2 comments about Giger (Basic Art).

1. H.R. Hiher is definately one of the greatest artists of our time. His images transcend time and space and provoke so many thoughts using beautifully crafted mechanical landscapes and disturbing robot-like human specimens.



2. This is the prime book for the fans who are into Giger's work, but don't have the cash to invest in his larger[]books, or don't yet know if they want to. It covers his earliest work in underground newspapers to his involvment with "Alien" and beyond. It lists all the exhibitions up until 2001, all the material he ever published, plenty of his best known artworks plus some that are lesser known. From his life in Chur to his marriage to Mia and his thoughts of airbrushing, this book has everything a Giger fan could ask for.

1 comments about Lee Miller's War.

1. This is a very interesting collection of essays, war dispatches and photographs. Some of the images are famous and some are not. This shows yet another side of the very versatile Lee Miller, photographer, model, actress, etc. Some of the photos are fabulous and some are more mundane. This is still a good collection for the person who is interested in Miller or WW II.

1 comments about Wedding Photography: The Complete Guide.

1. I will be doing wedding gig this march. This book will save me headache. More than going to seminar or school, because I can keep on re-reading it as a refresher course. Highly recommend..Thanks a lot mark cleghorn. This will be my 1st wedding gig. My gear are Nikon D200 with 17-70 kit lens, SB 800 with Diffuser, Nikon D70 as back up with 70-300mm lens. I'm confident I can do a pretty good job because of this book.

3 comments about Hiroshi Sugimoto.

1. I first saw this book at the de Young Museum in San Francisco during a major exhibition of Sugimoto's work there during the summer of 2007. I love photography and have been building up a library of photo books for years. Sugimoto is one of my favorite artists and I was really looking forward to having a book of his work (there are so few that have been published that are available).
   
   I think the book is a really good survey of Sugimoto, but I have to say that I was extremely perplexed and disappointed by the decision of the publisher and the artist to publish the work in such a small format. If you've ever seen any of Sugimoto's prints, they are on the order of 4 feet by 5 feet and larger. Their size is important to the presence of the work and highlights the incredible detail that can be captured by a committed artist using very large format cameras. The prints reproduced in the book are just too small to be able to capture any of this impact.
   
   This really drops the rating for me. if it had been twice or three times the dimensions as published it would have just been big enough.



2. If you have never seen Sugimoto's work and you have an interest in conceptual art and photography, you are in for a treat. As he says, his work is all about time and what better way to show time than through a photograph. Beautifully produced, this book hints at the depth of the original large format images that can now be seen at a retrospective at San Francisco's de Young museum.
   
   The book begins with his portraits in a wax museum and dioramas from New York's Museum of Natural History. All of his photographs are made with large format camera and the detail is exquisite. Conceptually, the camera gazes upon reproduction figures that are perhaps better than life itself, arranged like sculpture. The meaning of these objects (and places) becomes a recurring theme in his work that ultimately questions the medium itself. Real fiction.
   
   The highlight of the book in my estimation are the minimalist sea landscapes that capture light and question time -- they are devoid of a decisive moment. These images are absolutely spellbinding in person and, for a book, the reproduction is very good.
   
   The weakest part are photographs made by Sugimoto of blurred buildings, which take on a toy like scale, again questioning the reality of the original object. The selection of which building is clearly important, but the execution just isn't as exciting or masterful as the other work in this book. This is a very difficult area and very few photographers have pulled it off (try David Armstrong: All Day Every Day also available at Amazon)
   
   Conceptually, the mathematical models, created in the late 1800's and early 1900's are fascinating. The ultra-resolution of the view camera shows the human hand in creation, where slight imperfections cast shadows of scratches made by the makers, as well as students and teachers. The poetry of pure math meets visual realism.
   
   The finale are the photographs of movie theaters, each image exposed for the duration of the movie. The screen is a brilliant white (hinting at the experience of light from a movie), pouring out into the architecture of the theater or the surroundings of the drive-in landscaping. One of my favorites, from Union City, California, shows traces of light in the sky from passing aircraft -- a Zen-like experience of the passing of time that hints at an ancient haiku about the traces left by geese on snow.



