Beautiful Photographs, Forget the Commentary
588174
Who could not be intrigued with the faces illustrating this book. This is a wonderful collection of early photography.  As one looks into the eyes of each subject, one longs to look into their mind and soul.  "What is the true story behind this picture?"
To answer that question, don't read the commentary.  It is clear Jackie Wilson had an "adgenda" and he went way out to proclaim his propoganda.  It's a shame, his words ruined a otherwise poignant collection.
Mr. Wilson relates a story of women abolitionists to discribe the photograph on page 27 stating this is simply a picture of a black and white woman ignoring the presence of the child.  Blinded by his own prejudices, he fails to see the striking resemblence between all three around the eyes and the mouth.  He brushes away the fact that the little girl leans toward the older woman, yet holds hands with both.  He ignores the leaning in of the older woman toward the child.  I'm no expert, but clearly I see a Mother with her adult Daughter and Granddaughter.
On page 46 Mr. Wilson discribes the beads worn by the "Seated Black Woman" as "rarely seen African trade beads, a form of currency in Africa, which may well symbolize her awareness of her ancestral links."  Huh?  The woman is clearly wearing Rosary Beads.  A form of prayer used by Roman Catholics.  Obviously, the woman wants to share her awareness of her Faith.  I'm surprised an editor let that pass.
No one will ever know the true stories behind these photographs, but interpretations that bear no resemblance to the truth make this a book which has a questionable crediblility.
3398232
This book is gorgeous.  The illustrations will draw in child and adult alike.  The emotions are portrayed honestly in a way children will easily identify.
But why, for the love of Pete, can't the book end with an actual apology and resolution instead of an imagined one?  The narrator, a little boy, sulks to himself "If she were as sad as I am sad, here is what she would do", namely say she's sorry, even though apparently the little boy SHOUTED at his friend first.
I very nearly bought this book after skimming it at the bookstore, enchanted by the beautiful pictures.  I thought my 4 year old could really use a model of an apology, but that's not what this book is.  Thank goodnes I read it through carefully.
I gave it two stars to acknowledge the incredible artwork, but I wish it were in a different book.
4208426
The photos in this book are superb. In macro photography I'm really attentive to backgrounds, and Loaec has mastered the very difficult task creating colorful exciting backgrounds on high magnification images. The author demonstrates his highly evovled skills time and again with an abundance of awe inspiring photographs.

My disappointment with the book is with the text.  Maybe there's something lost in translation, but I find the writing rather stilted, and the information content was sparce. There was very little discussion that helped me understand how he produced his very fine images.

I did note that in many cases he used comparatively low magnifications, and then cropped and enlarged to create his images.  This would not be evident, though, to those who are not practiced macro photographers.
2218894
This is a book of pictures that are technically breathtaking as photographs and emotionally moving as pictures.  The images evoke deep feelings but whether the artist's feelings in making them are the same as  mine in viewing them, I cannot tell.  They are far too subtle for  that.
These are photographs of flowers.  As photographs, they are  amazing.  But the real worth of the collection is that the pictures he  created are of other worldly things.
I have lots of books of photographs  and of paintings, too.  I have none that I think exceeds Mapplethorpe's  achievements here.
3812708
Nice book to put on the coffee table, best look elsewhere
4693306
There is something about big ships - especially (though not exclusively) big passenger liners and this is a very big book simply crammed full of pictures of those ships.

OK, let me get my complaint out of the way first. This is a large coffee table book with 350 glossy pages just full of historic photographs of the highest quality. The problem is the entire book is repeated 3 times - first in English, then in German and finally in French. Take the Prologue, for example; This takes up 6 pages with two being devoted to each language. Whilst the photographs are not repeated, each does have three captions.

The reader can, therefore, read only one third of this book after having also paid for the other two thirds simply becomes it comes as a complete package. All things considered, you get a lot less book for your money.

