No comments about An Eye for the Tropics: Tourism, Photography, and Framing the Caribbean Picturesque (Objects/Histories).

5 comments about The Wedding Video Handbook: How to Succeed in the Wedding Video Business (DV Expert Series) (DV Expert Series).

1. Great book covering a lot of ground and details. I can recommend this book for anyone wanting to get started in
   wedding videos to make money. Good business ideas.



2. This is a very informative book. Well written by a professional of the industry. Has all the information you need from start to finish.



3. The advice on structuring contracts alone was worth the cost of the book, which also included practical advice on every aspect I was interested in. Highly recommended. The only downside overall was with UPS (yet again).



4. I was rather disappointed in this book. Much of the material was so "generalized" that it was not at all helpful, most was just plain common sense, and some was completely outdated. (Hey Kirk.....High Def IS here!) I would say that maybe 25% of the information was useful. Unfortunately, books covering this category seem to be rather scarce, so there are not too many other options.



5. Amazing examples, teaching, practicals on more than just filming! This book gives information on how to treat customers, how to market your video business, correct ways to write your disclaimers for jobs, and so much more. I bought the book and have already used several principles taught in the book with an upcoming wedding I have.
   
   Your confidence and your professionalism will increase the minute you start reading. If you are a novice or a professional there is always something new to learn and this book will get you to the next level. With a DVD included in the book you can't go wrong. Also the book is full of recommendations for other websites and materials that will give you even more guidance in this field of videography.
   
   100% amazing book that will really help - don't wait any longer, BUY IT today and see results!!

5 comments about Hot Rod Pin-ups.

1. The cars are much better than the girls. The women generally are not classy looking. Maybe that is what David Perry had in mind. The cover shot is the best pinup shot. The photography is super.



2. I love this book. It shows fashion from various eras and adds the rough style of classic cars. The history is a good added bonus, but the pictures are more interesting to look at. Very colorful and exciting.



3. Great photography,with some great babes draped over cool cars.
   Dave Perry has a way of photographing period perfect clothed girls in provocative ways that make the girls a counterpoint to beater rods. If you've got a grain of warm blood still pulsing though your veins then these girls will quicken the pulse.



4. David Perry not only gets the Hot Rod Kulture, he's part of it! and luckily, for us, he captures it on film, with mastery.
   The book is awsome. His choice of cars and models is right m*#@ing on!
   The only problem is keeping my friend's greasy mitts off my copy...
   I guess I'll have to get a couple more...books that is



5. David perry (along with Chas Ray Kriger) is one of the two best photographic exponents of the future noir pinup genre. I waited a long time for the release of this book, and as I expected,the photographs are wonderful. Pity the book has been let down with some of the worst publishing design I have seen in ages. The cheesy slogans etc posted over the photographs and the annoying black boxes with model and car info in the corner of each photo are very distracting. The photographs speak well enough for themselves and would have been much better suited to full page spreads (as in David Perry's Hot Rod book) without the annoyingly colourful graphic design vomit on each page. Anyway if you dig pin up photography its still worth your dough..

No comments about Stieglitz: Camera Work (25th Anniversary Special Edtn).

1 comments about Heaven's Window: A Journey Through Northern New Me (Crossroads).

1. THIS IS WITHOUT A DOUBT THE BEST BOOK I HAVE READ ABOUT NEW MEXICO. IT SHOULD BE ON EVERYONE'S 'MUST READ' LIST. A WOINDERFUL GIFT BOOK.

No comments about Workbook for Black & White Photography.

No comments about The New Photography Manual.

No comments about Cool Restaurants New York (Cool Restaurants).

5 comments about Ghosts of Everest: The Search for Mallory and Irvine.

1. I had never heard of Mallory or Irvine until the day the news mentioned Mallory was found. All these years later I decided to read this book to answer the curiosity I had over them.
   
   I am intrigued with the question of did they reach the summit before they died back in 1924. Many have argued they failed and the authors decided to see if they could answer the debate.
   
   This is a good read as the authors gave accounts of both the climbs of Mallory and Irvine and the Simonson group that went to find them. The book has great details and good photographs throughout. I actually looked at the photos of Mallory several times. Kind of awed for some reason.
   
   The authors are most assuredly in awe of both Mallory and Irvine and it shows in the book. Especially when they found Mallory.
   
