Documentary-Collection

This book is for all lovers of film and should spark renewed interest in Pickford's life and films.

People in this arresting collection of pictures are caught up in all kinds of ordinary pursuits--reading, working, dining, marrying, praying, talking, playing games, posing in lovely clothes, getting haircuts, making music or speeches or dinner--in a spirited, generally trustful relationship with the camera. Clearly Willis's criterion as she selected photographs was, as she says in the text, "expressive power."

Still, white Americans viewing these pictures are likely to bring to the experience the same old images of slavery, Civil Rights marches, and past or present media caricatures of black life that they've drawn from school and popular culture all their lives. Perhaps the delightful photographs of children in the book will take on ominous overtones because we know of future trials the childish mind can't predict. But such a reaction can keep us from realizing that what's on the child's mind may be partly the point.

For example, two Boston children have been posed in front of ornate ironwork, wearing starched lace dresses (it's 1910) and starched bows in their hair. They look beautiful--and stiff, and miserable! Good little girls, they've let Mother dress them up today, but they seem to want to tear off those enormous bows, jump the iron fence, and tumble around on the grass like anyone else their age.

Another example: Malcolm X crouches to hold his two daughters in his arms. He's talking to little Attallah, his eyes warmly upon her. But she turns away from her father's handsome face to stare unhappily at the audience, as if asking us just to go away for a change and give her some private time with Dad.

If the original vitality in these photographs can't keep us from calling up the preconceptions we carry around with us, this may actually be useful. The book's very freshness about what seems familiar makes us realize how old and worn-out our assumptions can be. Thus the photographs can (as Willis says in her introduction) "create a new ' historical consciousness that has the power to rewrite history itself."

But "Reflections in Black" is more than a documentary that can provoke useful debates within ourselves and between groups interpreting past or present culture. It shows that despite their commonalities black photographers have a long history of debating with each other. Is their medium an art or an engine of social progress? Should photography make mementos for its subjects or involve and change its viewers? The competing purposes and conflicting angles of vision represented in the book are part of what makes it fascinating.

Best of all, the book is marvelous for simply wandering and wondering through:

A remarkable series by a photographer who eventually lived in Seattle presents a man in three poses- - seated for his formal portrait, then hanged for murder, and finally laid out in his coffin.

Women in the book are gloriously unpredictable. Billie Holliday rehearsing with Count Basie looks like a Fifties coed in sweater, plaid skirt, and ponytail. Zora Neale Hurston smiles like an angel instead of with her usual impish brass.

Men? None are alike. A nattily dressed man waits at a bright window, fedora tipped up to let in the view, papers gleaming mysteriously in the background. A lined, leathery cowboy smokes a cigarette, his arms roped with tendons. Seattle's own Jacob Lawrence looks like a serious man at twenty and equally serious midway through his life, midway up a stepladder, in reverie.

Elsewhere, a lonely stony beach caresses the eye with dark grays and liquid silver. And beside a brick building draped with a gigantic sky-blue banner painted with the face of Malcolm X, a black cowboy rides through a golden field.

I will be purchasing a few copies for friends. Others, I will tell to get their own.

It's THAT GOOD!

Edited by one of the greatest activists and advocates for Latinos all around the world, actor Edward James Olmos, "Americanos: Latino Life in the United States" is a collection of beautiful photographs and stories of Latinos throughout the United States. From Mexican-Americans in California to Puerto Ricans in New York City, Olmos and a team of other editors have produced a book that perfectly and respectfully captures the beauty and realities of Latinos all around. Available in hardbound and paperback editions, "Americanos: Latino Life in the United States" is a must have for Latino/Hispanic Studies students/enthuasists or for anyone who tuly appreciates cultural photography. The book, which was accompanied by a U.S. museum tour of photographs featured in the book, is truly a milestone for a community that has risen from a long sleep and awakened to become the most dynamic and promising group in the Americas.

If I can use two words to describe this book, I would use "moving" and "beautiful." It's a must have book in your library, especially if you're Latino.

This is a very well done book with very good graphical editation done by Manuel Monterrey. I recomend it.

This book is a quality effort with overall good production values that will be a nice addition to any collection. While I may wish for a heavier stock paper, it is well within it's range and I bought this book at full retail; still a good buy.

Don't forget to check out his other book, Australia Wide. Another incredible collection of photographs.

His views of downtown are especially well-done, and in light of recent times, it was a comfort to see the skyline in the traditional beauty. The view of the Twin Towers rising from the battery with Lady Liberty in the foreground seems especially meaningful in these times when our freedom seems threatened.

The quality and format of the book is very good and is a pleasure to read and page trough.

Some of the images find you looking for books made by the specific photographer...and there is the slight disappointment, I wish the makers of "Eros" could have had the insight to list photo art books by the authors of the great plates.

