2 comments about Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail.

1. The original version of this book was published in 1938 in a limited edition of only 500 copies. Ansel's other well known work of this early period include his portfolio entitled Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras (1927) and his other early books include Taos Pueblo (published in a limited edition of about 100 copies around 1930), and the relatively common instructional book "Making a Photograph" (1935). I have seen all of these works in their original form and was grateful to see this book reprinted making it accessable to modern Ansel Adams fans of modest means such as myself.
   
   Ansel's printing style changed over the course of his life. For instance, the Monolith (face of Half Dome) print included with the Parmelian Prints looks completely different than the much more familiar and frequently reproduced prints from this negative made in the 1970s. Several other examples can be found of this change in printing style. Most books currently on the market and prints that are frequently shown focus on the dramatic Wagnerian style of printing Ansel adopted in his later years. Modern Ansel Adams publications which seem to include several new books every year focus on already well known images as Ansel printed them in the final decades of his life. This book is refreshing in that focuses on Ansel's early images and printing style. The book is also focused on the John Muir trail rather than being a "greatest hits" collection.
   
   Printing technology has also changed and improved a lot since the original version of the book was published in 1938, and his improved significantly even since 1984 when Ansel died. Of course not every book is printed with the best technology of an era. I have not seen original prints of all of many of the images reproduced in this book, but I believe the printing to in the spirit of this era and to the original edition.
   
   Plate #49 in the book, "Lake and cliffs, Kaweah Gap" has been reproduced in several other books as "Frozen Lake and Cliffs" including as plate XIII in the 1935 "Making a Photograph" and on page 10 of the 1983 printing of "Examples the Making of 40 photographs." I have taken the opportunity to compare these three reproductions side by side. The 1935 reproduction is clearly the worst of the three to my eye - likely because of the printing technology of that era. The 1983 book and the current book are much closer. The blacks are deeper in this book. There is more constrast in the cliff in the current "John Muir Trial" reproduction at the expense of a slight amount of shadow detail which is present in the "Examples" book. In "Examples" Ansel mentions that the negative was processed in nearly exhausted developer and lacks density in the shadows making it difficult to print. He goes on to say in "Examples" (which he wrote in the early 1980s), that it was "Only within the past year or so have I been able to get a nearly satisfactory print..." This implies to me that the loss of shadow detail in the John Muir Trail reproduction of this image is due to the way Ansel printed this image in that era and not due to the quality of printing in the book as another reviewer suggested.
   
   This is one of the few books currently available which focuses on Ansel's early photography career, and I would highly recommend it to anyone with a serious interest in his work. Having seen and read the 1938 edition, I believe this new printing does justice to the original as well as makes this body of work accessible to the current generation Ansel Adams enthusiasts.



2. It is always told that AA put enormous energy and care in producing his 1938 edition of "Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail", originally published in only 500 copies and a fine art book of highest quality at the time.
   
   I never saw a copy of the origional edition and my comment is purely on what I see in this 2006 standard edition. I don't know how this book is made from the original edition. It says tri-tone but the printing quality is so-so. Some images are a little vague, some losing details in shadow or highlight. The book is pale in compasrison with some great AA books published by Bulfinch in the past, such as "California" or "Yosemite and the High Sierra". You can find some images from this book in other AA books and in better quality. Overall, it would make AA uneasy to stamp his famous AA Authorized Edition to the book. If it were not for its historical value, I'd skip this book.
   
   Now Bulfinch also offers a 2006 deluxe edition at $1,200. Again I haven't seen a copy but perhaps the pricier version can live up to the standard of the original edition.
   
   The trend looks a little worrisome recently in AA books pulished by Bulfinch. The printing quality goes down from "California (1997)" to "Ansel Adams at 100 (hardcover 2001)". "Trees (2004)" rebounds just a little but "Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail (2006)" is a little disappointing. I would hope the next AA book by Bulfinch can rejuvenate the printing quality, even if doing so means a higher price tag.

No comments about The Moon.

2 comments about Faces of Hope: Children of a Changing World.

1. Alison Wright moves beyond photography as she not only captures the physical essence of the children she photographs, she also captures the social and spiritual essence of these children. Each child leaps off the page and commands your attention. Alison takes the reader on a tour of the non-Western world and provides us a glimpse of these children's daily lives. By the quality and detail of the photos, it is obvious that Alison loves these children and successfully invokes compassion in the reader. Alison draws the reader into each picture through the beautiful imagery and vivid narratives which descirbe the various cultures of the children.



2. Alison Wright, thank you for making this beautiful book and share your wonderful photographs with us. I can't never get tired of looking at them.
   You have photographed them with the eyes of your soul.