   You get the feeling they really want them to have made the summit and they offer some convincing arguments. Such as some of Mallory's notes suggest they took more oxygen bottles then thought. The location of an Oxygen bottle showed they were further along then thought and the possibility that Odell who commented on seeing them at the second step might have actually seen them on the third.
   
   Does the book prove they made it? Not really. There is no serious proof. The fabled camera might answer it but it is thought to be with Irvine who was never found. There is also the claim of leaving a photograph of Mallory's wife on the summit and it was not found on Mallory's body. One thing the authors mention however, is that they didn't find proof to suggest the failed in their attempt so the question remains.
   
   Overall you might find yourself hoping they did made it as it's a classic tale of man against the elements.
   
   I found myself hoping they did.



2. This has to be one of my favorite books. I have read it several times and each time it still captivates my interest!



3. What a story!
   
   And talk about memories . . . No, I've never been on Mt. Everest - Popocatepetl, 17,887 ft is the highest I've been (on foot) - but I did spend untold hours back in the stacks of the Main Library at the University of Texas in Austin, in the early 1950s, poring over accounts of the English expeditions to Everest (and elsewhere in the Himalaya and Karakoram) in the 1920s and 1930's. Those old thick books with their thick knife-cut pages and stilted or candid photographs made you want to go to Tibet, and something about their musty smell made you want to take a bathroom break. And then get back to what Younghusband and Smythe and Odell and Noel and Norton and Somervell - those subsidiary phantoms within the Everest saga - had to tell.
   
   Those books, and accounts of other climbs (in Europe or Africa or closer to home in the Americas) forced me onto steep rock. I climbed semi-seriously from 1952 until 1958 and desultorily for about fifteen years thereafter. But nothing along the lines of the climbers in Ghosts of Everest: Anker, Hahn, Norton, Politz, Richards. Among others.
   
   The three co-authors - Hemmleb, Johnson, and Simonson - made a wise decision to enhance their story's narrative thrust and coherence by choosing William Nothdurft to put it all together. He did a wonderful job; he's a hell of a writer. The maps and photographs are illuminating, though some of the photos are too strongly backlighted.
   
   A human-interest side-story in the book concerns BBC producer Peter Firstbrook and associate producer Graham Hoyland. Hoyland had championed BBC's support of the Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition of 1999 for more than a year. Hoyland was a former Everest climber and grandnephew of T.H. Somervell of the 1924 Everest expedition. Not until October 1998 (the main party of the expedition ended up arriving in Kathmandu on 18 March 1999) did Hoyland's boss Firstbrook get into the mix with his various bureaucratic ploys and games. Things went along, largely downhill, in fits and starts. In the end the expedition was mounted, but Hoyland was sent home by Firstbrook on a flimsy medical excuse. Firstbrook's insincerity was made manifest when he, Firstbrook, came down with a much more serious medical condition but refused, in spite of the expedition doctor's advice, to go back down to lower altitude. There's also the story of the midstream much-changed legal contract Firstbrook tried to get expedition leader Simonson to sign.
   
   Aargh! But then again, anyone who has tried to negotiate a contract between a private party and an institution, bureaucracy, government, or politician probably knows how downright duplicitous any of the latter can be. Their saving grace is that they are usually pretty dumb. I Googled `Peter Firstbrook' today and see, with some satisfaction and a somewhat patched image of the BBC, that Peter is no longer with them. He evidently shuffled off (or was shuffled off) to another film production outfit, Mosaic, in 2002.
   
   Hey, there are lots of ambitious guys out there. I well remember one day (actually it was 29 July 1957) that Yvon Chouinard grabbed me with "I think I've rediscovered Baxter's Lost Pinnacle! Let's go climb it before someone else does!" And we did, alternating leads. (By luck, since Yvon was a much better climber, he got to lead the final overhang pitch.) For years I had in my collection of climbing hardware a horizontal piton marked `URE' for `Ulf Ram-Erickson,' Baxter's climbing partner - they were often described as "two solo climbers, roped together" - we took off that Pinnacle that day. Sure, Yvon was ambitious, but he wouldn't scheme to crawl up over someone's back.
   
   Typically, in the mountains, it's a world of clear air, hard dark rock, white snow, tiny flowers in moss, and wonderful straightforward people. People like Mallory and Irvine. And like the members of the 1999 Expedition who went up to Everest to find and commemorate them. Ghosts of Everest is their very well told story.