Regarding the hardback vs. the paperback versions of this book, having gone through each version personally, my advice is to spring the extra few dollars for the hardback edition, for three reasons: 1.) While the paperback is nice as far as paperback editions go, it's a bit incompatible with the quality of the book's contents, 2.) There is a large (and quite beautiful) 4 page cross section foldout of the ship bound into the book which is awkward to view fully open in the paperback version without damaging the book's spine, and 3.) Because the book is so large and heavy, I'd be concerned about the durability of the paperback version; the paper used is of quite a heavy weight, and the book's spine has a lot to support.

Three is a tribute to Roffman's contributions to the continuing study of the male nude. Using Black and White photography to capture the playful, emotional, passionate nature to three romantically entwined individuals, Roffman offers the world a look into a very interesting relationship. A relationship which I am uncertain that I could emotionally withstand. Nonetheless, these three are going against the societal tides in an expression of love that is truly unique.

The history behind the relationship was not throughout the book which might have made it even more interesting. The storyline might also have been beneficially fleshed out. One does wish to know a bit more about these individuals. It was well worth the money; I do heartily recommend it to you.

Roffman documents three men/lover's lives. The photographs are visually pleasing and very erotic. This is a unique collection that certainly merits review. Roffman's photographs captures the male form in various stages of passion, as well as in mundane moments; each definitely tells a story of the men and leaves the viewer to conjure up stories to fill in the narrative blanks (no pun intended).

I highly recommend THREE. It's a wonderful coffeetable book...:)

The result of these sojourns is this book, and what a book it is! An ancient adage has it that a picture is worth a thousand words. These pictures may be worth a few more! They portray an era that is unfortunately long gone. The steam locomotives are placed in the context of those times. The world is richer for Link's work.

Of particular interest to the student of the technical aspect of photography are photographs and explanation of what Link had to do in order to obtain these photographs. There is a lot to learn from this master of the art.

This book is destined to become a classic in the annals of photography if indeed it is not already one. A copy of it belongs in the library of anyone with an interest in either railroads or photography. What's more, at a price of $[money], this book is a steal. If you do not yet own a copy of this book,you should purchase one as soon as possible.

There is a chronology to many of his photos, showing buildings in various stages, some not decomposing but being restored. It is the power of his vision that notes that these restorations are a bit too perfect.

He dives a bit deeper into his subjects. This book, to me, has more of his person involved and is less objective than his prior work (which is also outstanding). It is not as sociologically in depth (i.e. does not spend as much time detailing the buildings, its occupants and/or its history) but gives more personal narrative and insight.

It's a unique perspective and an amazing collection of photographs of buildings and landmarks that once were, no longer are or will soon cease to be.

However, Vergara is not an urban planner or a civic leader (although I'd like to see him try his hand at each). Vergara's skill is chronicling through pictures the wholesale abandonment of America's great cities. In his introduction, the author realizes that in many cities with a shrunken tax base, it is simply too expensive to rehabilitate architecturally-significant structures, so landlords (usually with the city's blessing), juts demolish or abandon the property. For each renovated brownstone downtown, I'm sure that the author can document a dozen abandoned rowhouses or factories on the "wrong side" of the town.

Call me insensitive, but I was most acutely drawn to Vergara's treatment of abandoned or near-abandoned buildings that were once important to America: the Firemen's Insurance Building in downtown Newark and the Michigan Central RR terminal in Detroit (rather than his examination of the residents of the ghetto as was evidenced in "The New American Ghetto"). The photo of the modern people mover in Detroit gliding by boarded-up buildings says a lot about urban mismanagement and is hauntingly fully of despair. If the "can do" spirit of modern American technology can't save Detroit, what can?

What I found quite unique was that Vergara proposes leaving these buildings to rot, like was done in Rome and Greece. Visitors taken through these ruins would be told that an empty shell of a building once housed an insurance company, a vaudeville theater, or some wealthy merchant and his family. However, as a public employee who has to deal with these structures for a living, there are some health and safety issues that I feel the author seems to forget (abandoned buildings tend to attract junkies, rats and disease and worse, fall down on people after a while). Maybe he is strictly speaking as an artist, but his ideas are very intriguing.

Vergara is a great photographer who thrives in urban areas. I've worked and/or visited many cities in this book, and what I like best about "American Ruins" is how he documents the death of the building over a five or ten-year period, mentioning what the building held in its heyday.

"American Ruins" is a great antidote to those who indiscriminately work to "improve" cities, either through gentrification or through ugly aesthetic improvements to historical buildings (brickface comes to mind). It's a depressing book, but it stirs the mind and challenges the soul.

As I mentioned, this book is a natural progression from his earlier book, "The New American Ghetto," and "American Ruins" complements his work as a photographer and social critic. I've loved all of his stuff eagerly await more books by this guy every time they are released.

If you liked this book, you would also like "A Town Without Steel: Envisioning Homestead," by Judith Schachter Modell & Charlee Brodsky; "Homestead: The Glory and Tragedy of an American Steel Town," by William Serrin; and "The Destruction of Penn Station," by Peter & Barbara Moore. They all chronicle how this nation has abandoned its industrial cities for a less connected, less public, less community-minded, less responsible, less reliable and more uncertain future.