3. I recently discovered Sugimoto's pictures browsing the web. This book is beautifully produced and plate after plate demands not only an aesthetic response from the viewer but also a decidedly intellectual and conceptual one (maybe that's the same thing!). It's rare to find art that is simultaneously so beautiful and so profound.

5 comments about Dan Eldon: The Art of Life.

1. A more artistic interpretation of the traditionally print-driven journal, Dan Eldon's records are colorful and compelling.



2. This is a very moving and powerful book from someone who was so young. It documents a movement of change and how Dan Eldon could find beauty in the simplest of things. The imagery will stay with you long after you've put the book down.



3. I love this book. The story of Dan Eldon is one everyone should read. It will change your perception of the world and how you live your life.



4. I purchased both The Journey is the Destination and The Art of Life on the same day. Over the next two days, I rotated the books as I couldn't decide on which one to read first. Jennifer obviously dove deeply into Dan's life. The stories that are told from memories collected from Dan's closest friends and his family are engaging. There is no doubt that Dan left a mark on everyone he met. Even more incredible is that he continues to leave his mark on the lives of those who meet him through these books. His death may have been premature but he certainly didn't waste the short amount of time that he was given. He certainly deserves to be known as one of the twentieth centuries heroes.



5. It's a shame Kathy(his mother) never wrote this book.
   By far the most imtimate and well written part of this book was the last chapter that Kathy Eldon wrote.
   Obviously Jennifer New loves Dan's life like we all do but unfortuneatly she never met him and that glaringly stands out in the biography. There is way too much creative license here,the fact he is raised to almost sainthood can be squeemish at times.Jennifer's writing leaves a lot to be desired, but through the clumsy writing you can't helped but be inspired by the life of Dan Eldon.
   Dan is amazing!! His photos say more about him than any bunch of words can. 'The Journey is the destination" is a must have book!!
   Flip through that and I guarentee your life will be changed forever!

No comments about Orange County Then and Now (Then & Now).

3 comments about Sierra Nevada Wildflowers.

1. I think this is a pretty good book for beginners, but for more advanced flower identification, this book is not that good. First, it is organized by color variation, and not by plant family. Also, there are many species of wildflowers that occur in the sierras that do not appear in this book.
   
   As an example to illustrate how this is a weakness, imagine the following sceanrio:
   If you found a yellow flower that was not in the book, you would have a hard time identifying it looking in the 'yellow' section of this book, because closely related species may not be yellow.
   
   The pictures, on the other hand, are very well done. The photos are closeups, and very bright. If you want a basic book this may be the one for you.
   
   Good luck!



2. It's obvious the author of this book knows what she's talking about! In our exploration of the Sierra Nevada we've come across a multitude of flora, but never before did we know what it was. In this book, Karen Weise provdes beautiful photographs along with a complete description of the flower, it's blooming period, habitat/range, and her comments, which include the genus of each plant. Owning this book, I find no need to search for any others. I buy this book for my special friends who share the Sierra Nevada with the flora found there!



3. This field guide to the wildflowers of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California -- one of the FalconGuide series -- is terrific. It first introduces you to the geology of the region, defining the types of habitat for the plants, and describes how to identify the plants, including wonderful, careful line drawings of types of leaves and flowers. The book itself is organized by color of the flowers (so the chapters are "Blue and Purple Flowers," "Red and Orange Flowers," and so on), which makes identifying them easier, since their most obvious characteristic comes first. Each of the 230 wildflowers included in the book has a picture and a description, habitat locator, and comment from the author. In addition, the book is very sturdy and well-produced, with excellent photographs of the plants and a strong binding. And here's a neat design feature: the corners are rounded, so they'll never become dog-eared. Up until now on hikes I've admired wildflowers in the abstract; this book makes it easy to appreciate more of what you see.

No comments about Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia.

5 comments about Milwaukee Then and Now.

1. Even if you're not turned on by the nifty then/now gimmick, the photos are often large size and high quality.
   
   This book is a milwaukee architectural history buff's dream come true.