5 comments about Digital Memories: Scrapbooking with Your Computer.

1. I have read the first few chapters and already have learned some things that I didn't know even though I've been working with graphic packages for years. We can all learn more.......I feel the book is going to be useful. Hopefully it will get me up and really doing digital scrapbooking.....it looks easier than it is. The book is well layed out and very organized. I would recommend this book to a new digital scrapbooker like myself.....have fun with it and get up and doing it......



2. I hesitated to buy this book without seeing it 'in hand' first. I took the chance and I am *so* very glad that I did. This is an excellent reference book. It's an easy read, is extremely helpful, and it provided me with more information than I realized I needed. The author is experienced, opinionated, and direct; all of which lead to a book that is emininently useful.
   
   One of my fears in buying this book was that it would be so biased toward PC users that it would be useless for me as a Mac user. I was extremely pleased to find out that was far from the case. In fact, the author has written several books on working with the Macintosh computer. That said, this book is meaningful to ANY computer scrapbooker, regardless of their computer platform or operating system.
   
   Finally, the book includes reviews and recommendations on software, printers, etc, which I found very helpful.



3. Digital scrapbooking has become very popular and in this book the author, Carla Rose, shows you how to blend digital and traditional scrapbooking to expand your creativity.
   
   Your first step to creating a scrapbook is deciding on a theme or story to tell. Based on that, you choose a style that reflects your project and yourself. Now you are ready to gather your tools and get started creating. Rose discusses the tools for traditional scrapbooking and what is needed to go digital. She covers the advantages and limitations of several software programs.
   
   Moving on to page design, Rose discusses aspects of page composition such as the use of white space and leading to enhance the readability of your pages. Next she explains the rule of thirds and how to use grids to help you design your pages around a center of interest which is usually, but not always, a photo or photos.
   
   She discusses each page design element individually starting with background color and texture. She suggests creating background papers from scanned objects such as candy canes, leaves and fabric.
   
   Rose then talks about photos. She discusses various corrections that you may need to make to old photos. She shows you step-by-step how to fix a badly damaged photo and how to turn a regular photo into a vignette (oval) shaped image. Next she covers correcting and enhancing your digital photos. She shows you how to blur the background area to enhance the subject of a photo. You may also need to make corrections to perspective, color, contrast or red eye.
   
   She explores having fun with your photos by applying special effects and filters. Using plug-in filters and your software program, you can turn your photos into watercolor paintings or line art. You can also create a composite or collage from several photos.
   
   Rose discusses the basics of typography and how to choose a font that will reflect the theme and style of your scrapbook. She discusses the special digital effects that you can add to your text such as drop shadows and embossing.
   
   Publishing your scrapbook on the Internet has become very popular and Rose discusses the basics of webpage design and HTML. She has included the HTML code for a sample webpage to get you started.
   
   Carla Rose is a professional photographer and Photoshop expert. She has written several computer books.



4. J'ai adoré ce livre car l'auteur parle autant de scrapbooking sur papier que sur ordinateur. Après avoir lu une partie du chapitre 7, j'ai pu effectué des corrections sur de vieilles photos de famille avec un résultat époustoufflant et cela en quelques minutes. Très bon livre de référence pour les gens qui veulent apprendre à faire du scrapbook autant manuellement que sur l'ordinateur.



5. I received this book as a mother's day present this year (after griping that I didn't know what to do with my digital pictures in my scrapbooks). The book is amazing and very easy to read and follow. Though I'm still exploring the huge amount of information, I've already used some of the techniques like turning photos into watercolors (you'd swear I spent hundreds of dollars having an artist do an original watercolor of my daughter when actually it only took me about 20 minutes to do it with Photoshop Elements). I am also going to get a lot of use out of the sections on using clip art instead of stickers or stamps and computer fonts instead of rub off letters. I'd recommend this book to anyone who needs new scrapbooking ideas!

1 comments about The Valley.

1. Larry Sultan's The Valley is an elegant social doumentation. He depicts a portrait of a "typical" middle-high class lifestyle through the most private point of view: the interiors of private houses.
   At the same time he documents the working days of a very peculiar type of professionals: actors and workers of the adult movie industry.
   In my view the topic of this book is intimacy, interpreted in different ways. Sultan's pictures drive you into intimacy intended in its literary meaning (an intimate interaction between two people, involving also a sexual aspect), since they have taken on porno movie sets. But the accuracy with which Sultan explores the private interiors where the movies were shot makes you forget about physical intimacy, and consider its meaning of "privacy", making you wonder who ususally lives there, what they do, why they rented out their homes to an adult movie production company, etc. More than the actors performing on sofas and carpets, it is the perfection of Sultan's pictures, their extreme detail, the pureness of colours, the lighting, that makes them "pornographic", if this word is used to define something depicted in its extreme detail.
   Nevertheless, Sultan is never detached from what he photographs, and his survey is also a trip into memories of his childhood spent in the Valley, and a tribute to people working in adult movies, usualy perceived as "dirty" an unspeakable, but that he shows us simply as people earning their living, in a way that is probably much more honest and "clean" than many others.