Having said that, the photographs (all of which are B&W) are of the highest calibre and are reproduced on paper of equally high quality. Personally, I never tire of looking at images of great ships and this collection is just about as good as they get.

NM
4691335
Majority of the photos in this book are taken in 3rd-world countries.  In my opinion, these photos stand out, not because they are meaningful or full of vision, but because they are different.  Anyone who came from a similar background would immediately recognize certain photos as blank stares by weathered, aged, and wrinkled people.  They are different and might evoke certain emotions from people who are so far removed from certain parts of the world.  Local photographers with vision and understanding take far more interesting and emotional photos of the same people.  The author's style of photography would have never stood out had the subjects been in North America or Europe.

  The author repeatedly painted himself as a respectable worldly photographer with vision and humility.  However, below are his own words:
  "She (a Hindu woman) graciously allowed me to photograph her for five minutes, then invited me in for chai.  Fearful that she'd marry me off to her daughter, I declined.  In retrospect, I wish I'd accepted(the chia, not the daughter)."

  I find this statement utterly degrading and demeaning to a different culture.  The author effectively took the photo for his own benefit, and smeared an entire population sector with his insensitive and presumptuous words.

  Overall, I find this book self-promoting and un-interesting.  Then again, the author's got Joe McNally for foreword, Vincent Versace for afterword, and Scott Kelby for a few words.

  Sigh!
2603415
OK, the idea was, Lauren Rolfe would gather up a bunch of old photos of pet cats (1890 - 1940, +/-), Prof. Arnold Arluke would write scholarly commentary, and the Syracuse University press would publish their book in a nice oversize "coffee-table" format. Well, parts 1 and 3 came off, but Prof Arluke -- well, let's just say, he writes an awful lot without saying much. Plus, we get such gems as, on referring to pets as "pets":

"We respect the growing sensitivity in language to refer to "animals" as "nonhuman animals", and to "pets" as "companion animals" ...

Writing on "tender inequality" (I'll let you work that one out for yourself) in old pet photography , Prof. Arluke writes an amazingly opaque discussion about how photographing people with pets was (somehow) a lot like taking photos of white people with black slaves [!!] (I'm not making this up, pp. 8-9), and, in a footnote, writes "We realize that making this comparison is a sensitive and political issue to those who feel it diminishes the significance of the oppression of African Americans."

Well, I stopped reading the text about there, and went on to the pictures, which are pretty good, but mostly old enough to be public domain, and readily available online.

So. If you see this on the library shelf, it's worth browsing, and maybe giggling at the academese -- but not worth buying, imo.

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman
2848989
The pictures in this book are beautiful, but I will probably be reselling it on Amazon because it is just like looking at a coffee table book. Once through, and you're done. There are so few really good polymer clay books (The Art of Polymer Clay being one of them), and this one is not one of them. The photography is impressive, the designs are beautiful and innovative, but if you're looking for a book that teaches you something - forget it. This isn't it!
4959192
The photographs are stunning, and I can understand why so many of the rooms are by people who either bought things from the boutique or listened to advice from Madame Castaing.  Interior design in our century is transitory by its very nature.  Fine designers rarely leave their own rooms alone, much less those of their clients.  Honestly, I am not surprised at the paucity of interiors actually by Madeleine Castaing.

I did read the book in one evening, and I wondered if its editor actually read it herself.  To say that the text is fulsome and overly familiar is a vast understatement.  It reminds me of the society columns in Southern newspapers of my youth.  It's as if the writer and the person she refers to as "Madeleine" and the empress she knows as "Josephine" are all very best friends.  It's one gush after another.  Many of the sentences have a subject, an unnessary adverb, the verb itself, followed by a lengthy ramble. However, I actually would buy it for the illustrations alone.  Because I am an embittered old man, I know I will enjoy reading the text again, next time with a red pencil or three.
4011534
In any given issue of National Geographic magazine, there will be a handful of photos that really wow me, a handful that interest me, and the rest that I glance at and skip over. This book is like that.

