Documentary-Collection Books

With 90 Photographs

You hold something new in your hands. A paper movie. It's the fearsome, lyric and compssionate story of a Journey we all might have to take soon. It's fantasy fiction now. Reality later?

Meanwhile you'll find surprises here, shocks, a few laughs, mythic storytelling. Perhaps a spiritual lift. It's a pocket-size movie you carry to beach or bed. Freeze-frame it to reread a 'soundtrack" page, or meditate on a single photograph. Words and pictures marry into a cinematic book.

Thematically, it's feminist, enviromental, and dead serious about peace in the world and the heart.

We at Celestial Arts think Journey is one of the strongest and most original books we've ever published. We agree with Ray Bradbury that Lou Stoumen's work "may be our first look as the literature of tomorrow."
--- from book's dustjacket

This book chronicles life in several Texas Czech communities with some good text but with excellent photos. It is a touching monument for a community of which I am fortunate to be at least on the edges.

Joyce Tenneson is a superb photographer/artist. This book covers the breadth of her work, starting from the beginning of her career. It includes excerpts from her other books, including "Wise Women", "Light Warriors", "Transformations" and "Illuminations". Well worth it.

An artist trained in Seoul, Korea and in New York City, Oh Chi Gyun is best known to the art world for his Impressionist style of thickly textured landscape and streetscape paintings, using as his subject scenes of a Korean country village, the streets of new York City, or views from the American Southwest. Oh Chi Gyun's three decade career as an artist is now on view at the Chelsea Art Museum of New York and "Defining Landscapes", one of the newest titles from the premiere art book publishing firm of Hudson Hills Press, compiles more than 80 color plates showcasing the best of this artist's distinctive work. Enhanced with a brief but informative Foreword, a Chronology of the artists life, and succinct essays by Richard Vine, Phoebe Hoban; Raul Zamudio; Kim Boggi, and concluding with a List of Works, "Defining Landscape" is a welcome addition to personal, professional, academic, and community library 20th Century Art History collections.

This is a thin book but no page is wasted.

Jürgen Vollmer, perhaps the least visible of the three Hamburg Exis, compacts his contribution to Beatles history between these covers. His photos (1961, second Hamburg visit) are more journalistic in style than those by Astrid Kirchherr. This was a direction he consciously aimed for. Interestingly, despite the "live" feel, they were nevertheless posed!

The oh so brief text starts in 1960 and tells of how he and his Exi friends risked scorn and drubbing to enter a Rocker's dive called the Kaiserkeller to listen to sounds fresh to their middle-class German ears. He recalls one uncomfortable tussle he had with Rockers who had no time for the British musicians on stage nor this small group of fans at the front table.

As they get to know the boys, the character of the Beatles, evident even then (1960), is wonderfully illustrated with the "Flea" incident!

We learn that George was aware that under German law he was not allowed to be in the club after 10pm and that he would leave and the others would meet up with him later. This is news to me, as I always understood he was deported precisely because he was underage...

He continues the story with the holiday in Paris where Paul and John met up with him. They soon realized their Elvis quiffs and leathers were not working on the Parisian ladies, so exchanged their clothes for arty ones and asked Jürgen to give them his hairstyle. The sole motivation for the Moptop was to pull the Parisian bohemian girls!

And that is where his story ends. Far too soon!

The text is German and Engish in parallel. Being fluent in both languages, I found the translation to be excellent (very rare!) but the German is stylistically tighter and may have been the original; although the conversations with the Beatles obviously were in English: when John wants to know why Jürgen wants to photograph the Beatles, Jürgen says "for art". John then sneers, "Who's Art?!" - the pun is lost in the German text!

The photos can be divided into four categories: Firstly, of young Hamburg people (good photos, but they convey little of the Hamburg of the time), and what seems to be three separate photo sessions with the Beatles. One was in the Top Ten club, one (2 photos from a reel of 12) of John in a doorway and a blurred George, Paul and Stuart walking past him (this became the famous Rock and Roll album cover photo) and one session with a very young George around the Hamburg harbour.

