Themes Books

In this age of digital consciousness it is almost impossible to comprehend how an artist like Kim Murray can draw these images in all their details and textures. The ornate and lush style of the illustrations are a meditation that one willingly surrenders to- a collection of mandala- like imagery that is a feast for the eye and the heart. The print quality of Illuminations is also extraordinary- this book is an incredible deal at this price!

I just reread the Bhagavad Gita and I am in love with it! Then I went hunting for an illustrated edition and this little (purse-size) volume is perfect!!!! (I want a large edition of now.) The art is gorgeous and the passages have been thoughtfully chosen to give the reader the essentials of the Gita.

This book is a beautifully illustrated book with colorful pictures and beautiful language. It makes you want to be in key with god.

This book was given to me as a child. It is one of the most beautifully illustrated books that I've ever seen. The text is highlights from the Bhagavad Gita which is spiritual based. There are beautiful, large full page detailed color pictures on at least every other page! The opposite pages also all have illustrations on them. If you like India art, this book is a must have in your collection.

An integral part of every science fiction and fantasy convention are the costumes that the fans create imitating their favorite characters from literature, pop culture, films, and television shows. Funny, thoughtful, irreverent, and occasionally iconoclastic, "Imposters" is a compilation of full-color photographs of some truly memorable examples of fan costuming presented with a one page bio of the man or woman who has (and rather successfully) sought to emulate a particular character with precise attention to detail. From Superman; Wonder Woman; and Spiderman; to Elvis; Bugs Bunny; and Homer Simpson, "Imposters" offers a roster of examples that might well serve as a template for other enthusiasts as to what they might do. "Imposters" is a unique contribution to academic and community library Popular Culture reference collections, and a whole lot of fun for non-specialist general browsers who have ever dressed up for Halloween, SciFi, or costume party events!

IMPOSTERS is a collection of photographs with commentary taken from life on Hollywood Boulevard, in Hollywood. For years all manner of people have, for various reasons not the least of which is the money in tips they enjoy, dressed as famous stars or characters from the movies, parading up and down Hollywood Boulevard, preening for the tourists, and acting out fantasies of their own. Photographer James Knoblauch has captured 36 of these `imposters', people of all types who daily don the garb of famous figures and walk the Boulevard in a particular type of performance art! Not only is the experience of viewing this book entertainingly funny, but it is also touching. It is very Hollywood in every sense of the connotation.

Knoblauch interviewed and made formal photographs of these 36 'actors' in their own spaces. The brilliantly colorful photographs are posed, yes, but then that is in keeping with the concept of being an imposter. The characters range from Marilyn Monroe, Mae West, Lucille Ball, Jimi Hendrix, Austin Powers, and of course Elvis Presley, to comic creations such as Bugs Bunny, the Simpsons, Sponge Bob, Shrek, Yoda, Chewbacca, the Hulk, Batman, Superman, Captain America and Spiderman, to Freddy Kreuger, Jack Sparrow from the `Pirates of the Caribbean', Wolverine, Snow White and yes, more. The images are full of life and are allowed the honor of a full page format, opposite which is a brief question and answer blurb that includes the artists' hometowns/countries, background, education, motivation for being an Imposter, the money they make - all tidbits that unveil the person beneath the costume.

At the beginning of the book is a fine essay by Shawna Kenny who grew up not far form Hollywood Boulevard and has realtime experience in observing and getting to know these `imposters'. Her insights into the lifestyles of the various characters and the whole business of working the Boulevard as an actor is as humorous as it is informative. The essay is illustrated by some street shots of the imposters in action. At the close of the book Kenny's interview with filmmaker David Markey sheds even more light on the concept of the Imposters and their place in the landscape of Hollywood.

This is a beautifully designed, coffee table book (in the best sense of the term) that is guaranteed to entertain and inform - a book no Los Angeles dweller should be without and a genuine memento from the glitzy space we know as Hollywood. And it is all true! Grady Harp, April 08

This book is a fascinating look at the people behind the masks. Shawna Kenney's words take us beyond the mask and give us a unique insight into the people behind the mask. James Knoblauch's idea to take the photos away from Hollywood Blvd. was inspired and give us a new view of the people behind the masks.

