5 comments about Pedro Páramo (Southwestern & Mexican Photography Series, Wittliff Collections at Texas State University-San Marcos).

1. Pedro Páramo is a beautifully written novel, in Spanish. In Spanish, the narration of Juan Preciado is lyrical, stark, simple and engaging. This translation makes the narrative sound like a female voice, and American, and there are mistakes in it that are unforgiveable. It lacks the hypnotic lyricism of the original. One leaves this translation with the thought that the translator neither understood Spanish well enough to do justice to the original, which is a masterpiece, nor could she write well enough in English to have attempted it. Translation is an art, but the translator should be like the lighting director in a theatre, someone you don't see but whose work makes magic.



2. This is a translation that some of us used in my senior year Survey of Latin American Literature class. Granted, as Spanish majors and minors, we should have been reading in the original. Where translations are most useful is getting around colloquial turns of phrase that leave practitioners of castellano a little dogged.
   
   It is a good translation, mind you - Peden does an excellent job working out the phrases, something that is helpful in surrealistic prose. I just much much much prefer to read something in the original - you lose a great deal in the translation by putting up a barrier between the author's mind and your own.
   
   The narrative can be confounding if you're expecting a straightforward plot - rather, there are two narratives, interwoven, and the order of the vignettes has more to do with character development than with chronology. One tale is of the son - and takes place somewhere between his quietly seething sense of abandonment and his abysmal personal hell. The other is of the father, and recounts his wicked life. A páramo is a local colloquialism for an empty, frozen mountaintop - a little symbolism that describes the inner life of the father quite well.
   
   This is not a "what happens" book so much as an "about" book - and indeed the facts of the story are up to some speculation. It is up to the reader to determine whether the narrator, Juan, truly succumbs to the ceaseless dead around him and joins them, whether he is in his personal torment but remains alive, or whether he is already dead and returns to Comala, "a la mera boca del infierno" - at the very mouth of Hell. It is also up to the reader to determine whether Pedro's love for Dolores Preciado (literally "precious wounds" - oh, symbolism!) is more possession than passion.
   
   The surrealism is one of the reasons this book remains on my shelf (supplanted by a Spanish-only edition), next to Borges and Vallejo.



3. I read the original version of it in Spanish, from what I have found so far from research, most translations of this book are pretty bad. There are lots of allegories and historical backgrounds in there, one cannot disregard all the content just because it seems confusing.
   And to get any award for something, a book has to go through lots of consideration. If the book was really such a horrible book do you think the judges of the award would risk their reputation supporting a "bad" book?
   I guess if you are fluent in Spanish I strongly suggest reading it in Spanish, or if you are a Latin American History major or Mexican history. This is a breath of fresh air, the book breaks all conventional narratives. I personally love "Continuidad de los parques" of Julio Cortazar. So if you like him you will definitely find this book a good read.



4. I finished the book, and had little feeling on it. So I read
   a literature review, and found out that I did see the writing
   techniques that were enthusiastically appraised. Yes, the
   book might be full of writing techniques, but I am not
   touched.



5. Pedro Paramo
   
   I have read this book three times in Spanish so I know it pretty well. This English translation is good but it doesn't flow as well as the original in Spanish. Perhaps it is that Rulfo's style is not easy to translate.

No comments about Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma.

2 comments about The Youngest Parents: Teenage Pregnancy As It Shapes Lives.

1. What a subtle, beautiful, thought-provoking book. Indispensible for understanding how teenage pregnancy shapes the lives of young people. Offers a poignant view of a variety of American teens facing parenthood, of different classes, different races, different religions and regions. Would be particularly valuable for high-school researchers, or as a complement to drier, more statistical or policy-oriented analyses.



2. The photographs are fantastic and will capture your heart and mind. The pictures communicate in a way words never could. You will feel like you know and understand these young mothers.

3 comments about Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000.

