople argue that poor aesthetic quality is an essential attribute of "art", there is no excuse for the lack of technical competency shown here. Most of the photos here look like the work of a person who has no camera skills. If the bad aesthetics are deliberate, then it seems clear that the photographer regards musicians with great contempt, judging by how she portrays them here.

Pass on this, and just get copies of your favorite rock music magazines if you want a collection of good pictures.

What is Missing, Speaks Volumes!
This is more of an observation rather than a review... There isn't a single classical musician shown in this book.. I find that very depressing yet not totally unexpected. The title of this complication should really be Popular American Music. So many great classical American musicians such as Leonard Bernstein, to use one example who covered the entire musical spectrum, surely deserved a place in this book... ... Read more

Book Description

Philip Jones Griffiths, for a record five years the President of Magnum Photos, created in Vietnam, Inc. a record of the war there of almost Biblical proportions. No one who has seen it will forget its haunting images. In Agent Orange he has added a postscript that is equally memorable.

In 1960 the United States war machine concluded that an efficient deterrent to the enemy troops and civilians would be the devastation of the crops and forestry that afforded them both succour and cover for their operations. Initial descriptions of the scheme included "Food Denial Program", later adapted to "depriving cover for enemy troops". They gave the idea the name "Operation Hades", but were advised that "Operation Ranch Hand" was a more suitable cognomen for PR purposes.

The US had developed herbicides for the task. The most infamous became known as Agent Orange after the coloured stripe on the canisters used to distribute it. The planes that carried the canisters had 'only we can prevent forests!' as a logo on their fuselages. They were right. It was very effective.

Unfortunately the herbicide also contained Dioxin, probably the world's deadliest poison. In Agent Orange Philip Jones Griffiths has photographed the children and grandchildren of the farmers whose faces were lifted to the gentle rain of the poison cloud.

Some maintain that the connection between the maimed subjects of Griffiths' photographs and the exposure to Agent Orange is not scientifically established. However, the compensation payments made by the herbicide manufactures to those Americans sprayed in Viet Nam refute this assertion.

Historians will find it sufficient to say that there will always be collateral damage, that useful PR phrase, in war and that Philip Jones Griffiths should understand the consequences of martial endeavours. He most certainly does. He has catalogued here a pitiless series of photographs, and there can be no doubt that they should and will be recognized. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

The Black Book of American Infamy
For those already committed to voting for the so-called 'antiwar' candidate, I recommend putting this book in front of Sen. John Kerry and demanding to know what he will do as president to address American responsibility and pay reparations for the genocidal assault on the people of Vietnam. Such action will constitute a litmus test for this candidate, his "band of brothers" and future warriors about how the USA intends to solve the problem of terrorism. Will they acknowledge international law and prosecute the guilty parties including politicians, bureaucrats, executive military officers and defense contractors? Will they honor, finally, the Paris Accords and repair the ecocide brutally wrought upon the Vietnamese by their chemical weapons? Or will they continue to cover up a deliberate, malefic genocide by honoring war criminals like Kissinger and McNamara who now cries cinematic tears while his Pentagon successors plan the mass destruction of any nation that dares to oppose American hegemony?

Philip Jones Griffiths's AGENT ORANGE, COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN VIETNAM is a complex, dense statement that can be viewed and read several ways. Foremost, it is unquestionably the greatest work of photojournalism ever published. I do not make this statement lightly or without professional judgement. For twenty-five years, I edited the work of distinguished photojournalists -- Capa, Richards, Salgado, Peress, and Nachtwey among many others. Comparable only to W. Eugene Smith's MINIMATA: LIFE -- SACRED AND PROFANE, a passionate chronicle of the devastating effects of post-WW II industrial pollution on a Japanese town, AGENT ORANGE surpasses all previous attempts to synthesize the medium of still photography with historical documentation. Griffiths's masterly images unselfconsciously insert readers into the scene of an historical crime and guide them through the evidence page by excruciating page as a means to elicit direct testimony from the perpetrators and their victims. With the possible exception of Erich Maria Remarque' s ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, no other monograph so successfully confronts citizens with the folly of leaders who commit atrocities in their name. The stares of genetically deformed children struggling to articulate humanity across the threshold of pain and disability give absolute lie to the facile excuses of national security used by politicians to conduct high tech assault-and-battery on unwitting, innocent populations. Then it was Vietnam, today Iraq and Afghanistan.