I have been to Hollywood on vacation a few times so I am one of those people who always enjoyed seeing the "Imposters". I never really thought of them as scary but I never had my picture taken with them either. I preferred to enjoy them from afar.

The thing is I never really gave them any thought after I left Hollywood Blvd.

Thank you both for a book well done. I will try to give more thought to all those people behind masks now, like the person handing me my fries at Burger King or the boy packing my groceries at the store. We all come out from behind the mask when we get home, don't we?

Photographer James Knoblauch writes: "When I first saw the Imposters, I loved how they fit the Hollywood landscape. Their costumes were faded [I might say, "as faded as their dreams"] and they blended in with the blue sky, white concrete and dirty air." He adds, "These characters work on Hollywood Boulevard, posing for pictures with tourists in the hope of receiving a tip. For the most part, the Imposters are actors who prefer the idea of working the street over working in a restaurant."

Call it Hollywood Americana, call it panhandling in a Mickey Mouse costume, call it pathetic, or maybe call it love. Knoblauch decided to take his camera deeper into the lives of these denizens outside the studio door--outside, but still living, The Dream.

There's Gil Gex who plays Jimi Hendrix in a costume his girl friend made in 1985. Knoblauch photographed him in his apartment with his guitar, headband, yellow shirt, black pants, plastic green watch band, sitting on his bed with a small silver TV on a chair next to it.

There's also Michael A. Luce who impersonates Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow from the "Pirates" movies, who says the best part of the job is "getting a kiss on the lips." He claims he gets lots of dates "and some have gone 100%." The belt for his costume "is the bed sheet from the motel where I live."

Christopher Lloyd Dennis is caught in front of a wall of his Superman memorabilia sporting his Superman costume, the tights, the cape, the augmented biceps, holding a green rock. He says his "Hardest earned tip" was "$30 for lifting a 300-pound woman at the request of her husband."

Batman (Max Allen) seems upscale almost in his plant festooned pad among some wicker furniture. He says, "I've had 4 or 5 fights. Sometimes guys get drunk and want the reputation of beating up Batman. But I'm a martial artist." While in costume he claims to have caught "2 purse-snatchers, 1 shoplifter, and 1 assailant."

Who says the Hollywood dream is out of reach?

The photos of the Imposters are full page glossies and there are 35 of them, including a not exactly fetching "Marilyn Monroe" (Melissa Weiss), a very ugly Homer Simpson (Uchenda) in white briefs over yellow leggings, a formidable Mae West (Shelley Johnson), and on and on. Each photo reveals through the pointed eye and selective brain of the photographer something about the Imposter, caught, as it were, in his or her own lair. The dirty rugs, the smashed lamp shade, the peeling paint, the cheap little electric fan on the opened window seal. Knobaugh shows us more than their dreams: he rubs our noses in the very stuff of their lives.

There's text by writer Shawna Kenney and her interview with David Markey who has made a movie about the Imposters entitled "Reinactors: What's So Famous about Being a Star?"

Buzz Poole, managing editor at Mark Batty Publishers provides a short introduction.

In the South of France, by Don Krohn, is so much more than a book of beautiful photographs. I was drawn into the book by the luscious color plates, eager to see what this famous land - the south of France - looked like. Page after page, rolling sunlit landscapes and intimate private moments delighted my painter's eye and wanderlust! But upon entering into the narrative that accompanies the photographs, I became enthralled with a sense of the day-to-day life there as it was revealed in the pages, and I found many passages that went from poetic to descriptive to profound. I had a lot to ponder as I again meandered through the photographs, choosing a few favorites that still beckon me to the south of France. Mr. Krohn was able to bring the area to life for me both visually and intellectually, even though I have never been there!

Photographer Don Krohn's rich palette and unique vision are highlights of this volume. From abstract landscapes to witty village scenes, he reveals an intimate knowledge of this legendary place. His preface demonstrates a sweeping knowledge of the history of Provence and also reveals something of how an artist approaches a new subject. His generous selection of quotes by various artists and authors adds to our appreciation of the many qualities of this beautiful spot. A great gift or mini-vacation for the coffee table.