1. It's pretty massive, this book, and it feels like a lot of work went into it, but it's best thought of as a compendium of previous critical thought on the subject. On that basis it would be a good primer for students who are just beginning their work in cultural studies of "Californization," for the editors have done a fine job of summarizing and recommending the best books on the subject. Curatorially, the show was pretty vast, and like many LACMA productions, it was more Hollywood than Hollywood. Yet what works in a museum's large gallery spaces doesn't always translate onto the necessarily smaller page, and some of the best painting (if I may restrict myself to just one genre) that we saw up on the walls looks a little silly here: Agnes Pelton and Henrietta Shore in miniature look like prog-rock LP cover designers of the "Yes" era, suffering the indignity of having their twelve inch album designs shrunk down to CD size for the postmodern era. Something of the hazy beauty of Stanton Macdonald Wright still remains, though . . . What works best here is oddly what didn't really work in the show: the presence of a huge variety of topical items and ephemera, everything from signs that said, "Let's Keep California White," to that humorous can of "Los Angeles Smog" that you could buy as a souvenir if you went to LA in the 1950s (it's a great can with a full color comic book label--it might have invented all of pop art all by itself!) For sometimes in the exhibition so much ephemera seemed to hog your attention away from the more culturally approved "master works," where here in the catalogue, they assume point position in the continuing argument of the curators and the essayists charged with making California visible to us, step by step.
   
   Sometimes this is done in wearisome detail, so that by the Cold War era I was like, oh for goodness sake, I've had enough history, and some of it seemed like rote. None of the scandals of history were omitted, from the Japanese internment camps to the Manson murders, from Upton Sinclair to the cuttings on Cathie Opie's back. Representative? In every way they could think of. And yet for some reason it wasn't one of those life changing exhibitions, probably because its thesis was so unoriginal.



2. The exhibit was astounding - this museum is HUGE! The works of art featured are very diverse, both in theme, style and culture. The book really is a nice tribute to this grand exhibition. Any Californian who likes both popular art and "marginal" or underground art would be satisfied with this book.



3. Finally, an expansive and critical, although bewildering, survey of California's visual culture and its impact on American culture at large! Beautiful in its design and generous in illustrations, the catalog offers insight into the complexities of America's "wild frontier." What makes this catalog/exhibtion most intriguing is its inclusion of ephemera, framed by the organizers as important historical and cultural documents of life in California. Often overlooked, these items are often more telling than the cultural productions of visual artists and offer interesting juxtapositions to the art also presented. In addition to the discourse between hi and low culture, is the discussion of the cultural and racial diversity of California's population and its effect on culture and identity. The writers and curators bring together important documents, visuals, and art that construct diverse racial, gender, and sexual identities and also offer critical insight to these.

3 comments about Men Exposed.

1. Peter Arnold is perhaps best known as a photographer of the plant kingdom: his images of individual blossoms, close-ups of flower parts, and gatherings of floral display are highly regarded as art pieces. Yet in this very large and stunningly designed volume Peter Arnold enters the animal kingdom with his black and white images of male nudes. And he is equally as successful here.
   
   Arnold has gathered amazingly beautiful models whose bodies are in the prime of development. He uses studio lighting to enhance line, mass, and reflection, and perhaps more important to his concept, to subtract backgrounds, allowing the bodies of the models to be the sole focal point of each finished work. The men are pliant, muscular, and almost steel-like in appearance and Arnold's camera transforms them into sculptures. While this transformation may suggest a cold scientific approach to the human form, in Arnold's hands the result is startlingly erotic.
   
   Part of the grandeur of these photographs is due to the very large size of the pages of this fine volume. These images are readily seen as appropriate 'paintings' for the walls. From the incidental full page head portraits of some of the models to the isolated portions of the figures made sensuous by dramatic lighting, each page of this collection bears revisiting to appreciate the artistry of Peter Arnold. Grady Harp, December 07



2. Get into the silverish black and white world and make that almost wall calendar size to ejoy the incredible photographs of this guy. I have it on my coffee table and it is such a delight to go into this gallery of pages and look at the beauty of the male nude figure. For the price you get more than what you pay for. Get it indeed!



3. Arnold has created a distinctive collection of male nude photography. It's a simple format: usually one black and white photo per page, one model per photo, and a blank background. There is nothing here but the male figure, presented in a sculptural, or even architectural style.
   
   The models are split between lighter and darker skin tones. Although it's the same male frame underneath, light plays differently on that superficial difference, something that Arnold has captured skillfully. Other than their coloring, though, the models tend towards a common look: twenty-something, body-builders' figures, and sleek surfaces. Somehow, more mature figures and even moderate body hair seem hard to render with elegance, so Arnold hasn't tried. That smoothness works well in many of the more abstract compositions, however, inviting comparisons between sculpture in marble, metal, and male substance. It also invites comparison to the female figure - even when a photographer emphasizes the corresponding strength and grace in women, the result is very different.
   