This book has a place on every Beatles fan bookshelf as the definitive Jürgen Vollmer collection of early Beatles photos. The only distraction is the insecure scattering of large print Beatles quotes to add weight to these photos. No need. Those beginnings in Hamburg, as told by an Exi with his camera and in his mother tongue make this volume eminently desirable.

aesthetically pleasing enlarged views of plants and pods against neutral backgrounds. i continue to enjoy it time and again.

This is a step back in time, to the 1970�s, when Kenn Duncan (1929-1986) was one of America�s best-known photographers. Kenn Duncan was truly the 70�s, his camera captured all of the glitzy fashion, style, lust, and male beauty that existed in this exciting, happy decade, when disco and dance were at there peak. This book is a beautiful collection of some of his most famous male-nude photography. These images are sexy, kinky, campy and innocent all at the same time. Duncan found some of the best looking men available to photograph from that decade.

You can tell Duncan had a way of communicating with his models that brought the best out of them. He loved life, people and photography. It sure shows in this collection of photographs, and I thank him for leaving us this great contribution of his talented work.

Joe Hanssen

The third in his series, James Archambeault manages to seek out more subjects sure to delight Kentuckians while capturing the traditional images that make our Bluegrass famous. From quaint towns, to forest settings, Archambeault puts on glossy paper what we love to remember from visits to Red River Gorge and Raven Run Nature Sanctuary and takes us to places we've never been, to festivals we didn't know occurred at the opposite end of the Commonwealth, and introduces us to people we might never meet. He points out red and black barns on winding country roads that we never stopped to notice, amidst cattle grazing on emerald grass fresh from seasonal rainstorms. But don't underestimate Archambeault--he will provide the reader the full Kentucky experience, taking him to the city of Louisville for the famous Derby at Churchill Downs, and to the central city of Lexington to experience Wildcat fever basketball. Whether you're a loyal fan of James Archambeault's work or browsing for an item that represents all the beauty that Kentucky has to offer, Archambeault once again lives up to his well-deserved reputation.

Whoever would have believed that you could produce a beautiful, interesting book of photographs of people in khaki trousers, but here is is. KHAKI: CUT FROM THE ORIGINAL CLOTH is a collection of over 100 photographs by sixty-six photographers including George Platt Lynes, Duane Michaels, Herb Ritts, Weegee, Edward Weston, Annie Leibovitz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Claxton, Richard Gere, Allen Ginsberg, Greg Gorman, Milton H. Greene, Philippe Halsman, Robert Capa, George Hurrell et al. There are photographs of the rich and/or famous as well as ordinary souls: the Kennedys, Audrey Hepburn, James Dean, Paul Bowles, Teddy Roosevelt, Clark Gable (at least three times), General Douglas MacArthur, Marilyn Monroe (thought she isn't in khakis), Amelia Earhart et al.

What makes this volume so inviting is that the photographs are all so different and I wager that you would never guess the unifying theme of khaki trousers if you didn't know that already. Some of my favorites: William Faulker (photographer unknown, p. 125. He is dressed in a coat and tie with rumpled khakis that are all too familiar to us who live in them.) Christoper Isherwood photographed by George Platt Lynes. The natural side lighting makes this fine photograph (p. 44). The series of photographs by Duane Michaels, "John Takes His Pants Off" (pp. 2-3), and what I would call a narrative photograph on page 74 of soldiers in World War II getting their feet inspected by someone I assume is an officer. (The photographer is Hulton Getty; the date is January 1, 1943). Picasso strolling on the beach with his son and his mistress photographed by Robert Capa in 1951 (pp. 126-127). Finally the most mysterious photograph of all, "Night Duty," photographed in 1941 by Weegee (p. 116). The two men appear to be guards or police officers. They are carrying pistols and wearing only caps and khaki trousers.

Gallery owner and authority on photography David Fahey (co-designer of the enormously successful exhibit of Herb Ritts "WORK" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1997) edited this most entertaining book, Elton John wrote the preface, and Richard Martin wrote a brief essay on the history of khaki. KHAKI will both surprise and delight you.

These pages captured my thoughts and feelings about my own women friends, and made me love them even more!