Other customer reviews criticize that the title (and subtitle, for that matter) doesn't match the contents; I agree.

That said, my only real complaint with the book is the same one I have with almost every photo book, and that is that the spine of the book splits the photos in half. Unfortunately, in this case, it only splits those photos that do live up to the book title, the wide ones.

I don't know of any photographer who would normally consent to have his or her photos mutilated then exhibited (except, possibly as part of a conceptual performance, or to make a point). Rendering the centers of these photos unviewable is just a shame. One could argue that it's a necessary evil in order to get the photos in a cost-effective format. The only solution I can think of would be to publish a smaller version of the total composition along with the double-page spread, so at least one would be able to see the photo in totality, then view the spread for detail.

As far as the photos, themselves, go: the magazine has always straddled the line between art photography and photojournalism. This book does the same. Overall, it's less about presenting art than about meticulously visual documentation.
2635241
This is a 100% BEAUTIFUL book to browse through, with a generous helping of Kincaid's most luscious paintings where light is the source of his inspiration. But the book, as printed now, is not so good for the purpose of coloring. I would be reluctant to color any of the line drawings as they are within the book as on the other side of each page is printed the color version of the next painting. Despite the daunting copyright statement, because of the structuring of the book, I will likely scan and print the line drawings I want to color onto paper of my own. I judge it completely impossible to color the line drawings to resemble the originals without some color bleeding through the paper spoiling the color print on the back. Another caveat is the pages are not perforated for easy removal and the binding chosen for the book does not permit them to lie flat for coloring (if one wanted to color them within the book). As far as I could discern, the only answer is to disassemble the book so the pages lie flat and can easily be put through the scanner. Since there is a very intensely colored (true to the original, so therefore each a delight) picture printed on the back of each line drawing, scanning the line drawing involves some care and fudging to avoid scanner bleed-through onto the new print intended for coloring. Having said this, I would still buy the book again and recommend it to anyone I know who appreciates Thomas Kincaid's art. The book is lovely to page through and is well worth the price considering the many well-printed color reproductions of some of his most delightful works. It just doesn't qualify as a very conveniently designed book for coloring. Usually I would give a coloring book lacking perforations, with such thin pages, and printed on two sides of each page no more than two stars, but this book is, for its other qualities (beauty of the publication,, generous selection of images, quality of the color prints, accuracy of the line drawings) deserving to be considered excellent. However, since it is presented as a coloring book, I must also consider its usefulness for that purpose. So it gets four stars from me. If no page perforations, a bit heavier paper, and printing only on one side of the pages were remedied, it would certainly deserve five stars. Buy it anyway. For the price, you'll never get a better selection of Kincaid prints.
1213040
A series of fabulous documentaries, except for the bad photos section which is painfully bad.
285617
This book contains fine prints of great art from a wonderful museum. It will be valued by persons who like great art, or by people who have visited the Prado and want a momento that they can page through to jog their memory of what they saw there. Some of the prints will be new to them: the Prado's collection is so vast that only a small portion of it can be displayed at a time.
Obviously, the compilers necessarily had to be selective about what they put in the book. I liked the selection of paintings by Goya but was mildly disappointed that it did not include "Saturn". Also, the compilers have made a decision to broadly cover the artists represented at the Prado, rather than making an exhaustive compilation of some of the artists that a Prado visitor might particularly have focused on, such as El Greco, Velazquez or Goya.
This is basically a book of prints, so the accompanying text is not, to my mind, a major contribution to the value of the book. The text covers the history of the museum and how the collection came into being. It briefly discusses the different "schools" of art represented in the museum: "Spanish School", "Italian School", "German School", etc. The part of the text dedicated to Velazquez is only a page and a half long (although they are big pages). For somebody without a background in art history who wants to prepare to make their Prado visit more meaningful, I will say that I benefited from reading Tomlinson's "Fransisco Goya y Lucientes: 1746-1828" and Brown's "Velazquez".