Beginning with his eloquent book, VIETNAM INC. first published in 1971, Griffiths has pursued an unrelenting inquiry into the truth of violence and war. He reported from the Mekong Delta battlefront and also the brothels of Saigon. Returning years later, he earned the trust of farmers who had rebuilt their devastated villages with the detritus of war. Pushing his inquest further he located and photographed war orphans, now shunned as the miscegenated offspring of foreign invaders (DARK ODYSSEY, 1997). Infrequently supported by the mass media, Griffiths parlayed his skills as a commercial photographer to raise the cash necessary to return periodically to Southeast Asia, as if excavating its pitted landscape for some fragment of reason that might explain the macabre body counts and haunting trans-generational birth defects. Some photographers are celebrated for their commitments in documenting a family coming of age or the rise and fall of a nation. Journalism schools promote the virtues of in-depth or extended coverage (sometime a whole week!) while network and cable news personnel embrace the fame of sticking with a big story only to defer, in the final analysis, to the desire of corporate sponsors. By contrast Griffiths has the determination of a seasoned forensic scientist. Although no maverick, he has paid the price of banishment from the newspapers and magazines "of record" whose editors remain too frightened by management to commission or publish his work. Why would they want to remind subscribers of their own inaccuracies and slavish pandering to the official story?

In this respect, AGENT ORANGE can also be read for its scholarship because it presents new historical research about the manufacture and deployment of chemical weapons during the Vietnam era. It has been almost twenty years since American courts acknowledged the gravity of dioxin poisoning in rulings on lawsuits filed by military veterans. Yet companies who supplied the military with these chemical defoliants continue to falsify experimental data on their products' potential for birth defects. Our government stands mute on the issue of "peace with honor" and refuses to contribute any meaningful economic assistance, nonetheless stipulated in the treaty with Hanoi. The war's apologists and neoliberal ideologues continue to deride Vietnam as a failed socialist experiment. Griffith's photographs and words rip their lies to shreds and dissolve their chauvinism in the cold truth of twisted limbs, hare lips, and hydrocehpalic fetuses preserved in formaldehyde. AGENT ORANGE is the black book of American infamy, its author has given citizens a priceless instrument to test their politicians sincerity and commitment to peace. Buy a copy and ask Kerry for a clear statement of conscience!

The ticking "time bomb" uniting two cultures once at war.
In September, 1976, just back from eight years helping homeless streetchildren in Viet Nam, I wrote an Op/Ed piece for the New York Times ( "Learning From the Vietnamese -- And Giving", 12/04/76) that concluded: "And I'm at a loss how to tell my own people that Vietnam's needs are our remedy - to say that what the Vietnamese people have to offer us - as they did me - is so great that for our own sake we must help them." I was attempting to make a connection between the spiritual strengths the people of Viet Nam had to offer us and the technological assistance we, in turn, could give them. Philip Jones Griffiths, in his book "Agent Orange, 'Collateral Damage' in Viet Nam" has made an even more compelling, if depressing, case for interdependency, i.e., because of the American military's chemical spraying in south VN during the war years there are now thousands of people in both the U.S. and Viet Nam who are dealing with deformities and death because of a ticking "time bomb" planted in Indochina decades ago. Griffiths, author of "VIETNAM, INC.", an award-winning photography book on America's longest war, has included here some unsparing images of humans beings brutally deformed by man's more fiendish dalliance with Weapons of Mass Destruction. Here is a "legacy" that must give all of us pause by a brilliant photographer's tireless effort to bring almost unbearable evidence to us of man's inhumanity to man. Like the Holocaust itself, the full impact of these atrocities took years to come to the fore, but "Agent Orange" makes a compelling case that two countries once at war remain linked in a tragic bond that will not soon go away. This is not an easy book to read or, should I say, to view, but I think we ignore it at our peril. Griffiths knows what of he "speaks", having spent years in Indochina and seen un-speakable carnage firsthand. Here he has placed the evidence before us, as well as a precious opportunity to understand where we have gone wrong and how we may become better human beings in the future. "Agent Orange, 'Collateral Damage'", it almost goes without saying, may be the ultimate brief on America's own WMDs. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Masterfully photographed and written, poetic
Philip Jones Griffiths is among the unsung heroes of our time, photographing the otherwise untold, unsavory aspects of a mean-spirited war completely lacking in human decency. Agent Orange is masterfully conceived, researched, photographed and written in prose that at once is dark, beautiful poetry. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Though he is probably the world's most honored recent war photographer, James Nachtwey calls himself an "antiwar photographer," as the preeminent critic Luc Sante notes in his excellent foreword to Inferno, a landmark collection of 382 war-crime photos. Nachtwey has taken shrapnel and had his hair literally parted by a bullet, but he's never lost his compassionate outrage. The stunning images in this huge-format book--brutally abused Romanian orphans, Rwandan genocide victims, a rat-hunter family of Indian Untouchables barbecuing dinner, skeletal dehydration victims in Sudan, the miserable in Bosnia, Chechnya, Zaire, Somalia, and Kosovo--are excruciating to look at, yet impossible to tear your eyes away from. Nachtwey's art is meant to force us to face unbearable facts. Faces are the key: you can't gaze into the eyes of a Romanian toddler tied to a bed, or wired to a primitive "electromagnetic therapy" device, and not grasp the horror more fully than you would by watching a TV news item or reading a newspaper piece. (The book's text explains each photo's context.)