   Arnold addresses only a narrow and unusual range of men's appearances. Within that range, he succeeds in showing the strength and beauty of the human male animal, and I find myself surprised at having to use the word "beauty" in describing these figure studies. I don't often have much response to a man's appearance; when I do, I rarely go beyond the word "handsome." Ordinary words just don't work for the these extraordinary figures and extraordinary renderings of them. This book is truly about beauty in its most masculine form.
   
   //wiredweird

4 comments about Love Letters, Lost.

1. The beauty of this book, beyond the romantic nostalgia inspired by vintage photographs and handwritten letters, is that it is a collection created from discarded or "lost" memorabilia. The images and letters were once, we can reasonably believe, very important to the anonymous beholder before they were set adrift in estate sales, flea markets, and junk stores. The author performs a service of social research and cultural reclamation by taking these things in, preserving them, and creating an outlet for them to be rediscovered by other people. I highly recommend this book for anyone at all interested in being part of that process or anyone who is moved by the sentimentality of others.



2. So I received this book as a gift, and so I can't hate it too much. I did not know that I could collect a bunch of nostalgia, throw it all in a messy anthology with some random pictures of old couples and make some money. Maybe I should try it. I wouldn't consider these 'love letters' per say, because most of them are just from ordinary people chronicling their mundane lives to someone who will listen. When you buy this book you turn into that someone.
   
   Lesson is that nothing's changed over the years. There's no magic in this collection, just a bunch of hodge podge. Cute though. Some are a bit witty, some whiny, most just plain BORING. A sweet little novelty, nothing great.



3. I like looking at old pictures and old letters, but I thought when I bought the book that I would actually be looking in the history of someone's life with pictures to go with it but that was not the case. It is just a random bunch of pictures and a random bunch of letters put together in a book. The pictures aren't necessarily the pictures of the people who wrote the letters, so you know nothing of the authors, no explanation of the times they lived in or the place they lived in or anything. In other words, no story behind it whatsoever. Just a disappointing collection.



4. Another beautiful contribution by this author. Love letters to make you weep, smile, laugh and imagine . . . or remember . . . how it feels to love and be loved.

1 comments about Face Time.

1. I purchased this book for a good friend of mine who loves looking at
   other peoples faces and studying them. She has traveled quite a bit and has met a lot of people. She loved this book and spent a lot of time reading over what the author had to say about his photographs.

5 comments about PhotoArt: Darkroom, Digital, Handcoloring, Montage.

1. This is a great book, full of practical guidance, inspirational ideas and impressive/intriguing images produced by the authors (all in about equal measure). Just as one simple illustration of the scope covered, there are example images throughout the book taken using conventional film cameras (old and new, in several different formats), pinhole cameras and digital cameras, plus others generated via photograms and from digital scanners when used as "cameras". Further, the book even includes work based on the use of found-object photographic originals (old magic lantern slides). The mixed media artwork described in the book all uses conventional photography as its basis: but, as I counted, about fifteen different techniques are outlined (sic) by which added media can be incorporated into the final presentation of the image itself. And my count doesn't include a separate section which encourages the printing of images onto bolts or segments of fabric (using tee-shirt transfer film, for example). Finally, at the very end of the book, there's a short chapter focused on depicting the passage of time via still images. Personally I feel that this is one of the truly under-explored "provinces" of contemporary creative photography - particularly given all of the digital toolkits that are available today. About the only reason for an aspiring fine art photographer not to buy this book would be if he or she wanted to find specific detailed routines for the use of Photoshop or similar photo-editing software. In that circumstance, it might be best to purchase a companion handbook, just dealing with the basic application(s) of the software by itself. But then again, he or she could wait until the author's newer book "Digital Photo Art" becomes available in the U.S. (currently it can only be found in the U.K.) ...



2. I expected to get more than ideas, but that all you'll find in this Tory Worobiec book. Very few details on how-to, and most are topics already covered in previous books.



3. Unique treatment of possibilities attainable in print and digital photography. With the digital format seemingly assigned the future in impressionistic photography, this book treats both (to me) equally vital. High quality throughout, presents a challenge to match the abundant beautiful images pervading these pages.