2. I absolutely love these books that show the before and after of historical sites. I wish there were more local books like them. Fantastic images and great factual information. I would love to see a book like this for West Milwaukee, West Allis, Wauwatosa, etc, as this book is really more of a downtown book. The Images of America series is really nice, but it doesn't have the then and now perspective Sandra has in hers.



3. For anyone who lives in Milwaukee or has connections there, this is a great book. The photos are top-notch and I learned a lot about the city from the interesting explanations. My only disappointment was that the Allen Bradley clock tower wasn't in there. Maybe, being built in the early 60s, it didn't qualify as old enough, but it IS the world's largest 4-sided clock (with faces twice the size of Big Ben) and quite a landmark. So 4 1/2 stars if I could :)



4. Elysium in print! This book is simultaneously informative, beautiful, and intriguing, while fantastically showcasing the supreme City of Milwaukee ... "The German Athens on the Lake." The historic photographs are absolutely fascinating, while the accompanying captions are insightful; additionally, the very premise of the book--a comparison of past and present--is excellent. The only fault I find with this magnum opus is that there could have been a little more attention given to the industrial epicenter of yore--the Menomonee Valley--while there could have been less attention given to churches. Actually, I'm sure any person intimately familiar with Milwaukee will probably be able to pinpoint a handful of locations, neighborhoods, and/or specific buildings that should have been included, but it's hard to fault the author for that fact. Along with Gurda's masterpiece, this is a truly mandatory book for all Milwaukee devotees, and it should be issued to fanatics of our dear history!



5. I've always loved pictures of old buildings, in order to admire the detail and to imagine what the city looked like back then. This book uses large pictures as a window into the past, and compares them to the same location today. Some buildings have survived, and some great buildings have been lost. It's rather shocking to see how bland modern buildings look compared to the rich ornamentation of the past. Even buildings that have survived don't have all their original details. It's a pity, but compared to the great buildings we have lost, we're darn lucky to still have them around. If you like Milwaukee history, you need this book!

4 comments about Photoshop 7(R): Tips and Techniques.

1. I work in the field of marketing and have dabbled with Photoshop for a while. I now find myself using it more and more since getting this book. I like that the book breaks things down and makes the program easy for the user to understand yet isnt't so simplistic an avid user would get bored. One of my favorite features of the book is the center section; here there are color photos of color swatches, different blending techniques, layering effects, etc. I refer to this section often, rather than choosing each effect on the menu bar and undoing until I find what I'm looking for. This book has a permanent spot within arms reach of my computer.



2. This is more than your standard "tips and tricks" book. It gives much more comprehensive coverage of how to use Photoshop for some very specific purposes, from general page layout and design to slicing and optimizing images for the Web. Willard is something of an expert on Web design; I've used her other books on Web design and HTML, but in this book she gives as much focus and coverage to using Photoshop for print design as well as the Web. It's a great all-around resource. The writing is also clear and focused, as I've come to expect from her other books, and she is meticulous about the details. She is a real pro. I'd highly recommend this book for any level of user.



3. Wendy Willard provides an excellent resource for beginners and experienced Photoshop users. There are so many ways to accomplish the same task, and Wendy provides the most efficient, easiest to understand set of steps for accomplishing all sorts of tasks. Her informal writing style makes it easy to stay focused and grasp concepts after one read. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn or brush up on Photoshop skills.



4. Wendy makes learning Photoshop fun and easy, teaching her readers the most practical and useful aspects of Photoshop by featuring examples of real-world uses. With this book, users can mix-and-master Photoshop skills at their own pace by applying the book's easy to understand tips and techniques to everyday project tasks. The book teaches Photoshop's capabilities through easy to follow step-by-step techniques that are specifically designed to create effects that readily transfer to other uses of design and photo image editing. The book is packed with intuitive 'Quick Tips' (my favorite part), helpful 'Notes' and invaluable high-end techniques that quickly result in top-quality, professional images. The best part about this book is that it overlooks nobody. Both professional and amateur web designers, photographers and print designers will appreciate the attention Wendy brings to their specific and often unique industry requirements, helping to streamline their tasks, improve their quality of work and enhance their Photoshop experience.