Inferno is also a masterpiece in strictly aesthetic terms. The power of Nachtwey's images transcends journalism. Bloody handprints on a living-room wall in Kosovo, the ghostly imprint of a Serb victim's vanished body on a floor, a Hutu with crazed eyes displaying the machete gashes he received for opposing the Tutsis' butchery, a howling orphan in a crib, one eye contracted in anger--these are compositions that depend, like Goya's, on the artist's skill as much as the subject's legitimate claim on our conscience.

Nachtwey's photographs make us capable of imagining that it could have happened to us. They are hard to forget, or forgive. --Tim Appelo ... Read more

Reviews (24)

Into the Fire
A book that is not for everyone, yet everyone should see it. These are the faces of death and despair, the tears of anti-war, the bravery of war, the fear of not living another day, the fear of living yet another day...the courage, the persistance, the failure to give up...the hurt, the pain, the tears, the anger..in the lives that nightmares are made of... When you look at the photographs, you will never be the same. Study them. Let them go to your heart. Cry for them. Then reach out to them. And never, never forget......when I went into the Inferno, I never realized the impact it would have. We can be so distant to the people, but in this book...they come into our lives, making us aware that the world can be a living hell. James Nachtwey did a fantastic job catching the lives that we so often want to pretend don't exist. I highly recommend this book to all. Step into the fire. We all need to see........

Pictures that will sear your mind and wound your soul
With this book/pictorial, it becomes quite clear, that yes indeed, a picture is worth a thousand words or more.... Each picture means more than any news report or article you've ever read... You see the evil in the world with a clarity rarely shown in few other works of media... When you look at these pictures, tears of anguish, tears of a simmering anger begin to well in your eyes... the question we all must ask ourselves, "How can we let this happen? and why does it happen?" No one should ever suffer like those people suffer in this book, and it is heartbreaking and disheartning to realize that so many Americans and others don't really give a darn enough to stand up and do something...

Il lato peggiore dell'uomo
E' impossibile trovare le parole per descrivere queste immagini. Sono fotografie che parlano da sole e colpiscono duro, lasciandoti solo, con mille domande, a cercare una risposta che è solo sussurrata nel vento....
Dedicato a tutti coloro che pensano che la guerra possa portare a qualcosa di buono.
Un grosso grazie a James Nachtwey che per fare quello che fa deve essere parecchie spanne sopra tutti noi...

Brings out emotions that have been hidden
Like many other reviewers, I think this collection of photos is beyond words.

It may sound cliche to say this book brings out emotions inside you that have been hidden or you never knew existed, but it is true.

I heard about this book and had seen a few of the images from it in a TIME issue from sometime ago. I found a copy and looked through it.....

I could not stop and finally took the copy and bought it...

It had seared itself into my mind and I needed to own a copy because I could not ever let myself forget that the images inside this book are real and to forget they exist or happen would be like losing part of my humanity.

Highly Recommended!!!