4. I was only vaguely familiar with the story of Mallory and Irvine before reading this. Hemmelb does a nice job of interweaving the story of Mallory's 1924 attempt at Everest with that of the 1999 expedition that went in search of his body. For anyone interested in Everest and the history of attempts to climb it, I can recommend this book highly.



5. This is a beautifully and lavishly illustrated, textually rich book. Its pages demand the reader's undivided attention and are sure to enthrall all mystery lovers, Everest aficionados, nostalgia junkies, history buffs, and climbing enthusiasts. This book is sure to provide the reader with many hours of enjoyment.
   
   The book chronicles the search for George Mallory and Andrew Irvine by the 1999 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition. It juxtaposes the dramatic turn of events during their expedition with those of the 1924 British Everest Expedition which saw Mallory and Irvine attempt a summit climb, only to disappear into the mists of Everest, never to be seen again. It makes for a spell binding narrative, as past events are woven through present day ones.
   
   The 1999 Mallory & Irvine Research Expedition was a meticulously well prepared and well organized venture. With its discovery of George Leigh Mallory's body, it enjoyed much success. The research and analysis that went into its ultimate, well thought out conclusions were comprehensive and fascinating, with its strong reliance upon forensics and deductive reasoning. Their reconstruction of Mallory's and Irvine's last climb is riveting. Unfortunately, the ultimate question still remains unanswered. Did they or did they not reach the summit of Mount Everest back in 1924?
   
   The beautiful photographs of the personal effects found upon Mallory's person underscore a certain poignancy about the discovery of Mallory's well preserved body. The photographs which memorialize this discovery are amazingly lovely and tasteful, considering its subject matter, and hauntingly illustrate the finality with which Everest may deal with mountaineers, no matter how accomplished.
   
   The photographs also highlight how ill equipped for the harsh climatic conditions were the early Everest expeditions. It is amazing, and a credit to those early expeditioners' courage and fortitude, in braving such an inhospitable and harsh terrain with the inadequate clothing and equipment available to them at the time. Mallory and Irvine were certainly intrepid explorers!
   
   This book is a fitting tribute to two men who sought to make a historic summit and, in their attempt, would forever be a part of Everest.

2 comments about No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy.

1. This is an important book.
   
   No Caption Needed speaks with eloquence to a topic of tremendous significance for contemporary society and the state of democratic public culture. It is a deeply interesting study relevant to academic and general audiences alike. Part history lesson and part analysis of where we are and where we might head, this book examines what democracy means in a culture oriented to the visual. It's one of those gems that makes the reader rethink the world by pointing out something important right under one's nose.
   
   Hariman and Lucaites examine iconic photographs, those images we see again and again and again in public life, and deftly reveal how they contribute to the rhythm of that life. In a series of chapters, they examine haunting and celebratory images that mark American history: the Times Square kiss, the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima and at Ground Zero, the Migrant Mother of the Great Depression, the Kent State massacre, the accidental napalm of the Vietnam War, the defiant man in Tiananmen Square, the Hindenburg and Challenger explosions.
   
   In addition to the book, Hariman and Lucaites also succeed in what is often a remarkably difficult task: hosting a relevant, engaging, and inviting blog, an arena for discussion and intelligent debate with wit and precision:
   
   No Caption Needed
   
   The review below has admirably captured the content of each chapter, so I will only mention its wide span of audiences. A critical scholarly book, No Caption Needed is a significant contribution to the burgeoning study of visual rhetoric, and should be mandatory reading for graduate students and advanced undergraduates in communication programs. It also addresses media and cultural studies, and would find a welcome place on the syllabi of journalism, anthropology, sociology, history, political science, art history, performance studies, education, and popular culture courses.
   
   This book--and the blog--should also not be missed by the political strategist, policy wonk, and political writer of any persuasion. It should also not be missed by the general reader. Hariman and Lucaites offer a corrective to the slew of cheap advice pouring out these days on how to seize control of the public sphere. They remind us about something much more important: the need to question how democracy is performed, and how its images inspire citizens to action--whether to prepare for war, to dissent, or even just to buy things. All of us, regardless of political affiliation, would find it rewarding to pause and consider the deep questions this book raises about the power of the image and the future of liberal democracy.



2. This summer I have been having to constantly update the section of content pages in my Pop Culture class dealing with the "Media Lolitas," and I was thinking of just forgetting about trying to keep up with the escapades of Britney, Lindsay, and Paris and just have "before" and "after" photographs. My thinking was that the iconic images for each of these tabloid princesses were now having a shaved head, being passed out in a car, and crying on the way to jail, respectively. But then I picked up "No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy" by Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites and was graphically reminded of what real iconic photographs look like and how such images have a profound impact on not only our popular culture but our popular democracy.
   