No comments about Phil Frost.

1 comments about Transylvania.

1. this is a beautiful book - wonderful text and stories - not just lovely photos. Good stories about very specific people and groups.

5 comments about Storyboarding 101: A Crash Course in Professional Storyboarding (Michael Wise Productions).

1. This guy couldn't draw, if his life depended upon it. How he ever got a storyboarding job is beyond me. Saya a lot about Hollywood.



2. This book had some good information, but focused more on career building and Hollywood networking than on actual storyboarding techniques. I'm glad the author was able to develop such a career, but he goes on too much about it and I think the book would have been more useful with more detail on translating script and director's vision into storyboards rather than stories on how lucky the guy was getting to be a director's assistant.



3. I bought this book expecting a how-to, instructional guide. There's none of that! No tips on drawing or the art of storyboarding. Instead, we get a autobiography of Fraioli and tips on breaking in: "hang around movie sets." Wow. I never would have figured that out on my own.

   The few examples of art Fraioli gives are amatuer and poorly drawn. I didn't find this book useful at all.




4. Mr. Fraioli's book is certainly a wonderful work about sticking to something and getting where you wish to be. However, I found it interesting that his name isn't found in the crew listing for either Ace Ventura nor Wild America. Of course, this could be a simple oversight...but still.
   In my opinion the situations seemed a bit "staged" and in a lot of ways cliched. He does try to inspire, however and for that I give him two stars.



5. This book will motivate any artist or filmmaker trying to break into the highly competitive Hollywood scene. The author's words of wisdom, and "tricks of the trade" is something not taught in any school. If you want an edge on the competition, pick up a copy of this book!

1 comments about E. O. Hoppe's Amerika: Modernist Photographs from the 1920s.

1. E.O. HOPPE'S AMERIKA: MODERNIST PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE 1920s tells of world-famous photographer Hoppe's arrival in America - and how and why eighty years later his name has nearly been forgotten despite his influential work, much of which was hidden in English and German archives. While many photos are repeated in this catalog, E.O. HOPPE'S AMERIKA provides a celebration of his works and influence which enjoys unprecedented access to the Hoppe archives and packs in over a hundred forty images revealing his genius. Any college-level art library holding must have this.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch

4 comments about We're Desperate: The Punk Rock Photography of Jim Jocoy, SF/LA 1978-1980.

1. 
   Man was I ripped off! I read the reviews and found myself somehow, really really interested in this book. I purchased it and waited for it to arrive. I finally got my hands on it, boy was I sorry. I started looking and searching for all the "cool things" it was supposed to have, but man, this book just sucks.
   Its cool if you want to check out the 70s 80s punk rock fashion and style this kids had. But nothing incredible. Its also very little so the pictures arent that great. Blows!



2. This is an absolutely brilliant book. It chronicles a time when punk was more than just some retarded fashion statement made for MTV (admittedly, MTV didn't exist...) Jim Jocoy has done his thing well, and efficiently shown the attitude of punk in the late 70's. One of the best things about this book is the fact that he didn't sift through people and pick out the ones that looked like models, or the pretty singers, he took anyone and everyone he could find that contributed to the punk rock movement. Even greater is the fact that he has pictures of bands and singers right next to the "normal" people, and to the untrained eye, nobody would know the difference. Everyone was impressive. I also loved the prose at the end by Exene Cervenka. It's very well-done and beautifully written.



3. When I first heard about this Book, I eagerly awaited it's arrival. An Excellent documentation of the Looks and visual attitude that was unique to the San Francisco Scene. Even though the Photos include LA, London and NYC Stars, that original San Francisco feeling still emerges overall. It cries out for more books exploring it's values different from other Punk or Rock scenes. But at least we have Jim's Excellent Documentations and memories. Hopefully More Books coming from him in the future!



4. ....the West Coast punk rock scenesters created a style that looks surprisingly fresh and edgy even today: pink 60s leather coats, striped tees, shredded preppy button-ups, busted jeans, high heels with anklets, asymetrical haircuts, teddy boy coats, geometric print 80s, shrunken suits w/ skinny ties, and more. This is a great book for DIY fashion ideas-- from a time when ripped tee-shirts didn't cost $75 at trendy boutiques and jeans didn't come pre-sandpapered.