5-star pre-review
I don't know if you'll accept a review from someone who hasn't seen the entire collection yet, but I'm giving this book your highest rating. I recently witnessed "War Photographer", a documentary about Mr. Nachtwey and his work at The Human Rights Film Festival at New York's Lincoln Center and can't get his images out of my mind. He should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Charming & Amazing
I am so happy I found a book with plentiful Glamour photos. I especially love the Norma Shearer pics and the Rosalind Russell pics (especially the rather gothic cloak pic.) This book is not only insightful about how the pics were done but who Hurrell was. Truly beautiful and a must for any coffee table and/or collector.

I'm very happy to have this book in my library
Once upon a time, I was reading Empire magazine and suddenly I saw a promotion of The book Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits. The cover picture was very impressive. I didn't know George Hurrell before. As soon as I saw the picture, I decided to buy this book. So, after buying it and see the pictures inside, I just said: Wow! What a photographer he was. He's a genius. His works are magnificent. Great use of light and remarkable composition are the typical of his works. Definitly he's a master in the art of photography. You can find many fabulouse black & white photoes of your beloved actors and actresses in 30s and 40s as well as an interesting and useful biography of Hurrell. If you love cinema you won't regret after buying it. Your library misses this book.

GORGEOUS
This book is just filled with gorgeous photographs, in a beautifully dramatic and romantic style that is often missing in the photographs taken in more recent times. A wonderful book for photographers looking for a little inspiration, or those who have had a surfeit of the modern, photojournalistic approach to portraiture. Look at the light, the composition, and the drama! As photographers, we've shown these images to prospective bridal clients, who thought they only wanted "candids" taken at their wedding - "very few posed images" - who summarily changed their minds about "stuffy posed photography." Many of our portrait clients, who came to sessions loathing the idea of having to pose for the camera have found themselves having so much fun they don't want to stop when we've introduced some of the more dramatic poses similar to those used by Hurrell in a session. This book is also a bonanza for movie buffs - to see images of a young Joan Crawford, BEFORE retouching, freckles and all, and then to see the results of Hurrell's handiwork, is fun for fans -and his techniques impress those of us who do this for a living.

Luminous and informative
I am not too familiar with the Golden Age of Hollywood, but I am entranced by the pictures of stars like Jean Harlow. Hurrell was a master of portraiture, using light in the most effective way possible.

My favorite pictures are of Harlow, Crawford, and Dietrich. I took a black and white photography course in college, so I deeply appreciate the virtuoso style of Hurrell. I am equally impressed with the information the author included about how these pictures were taken. This book doubles as a nice "coffee table" book and an instructional manual.

For book every Portrait Photographers Library
A wonderfully written book which follows Hurrells life before, during and after Hollywood's golden years. Hurrell's huge ego dealing with Hollywood's huge egos make for great reading. His genius behind the camera is represented in the beautiful photographs printed throughout the book. As a person who enjoys reading biographies, I feel this book would appeal not just to photographers, but to Hollywood history buffs as well. ... Read more

Book Description

What is a friend?

Reviews (1)

excellent
I saw the exhibit of these photograghs at Grand Central Station when I was in NYC. The pictures were beautiful, and you could truly see the humanity in the eyes of the people photographed. The photographers really captured the spirit of the people in these pictures. I was so moved just looking at the pictures. If you love photography you will love this book. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Did the clothes make Jackie, or did Jackie make the clothes? Decide for yourself: Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years is a stunning catalog of some of Jacqueline Kennedy's most important dresses as worn during her years as first lady of the United States. As visually sleek and elegant as Mrs. Kennedy herself, the book offers a beautiful analysis of the stunning, simple outfits that typified the Jackie style and brought a breath of sleek modernity to the White House after the somewhat frumpy fussiness of previous first lady Bess Truman. Released to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Kennedy's "emergence" as a style icon, the book presents an eclectic selection of suits, evening dresses, daywear, and accessories from the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum collection. Divided into cities where each item was first worn, the gowns, suits, and dresses are first presented alone in a full-page color photo. Each is then accompanied by various photos of Jackie wearing the item and detailed design notes, history, and anecdotes behind the outfit.