3182640
David Douglas Duncan is one of the great photojournalists of the 20th Century. Beginning in 1950 he published twenty books over his lifetime. The first one, "This is War" was about the U.S. Marines in Korea and was recognized as a classic as soon as it reached the market. His book "The Private World of Pablo Picasso" introduced that enigmatic artist's personality to the world. People were able to see the private world that the artist both shaped and functioned within. When I was growing up I was so impressed with that book-length photographic essay that I wanted to follow in D.D.D.'s steps. It impressed me every bit as much as "The Family of Man," a Museum of Modern Art exhibit catalog of many photographers that changed the direction of my professional life. Alas, this book is not in the same league as Duncan's classic coffee table photography essays that have sold an almost unbelievable 2 million plus copies. Don't be too disappointed however, that this is not anything like his classics or his wonderful illustrated memoir "Yankee Nomad."
 This is a dog lover's book. Anyone who is a German Shepherd owner will especially enjoy it. Overall, I rated it five stars for the dog memoir. I rated it only three stars for a photographic essay. That's how I arrived at an over-all rating of four stars. I was somewhat disappointed in it, but still love having it for my personal book collection.
 The chief reasons for my disappointment with the book are my awareness of the volume's poor layout and design and so-so text. Many of the pictures are not up to the usual standard of the famous photojournalist author-photographer. Some of the layout looks exactly like a poorly done photo album. There is even one oval shaped photograph included to make it really resemble a family snapshot album. It's a lovely image and it suffers from the oval presentation. The biggest design problem is the choice of text fonts. I suspect the book was probably printed in several different languages and the French edition was just fed into a computer to translate the text. It was a perfect example of how not to translate a book. As a result, the font and layout reminded me of an elementary school textbook from 45 years ago when that style of type was the norm. At this time in history the poorly designed text blocks actually distracted the reader from some of the really beautiful photographs. I also had a problem with the free verse. The text is a bit confusing, disjointed, missing some basic information and seems too much like a cut-and-past edit, but that too may be the result of translating the text via a computer program?
 For the loyal D.D.D. fans as well as all dog lovers, this is a must for your collection. Duncan was always a dog lover and this is only the latest acknowledgment of it. "Thor" really was well named. An unusual observation, feeling, I noticed while reading the book was how interesting the homes and countryside of Southern France appeared in many of the black and white photographs. In some cases I would have liked to be able to step into the pages of the book to better explore the locales shown in the pictures. Thor lived in quite a picturesque home and mountain village. Some of the interior pictures of Thor relaxing at home in front of the fireplace while guarding his owners have a distinct Georgia O'Keefe flavor to them. Some of the bronzes shown decorating the home's interiors have a distinct Picasso feel to them. Thor seemed quite happy living in this artist environment. Like most dogs, however, home to him was were his owners were and he would have been just as happy living in an igloo.
1454583
Amazon wouldn't publish my first attempt at a review because I described in detail the questionable material in the book. So they will sell obscenity but not allow you to review it. Hmmm...Anyway 90 percent of the photos are beautiful and appropriate. The other ten consist of violent S&M imagery that is disturbing to someone not into that sort of thing. I bought this gift for my husband, but would be horrified if our son ever got hold of the thing and saw some of those images. If you are not into violence against women, I would recommend another book.
1814025
This book is visually stunning and a great buy if you are looking for an art gallery of the talented artist, Fausto Bianchi.  This book, however, is a loose paraphrase of Bible text and very liberally adds details that are NOT in the Bible, apparently for the sake of making sweet sounding stories for children.  Though I appreciate the effort of presenting the story of the Bible in an appealing way, I really can't get over implanting details pertaining to the Bible that are not there into young, impressionable, minds.  I would love to use this book in church or give it to a young loved one, but I don't want to risk misleading them about the contents of the Bible.  I guess I will just keep it around and enjoy the art from time to time.  Perhaps I can pick out select stories that are not too "skewed" to read to my nieces and nephew, or edit the "added" details as I read to them.