4. This book is aimed at the photographer who wants to go beyond "straight" photography and into the realm of the other visual artistic media. It does this by describing a number of different techniques less commonly used by photographers that can be applied to photographic images.

   The techniques explored range from the traditional like multiple exposure and toning to what some might consider more avant-garde, like photograms, which are images made on photo-sensitive media without a camera, and distressed images, that is, those deliberately subjected to destructive forces. The authors recognize that the mechanics of photography are in flux and so refer to both chemical darkrooms and digital manipulation.

   This is more of an idea book than a how-to book. The descriptions of most of the techniques are cursory. If one wanted to use a technique in connection with one's photography, one would probably have to do additional research. In addition, the number of examples provided in the book is necessarily limited to about a half dozen for each technique. For me, with the exception of some approaches of which I had already been thinking, that was not enough for me to see how I could apply the procedures to my own photography.

   Of course, that may be a major problem with a catalogue of unusual procedures. It is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to explain how to extend one's vision so that these techniques will prove useful. I suspect that one must already have both a full understanding of, and a deep dissatisfaction with, the traditional techniques of photography as a method of expressing one's vision. If that is true of a photographer, he or she is probably already thinking about how to change the form to express his or her vision. In that case, this volume might provide a few useful ideas.




5. Collaboratively written by photography experts Tony Worobiec and Ray Spence, Photo Art: Darkroom, Digital, Handcoloring, Montage is enhanced with two hundred color and twenty-five black & white illustrations. Photo Art is more than a just another photography collection -- it is a carefully organized and effectively presented step-by-step instructional manual which is ideal for novice photographers seeking to create art through the use of their cameras, as well as an outstanding educational resource appropriate for even experienced photographers as it provides technical know-how, advice, tips, tricks, and techniques concerning both traditional and digital working methods for taking pictures which rise to the high esthetic standards of fine art. The eye-catching full-color photographs and extensive suggestions for light, border, distinctive contrast in subject material and much more fill this memorable guide.

2 comments about Philadelphia Then and Now: 60 Sites Photographed in the Past and Present.

1. The pictorial review was vivid and dynamic. It brought back sweet memories of growing up in Philadelphia



2. This book isn't big (128 pages), and it isn't that wordy (about 80% of the pages are taken up with pictures). But it is fascinating if you like Philadelphia, and you like history.

   This book takes 60 locations and has pictures of them. The first part is an "early" picture anywhere from 1859-1952. Then there's a picture on the next page which is more modern (1986-1988). There's also a paragraph or so with each picture describing the area as it was in the old days, and now (the book was published in 1988). If you know the areas well, it's a wonderful jog down memory lane for one's own memory.

   It's a very fast read - I got through the entire thing cover to cover in well under an hour. I also wished the pictures (the modern ones anyway, the old time ones can't be helped) were in color, but other than that, it was rather enjoyable. If you're a fan of Philadelphia, and history, I recommend it.

   I gave it four stars instead of 5 because of the B/W color thing, and when I was finished with it, I wished there were far more locations covered.

2 comments about Helmut Newton: Pola Woman (Schirmer Art Books on Art, Photography & Erotics).

1. The man virtually invented modern high-class fashion erotica. If there is another photographer who did it better, earlier, please let me know so I can acquire that person's work as well. The book in question here features reproductions of Polaroids from throughout Newton's career that served as "sketches" for some of his finished work. Some of them have text magic-markered on the margins, and many are accompanied by some sort of charming reminiscence by the photographer. They show how much work went into some of Newton's iconic photos, and conversely, how he could take advantage of the moment and get a unique shot when fortunate enough.
   
   What a life! Many a man would love to have lived Helmut Newton's life, but I doubt many would be suave enough to pull it off. You walk away from this book with the impression that Newton was dedicated to his craft, but at the same time managed to have more fun than many people will ever even read about.



2. This well produced book offers that rare opportunity for us to see some of the "studies' that leads up to the defining newton final print. The graphic compositions and the icy allure of his statuesque heroine is unmistakable. Polawoman covers both newton's personal work as well as many of his fashion masterpieces, particularly from the daring pages of the late '70's french vogue. A fascinating book for any Newton fan with many of the polaroids having witty and revealing notes scribbled over them.