   This book looks at nine of the most famous photographs of the past seventy years to examine why these images are so powerful, explain how they remain meaningful across generations, and explore what they expose (and what goes unsaid). The book has nine chapters, most of which are significant revisions of essays examining particular photographs that have previously been published in academic journals (e.g., "Quarterly Journal of Speech"), and all of which represent an interest in how they function rhetorically, as established in the (1) Introduction. (2) "Public Culture, Icons, and Iconoclasts," lays out the author's interpretive method, which includes defining iconic photograph and then identifies five dimensions of cultural meaning that coalesce in the iconic image.
   
   Then we get to the case studies: (3) "The Borders of the Genre: Migrant Mother and the Times Square Kiss," looks at both Dorothea Lange's 1936 photograph of the "Migrant Mother" and Alfred Eisenstaedt's 1945 shot of the sailor kissing the nurse on VJ-Day (to be confused with naval photographer Victor Jorgensen's similar shot known as "Kissing Strangers" that has the virtue of being in the public domain and not owned by TIME-LIFE). The two iconic photos are presented as defining the "greatest" generation and what the authors call the "individuated aggregate," which means individuals who are used to depict collective experiences, in this case the Great Depression and winning World War II respectively. (4) "Performing Civic Identity: Flag Raising On Iwo Jima and Ground Zero" traces how the most popular image of World War II had been used both to celebrate the ideal of the citizen-soldier and to fault subsequent generations for their lack of virtue. With the image of the three firefighters raising a flag at ground zero in New York City, the original image is reprised in a new context. Having watched Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers" again recently I found this essay particularly informative and insightful.
   
   The Vietnam War provides the context for the next two iconic photographs. (5) "Dissent and Emotional Management: Kent State" focuses on that particular photograph to demonstrate how photojournalism communicates essential resources for democratic deliberation. (6) "Trauma and Public Memory: Accidental Napalm" details how the photograph of a Vietnamese Girl running from a "friendly" napalm attack exposed the criminal conduct and systematic deception that ended up defining the war. (7) "Liberal Representation and Global Order: Tiananmen Square" considers the political consequences of aesthetic designs. (8) "Ritualizing Modernity's Gamble: The 'Hindenberg' and 'Challenger' Explosions" compares two midair explosions as capturing the profound anxieties that come from living in the machine age, while at the same time organizing public mourning around a virtual pyre to sanction continued sacrifice. Finally, (9) "Conclusion: Visual Democracy" returns to the notion of visual democracy, covering not only the limits of iconic memory, but reconsidering the visual public sphere and the role of photojournalism in a liberal democracy.
   
   The main appeal here is going to be these case studies, where Hariman and Lucaites look at the different ways these different iconic photographs have functioned. For example, to give you a sense of the various ways they find an image resonating across time, with Eisenstaedt's "Times Square Kiss" photo there are also a "Life" cover photograph from two years earlier by the photographer that presages the motif, an advertisement that echoes the image, a version on the cover of a videotape on "America in the '40s," a pair of cartoon rabbits outside of a Disney store in Times Square, a cover of "The New Yorker" with two male sailors kissing, and a photo of VJ-Day being replayed in 2005 for the 60th anniversary that includes not only copycats but a but also the original nurse standing next to a statue striking the pose. Although each case study looks at its photographs in significantly different ways, these examples give you a sense of the extent to which such images can resonate.
   
   The images of the man standing in front of (and up to) a line of tanks and the explosion of "Challenger," may well speak to the death of the iconic photograph in that both of those images exist as not only still shots but as film (in contrast to the WWII photographs that are of specific moments in time). But even in the world of Youtube much of what Hariman and Lucaites have to say about iconic images will still apply. "No Caption Needed" is written for scholars, but I would think that lots of teachers at both the college and high school levels would be interested in taking one or more of these case studies and finding a way of using them in the classroom. Finally, you might want to grab a pair of bookmarks when you read this book, because Hariman and Lucaites have almost a hundred pages of footnotes in the back of their book, arranged chapter by chapter, and most of them end up being content notes rather than just citations of sundry sources. If you like to flip back and forth as you go along, then plan ahead to take advantage of the additional information in the back of the book.