Documentary-Collection Books

I bought two of these panoramic CD's of the country of Colombia for two friends who grew up in Bogotá. They were ecstatic! One said she could show her husband (American) all the places she'd like to take him on their next trip home! It is better than a coffee-table book because it's compact, light weight, has big photos on computer screen and you can look for the area you want to see. I'd give it an "A!"

Dr Anne maxwell is justifiably regarded as a world authority on this new and thought-provoking field. With brilliant use of rare photographs and research into old exhibitions, she illustrates her argument; that the various colonial powers of this and last century made clever, political use of pictures and exhibitions. These were propaganda to convince people at home of their own superiority; that it was the duty of "civilised" people to assist faraway savages by subjugating them. Usually industrial interests -- such as the colonial sugar barons -- were the real beneficiaries of this subjugating process.

Dr Maxwell is a senior lecturer at Melbourne University. But her research for this volume stretches far beyond Australia's troubled Aboriginal issue. She looks at how exotic images from the lenses of Victorian photographers stylised and romanticised colonial races. The process included the Hawaiians, the American Indians, the New Zealand Maori, Philipinos and much of Polynesia and Micronesia. She spares us none of the cruelty perpetrated in the name of such questionable progress. Her descriptions of how "primitives" were dragged off to suffer the London winter in grass skirts -- for the amusement of smug Victorian exhibition-gawpers -- make heart-breaking reading. Even the king of Hawaii was exhibited as a curiosity in an American circus!

The photographs, gleaned from museum archives all over the world, are this book's greatest strength. Even the most clinical academic must feel the mute woe in the eyes of the "noble savages" whose tragedy has been frozen, black-and-white, in time.

A must-have for any serious student of Post-Colonial study and for photography buffs.

A beautiful and compelling portraiture of sorrow and loss, and the ravages of time frozen, captured in a memory.

Certainly photography is a matter of composiotion and light and having your head in the right place at the right moment. But in the end what is photography really about? What are these photos really about? Pain, poverty, community, despair, abuse, childhood, church, worship, hysteria, joy, silence, praise, noise, solemnity, life and death. Faith. Faith as a matter of life and death. Yes, I suppose that's it.

It has long seemed that the formal possibilities of social documentary photography have been fully explored, not to say exhausted. Then Martin Parr comes along with his macro lens and twin-flash set-up and shows us a new way to see things that surround us. Hilarious, acerbic, and, in its reliance on color film's ability to luridly render saturated colors, uniquely photographic.

This is a really fine book with, perhaps, a bit overly-academic writing on a field of photography as fine art. Very good publishing quality, wonderful content.

This is a beautifully arranged collection of cat photograpy-- not high style glamour shots, but rather more appealing everyday glimpses into the allure and mischeviousness of our feline companions.

This is a glorious book of photographs, taken by Claudia Yvonne Wiens over an eight-month period in Egypt in 2001. Wiens has done many photographic studies and projects in this area. Unlike many books on communities in Egypt and other Middle-Eastern nations, this one does not concentrate on ancient sites and pyramids and tombs, but rather on the living culture and people who make up the community of Coptic Christians.

Coptic Christianity has a pedigree as old as any branch of Christianity, arising in the southern Roman imperial provinces, largely continuing in Egypt after the rise of Islam, the East/West split, and into the modern times. Coptic Christianity is very much a part of the lives of the people, and symbols and reminders of this are everywhere present as people live their lives in the larger Muslim society.

Wiens looks at everyday life, special events such as marriage, and religious/monastic life. This is a fascinating study, without much commentary, although the narratives attached do fill in lots of details.

A beautiful text!

After Parr's two major Black and White books, A Fair Day, and Bad Weather, came two of his best color works, The Last Resort, and what I consider to be his best work, The Cost of Living. While the Last Resort captured Britains vacationing in their own country, The Cost of Living seemed to capture everything else in their lives. From political parties and tea parties, to shopping and tourism, all are shot documentary style, with everyone seemingly unaware that Parr is there.

A colorful look at British social life, capturing true expressions and events in the lives of the middle class. Another out of print Parr book, so grab when you see it!

This is delightful, charming little book - perfect for sheep enthusiasts, art book collectors, or insomniacs. No words, just artist's interpretations of our favorite little wooly creatures - definitely one of the gems of my collection!