Documentary-Collection

Whether you live in Alaska or travel across it by cruise ship or air or some other means--this beautiful book is for you. On each glossy page there lies something for every tourist and local. Rich photos of the common cruise ship sights, from the deep blue glaciers of the inside passage to little Skagway sitting on the hillside, all the the cruise ship ports are captured by Fred Hirschmann's lens. Aerial views of Anchorage, Juno, Mt. Denali--it's all here followed by interesting explantions of life in Alsaka. I originally saw this book in a little shop at the Port of Juno and immediately wanted it, but it was only for display--how happy I was to search and find it here on Amazon! I highly recommend this book--large, clear photos and excellent journalism will keep your memories of Alaska in perfect order and will bring your friends into the bountiful beauty of the land with which you fell in love.

I have always been disappointed in the usual albums that attempt to capture the pristine splender and overwhelming viceral expierence that Alaska presents. In this book, it is impossible to put it down before absorbing the entire book, not once, but two or three times! It makes it crystal clear that there is no other part of the world that comes close to matching Alaska's mystery, wilderness, and unbelievable panoramas of seemingly endless spectaclar mountain ranges that collectively make the final frontier a truely "once in a lifetime" experience! To say less would not do it Justice!

I saw this book alongside more than fifty kindred at the Denali Visitor Center. We chose this for our table display book because it alone showed Alaska as the word itself defines - "The Great Land." This is the book Robert Service would have chosen to illustrate his poetry about "the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder...the beauty that thrills me with wonder, it's the stillness that fills me with peace."

If you can't go, you are the poorer for it, but this book will enrich your eyes and your spirit.

Lee in Tucson

This book offers the serenity and solitude of the outdoors, seen by few and unexperienced by many. The inside passage is the untouched adventure that the photographer has magnificently demonstrated by the composition of the moment! Incredible, to the point of allowing the reader to share the feeling of the experience.

I saw this in someone's office and am buying two for Christmas gifts

Review Summary: Lewis Hine was a pioneer in documenting the working conditions of children. His poignant images of coal mines, sweatshops, and factories shocked America into passing its first legislation to regulate and reduce child labor. Generations of Americans have benefited as a result. Review: The foreword by Walter Rosenblum describes Lewis Hine as being "a born teacher." Mr. Rosenblum recounts Mr. Hine's generosity in writing a letter or recommendation for him saying that Mr. Rosenblum was "a new and better Hine." This example captures his compassion and generosity towards others. He never saw a person he didn't respect and have compassion for. Each image in this fine book contains that "compassionate vision." His subjects included immigrants at Ellis Island and in their first tenement homes, working conditions in sweatshops and factories, the everyday life of the working poor, and the building of the Empire State Building (with views from the 100th floor girders).

The reader will get a "fresh insight through his vision" because Mr. Hine takes you places you never imagined existed. The scenes speak for themselves and cause you to have a visceral reaction. My sense of vertigo at thinking about swaying on a girder was palpable as I looked over the Empire State Building construction photographs. In viewing the sweatshops, I could feel heat building up in my body. In the images of breaker boys, I could feel the dusty despair of the coal mines in my bones and lungs.

From a technical point of view, the compositions are very fine and draw the eye into the scene. You get a strong sense of the moment, even though the scenes are 70-90 years old. The images strike hard at you with their messages . . . without using captions. They are as gripping as anything you have seen about work or slum life on the front pages of a newspaper.

Sadly, Mr. Hine's career hit a major snag in the Depression. Stieglitz and he were on different paths, and those who were showing interest in art photography were uninterested in social realism. He was impoverished, had his house foreclosed on, and lived on welfare. His wife died on Christmas 1938. He died in November 1940 "impoverished, dispirited, worn out." He was "malnourished to the point of starvation." One cannot help but think that he moved closer to living the life of a saint than many of us will ever achieve.

My favorite images in the book include: New York City Sweatshop, 1908; Climbing into America, 1908; Young girls knitting stockings in Southern hosiery mill, 1920; Cigar makers, Tampa, 1909; Breaker boys in coal chute, South Pittston, Pennsylvania, January 1911; Playground in tenement alley, Boston, 1901; Cannery workers preparing beans, c. 1910; and Photographs of building the Empire State Building, New York City, 1930/32.

I suggest that you follow Mr. Hine's fine example and think about how you can visualize important messages that others can best appreciate as images. What images would you capture? How would you share them? Who would benefit?

Be prepared to help others see the injustices that you do!

When I first looked through this book. I was captivated by the variety of people and settings. Boys and girls of different races and ethnicities, playing, learning, fighting, working, struggling, hoping. I couldn't put the book down. I had to keep looking, to see who and what would appear on the next page.

I trust anyone would have the same reaction. But don't stop there with the photographs. This is much more than a photo album. Take the time to read the captions, the authors' commentary, and most of all, the words (letters, diary entries, conversations, etc.) of the children themselves. You won't be disappointed. Rather, you may find, like I did, that the photographs become even more real, more poignant, more personal, and more moving than they did at first glance. And, once again, you won't be able to put them down.

Whatever your notions and conceptions of childhood and of United States history and policy, this book will certainly broaden your understanding, intellectually and emotionally, of both.

I like Fallen Angels because of how real it is in most respects.I believe this book is good enough to be a movie this is not good for all people, because of graphic language.But I rate this book at a 9 one of the best books I have ever read.

It seems that the quality of the pictures is almost secondary to the collection themselves - an arrangement of America's best delegates of expresssion. As the market place of American music seems to fall further and further away from the proliferation of substance and artistic value, Frielander's "American's . . . " serves as a shouting out for the need of education of the youth to the lives of these real American heroes. When asked of his taste or distaste for record sampling as a modern recording technique, Ray Charles expressed his fears that the sources of the sound bytes used may go unexplored thus squandering any hope of education. Prophetic? Perhaps. Frielander has assembled a striking visual dictionary that could be instructive in opening another dimension to musics that have gone undiscovered by the youth of today as well as remindind parents that the fire in music, captured here, transcends generations and may be a point of departure for cross-generational, cross-sexual, cross-racial summits to be convened.

This is (as the title states)the photographer's personal selection of photographs from different bodies of work amassed over a 40 yr period. It's interesting to see work from his early days (even his commercial photos done while working for an advertising agency)and to see how much Araki was influenced by photographers like Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and William Klein. I cannot recommend however as introduction to Araki's oeuvre. All the photographs are taken out of context of their original books/project and there is only minimal commentary by Araki on select photos and no introductory or explanatory essays to help one understand the complexity and scope of Araki's work and personality.