These photos give a wonderful context to the clothes, and it's clear that Jackie's carriage and persona injected life into these garments--which sometimes appear markedly different from what one might deduce as each item's "personality" when simply viewing it alone. For example, a pale cream embroidered silk Givenchy evening gown looks dull and somewhat dowdy when seen alone, but the accompanying photograph of Jackie wearing it while cuddling a newborn John Kennedy Jr. transforms the dress into something feminine and timeless. Or a very simple, innocently pretty pink shantung evening gown by Guy Douvier becomes arrestingly sexy when she wears it with nothing but white gloves and a Palm Beach tan. Contextualizing and interpreting Kennedy's style is an important part of this book. Featured are essays on Jackie and her effect on the world of style by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy friend Rachel Lambert Mellon, and the book's author and Vogue editor at large, Hamish Bowles. Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years accompanies an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. --Marisa Lencioni, Amazon.co.uk ... Read more

Reviews (14)

Jacqueline Chic
This is a "must have" book for anyone who loves the beauty, style and grace of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, fashion and history. The beautiful fashion photography with insightful essays showcases the former First Lady as one of the 20th century's fashion icons. Her clothing, simple and modern, yet classically elegant, created by major designers of the time such as Oleg Cassini and Givenchy, reflects her visionary fashion savvy. This book will make you ask do clothes make a person, or does the inner soul and outer beauty of a person, such as the former First Lady, make the clothes?

MOST EXCELLENT
Excellent EVERYTHING!!!
A must for jackie AND caroline fans...i figure she did a lot for this and chose some GREAT photos...esp. the last one, in my humble opinion.
THE BEST PHOTOGRAPHY!!!
I LOVE IT!!! and was shocked when i actually saw it after the few not-so appreciative reviews.
TOP SHELF BOOK/TOMB.
THANKS to everyone who was behind putting this out. As my grandmother would say about such a great book, "It lifts you up." (she said that about the Sotheby's Auction catalog of JBKO's Estate.
THANKS and LOVE TO ALL!!!

Quality, Youth, Beauty, Style and Culture in the White House
Caution: If you like looking at lots of photographs of early 1960s designer dresses, you will probably like this book. Otherwise, this is probably not the right book for you.

During the presidential election of 1960, Ms. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy made an immense impression on American society. At 31, she was a dramatic contrast with the vice president's wife, Ms. Patricia Nixon, and recent first ladies (Ms. Mame Eisenhower, Ms. Bess Truman, and Ms. Eleanor Roosevelt). She was much younger than these women, was pregnant with her son, John, and seemed like someone who came from another world. Ms. Kennedy was highly cultured, interested in the fine arts, attractive in a way that showed up well in photographs and on television, and wore gorgeous clothes of the sort usually only seen in the best fashion magazines.

Once in the White House, her differences from other first ladies became more apparent. A major effort to redecorate the White House with authentic pieces ensued, Lafayette Square's appearance was conserved, entertaining began to feature people from the world of fine arts, the Rose Garden was redesigned, and the clothes she wore became even more magnificent. A great deal of the sense of Camelot certainly came from Ms. Kennedy.

I was disappointed in the book. For someone who had such a wide and important influence on America, the book barely seemed to scratch the surface. It is almost as though a decision had been made to create a book about her dresses on state occasions, and to mention and show all of the other influences she had as little as possible.

This book minimally and partially captures the impact she had on our national consciousness. The best essay is found in the foreword by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. who provides a good overview of the influence of Ms. Kennedy (as described above) and her husband, the president, more broadly on the arts (including efforts that helped lead to the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and providing a temple from Egypt to the Metropolitan Museum in New York). Most of the book is visually devoted to her clothing during state occasions, with notes about those who created the clothes. A typical section has color photographs of the clothing on mannequins, Ms. Kennedy wearing the clothes at an event, and a black-and-white image of how she appeared in the context of the whole event.

The clothing captures what was called at the time, the Jackie look. Most of the dresses are by Oleg Cassini, Givenchy, Chez Ninon, and Gustave Tassell. There are also lots of examples of her hats (often pillboxes by Halston). The outfits are usually as simple and conservative as possible in solid colors, made special by perhaps one elegant bow or sash. Unfortunately, these sections have little material about Ms. Kennedy's views on these apparel, designs for the clothing, or thoughts about how to coordinate them with shoes and accessories.

What was most impressive to me was the success with which she selected outfits that fit in with the nations she was visiting. In France, the elegance of Givenchy enveloped her. In India, bright pastel shades made her look like part of the jungle flora. I'm sure the host nations were delighted to see their specialness magnified in her efforts to be an attractively dressed guest.

But these clothes are unremarkable without Ms. Kennedy. Like a well-known fashion model, she enhanced the clothes enormously with her youth, vitality, personality, and trim figure. So, for me, the book's real value was in seeing the many photographs of Ms. Kennedy. I especially liked the candid photographs, either talking with guests or playing with her children.

How can we recapture a sense of uniquely American style and good taste in ways that will bring approval?

What are the ways that the president and first spouse should set a good example for the rest of us?

An elegant blast from the past!
When I took this tome out of its mailer & began to turn its pages, I suddenly remembered my own set of formal white cotton gloves - long since discarded - so reverential was the aura emanating from this glossy artbook.

Jacqueline Kennedy kept it simple - most of her clothes were in solid colors with only huge buttons, cockades or discreet stylized bows, scarves, shawls or frogs for detail. In the Travel Chapter we see the simplicity of her wardrobe & her passion for colors.

Combining original & new photographs, this volume presents images we have rarely seen, as well as photos that have become a part of our national consciouness. The final one of the President & First Lady together in the open touring auto needs no words - we all know what happened next.

Certainly a treasure of memories - where we were, what we wore, what we wished we could wear. I never realized how Mrs. Kennedy acquired her wardrobe assuming, incorrectly, that she always wore top-of-the-line haute couture - when in actuality she wore "knock-offs", sometimes chosen by her mother-in-law.

For anyone who cannot make the pilgrimage to the 40th Anniversary Exhibition at the John F. Kennedy Library & Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York & who craves visions of those much-mimicked fashions of yesteryear.

An unexpected pleasure
After reading some of the reviews for this book stating it was dull and offered nothing of particular interest except alot of talk about A line dresses and cuts on the bias, I was apprehensive about wasting so much money on it.However having bought nearly every book published on Mrs Onassis I went ahead and ordered it anyway.Upon opening it I was pleasantly surprised. It was well set out,interesting and with many fine photos I had not seen, to illustrate the somewhat dry text.But the most facinating aspect of this book is to actually see what these dresses looked like in colour....after seeing numerous black and white photos of the Kennedy reception at the Elysee Palace and to hear the pink straw dress worn by Mrs kennedy described, it was mesmerizing to actually see it...no wonder she was described as radiant....and the most amazing thing is that Mrs kennedy dresses were sometimes even more interesting when viewed from the back...the intricate drapery and patterns.The photo of her in a backless sundress on the Italian Riveria is a revelation as it was worn in 1962 and was so ahead of its time...this book shows that Jacqueline kennedy had true style and is worthy of the mantle of fashion icon even though she would probably want to be remembered for her more substancial contributions.A very worthwhile addition to any devotee's library ... Read more

Book Description

This dynamic, sumptuous, and captivating volume is a celebration of the human body, its weight, its frailty, its strangeness, and its beauty. Fine art destined to capture the popular imagination, Body Knots is a collection of visually compelling photographs of bodies.

Page after provocative page, Schatz transforms his nudes- all beautifully colorized in vibrant saturated tones as well as metallic ink-into a wild variety of forms, from the headless to the humorous, from the footless to the fantastic, from the sensual to the sardonic. Twisted, turned, and seen from different perspectives, these bodies take on shapes and contortions one would not dream possible.

Created by a master photographer, Body Knots is an extraordinary volume displaying the human body at its most malleable yet articulate, rendering it as familiar as arrestingly new. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Disappointing
I love Howard Schatz photography. He has created memorable imagry with his "Passion and Line" and "Water Dance" books. "Body Knots" is an evolution of "Pool Light" which was a sequel to "Water Dance". But not all evolution is happy or successful.

This book is far too gimmicky for my taste and I think Mr.Schatz is capable of far more creative imagry than this. How many of these images will appear in Madison Ave. advertising over the next year? Or is that the real goal here? One wonders. Perhaps if Mr.Schatz would have remained in California rather than moving to New York his artistic goals would not have been seduced by the scent of advertising contracts. I don't begrudge an artist trying to earn money but Mr.Schatz was a very successful surgeon before taking up lenswork full time--he isn't a starving artist.

What strikes me about "Body Knots" is that it is more a graphic arts presentation than it is fine art photography. Mr. Schatz, please go back and look at "Passion and Line" and "Water Dance". You created something wonderful there. Remember your motives?

Stunning Visual Images
If you're standing in a b