What a remarkable and brilliant collection of photos are included in this beautiful new book! I don't usually go for the photo gift book, but this is like nothing I've ever seen. Each photo captures some wonderful moment of the French landscape, whether it be a natural or built one. I loved the way Krohn understands the color and shapes of any one of his photographs-they really become a bit like abstract paintings at times. The section of quotations by a variety of authors (from Robert Stevenson to MFK Fisher) placed at the start of the book is a wonderful treat. A perfect book for the holiday season.

I received this elegant and enjoyable book as a gift and will surely buy it in the future to give to friends. The photographs offer glimpses of the deep beauty and daily life of the south of France, and the graceful text adds personal, historic and artistic background - a rare combination from one artist.

Jeff Wolin's fifty energetic interviews and stunning portraits provide the reader with unsparing accounts of combat and its aftermath. There is much grit and blood here: A man recalls being shot, grenaded, left in a rice paddy. Another finds the heads of three American's on stakes. He kills the murderer's with his bare hands. A nurse tells of seeing a Buddhist monk self-immolating. She cannot understand such things. A veteran blinded by Agent Orange relates his anti-war point-of-view. A handsome ex-POW evades the question of bombing Hanoi's civilians, but speaks of his torture by a man called the Bug. Freed, the POW has only praise for the disgraced Richard Nixon. A decorated African American recalls the unbridled racism he encountered upon coming home. A soft spoken battle surgeon laments the casualties he treated and the anti-war demonstrators who plucked him from his car and beat him. A well known writer describes the day after a battle: "The sun came up and the smoke cleared and the dew burned off. There was meat all over everything. All around the perimeter it was meat. And the wood line...looked like ruined drapes." Here is war as it is and not as we think or hope or want it to be. Wolin's splendid photographs illuminate these sometimes sad and sometimes brutal, and other times redemptive, and sometimes strange, but always unforgetable 'inconvenient stories'. The book is unputdownable.

Featuring an informative essay by Rod Stemmons (Director of the Museum of Contemporary Photography) and an Afterword by Senator Richard G. Lugar (U.S. Senator for Indiana), Jeffrey Wolin's "Inconvenient Stories: Vietnam War Veterans" pairs brief biographical sketches with full color photos of a series of Vietnam War veterans who endured the horrors of that divisive war and came home to a troubled America that wanted to forget that national tragedy and the men who fought it out in our name. What the reader is so aptly presented are small, personalized snap-shots of a long-lost conflict - but one that has resonating lessons whose suppression or wilful disregard has led us into continued military quagmires that are today giving birth to a new generation of veterans. "Inconvenient Stories: Vietnam War Veterans" is important, informative, and timely reading - telling stories that should not be forgotten so that contemporary conflicts and future military engagements and their aftermath be taken with a great deal more candor, national discussion, and competency that was the Vietnam War.

I am a Vietnam veteran. I was wounded in the chest and shoulder by machine gun fire during the war. Occasionally people will ask me what movie or book would give them the best picture of what it was like. Until I read this book there really was nothing I could recommend.
Wolin let the veterans do the talking. You could smell that he wasn't trying to put words in their mouths. He had no agenda and that made all the difference.
I read it at one sitting. It rang true.

Jeffrey Wolin is a talented and lauded photographer who has a keen interest in oral history documentation. A few years ago Wolin elected to pursue a project to record the thoughts and reflections of Vietnam Veterans and in the Foreword of this impressive book Rod Slemmons (the Director of the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art) quotes Wolin's intentions: 'I hope that my photographs and interviews will make a contribution to our understanding of how the trauma of war affects combatants, and civilians caught in the literal and philosophical crossfire. Many important issues of war and peace emerge in the stories of these veterans and in the portraits themselves. Many veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Some still wear their Vietnam War medals. Some fight for veteran's medical issues or make art or write books about their experiences. Others have found ways to put their experiences behind them, often with significant struggle, and to successfully return to civilian life. All were deeply and permanently affected by the war, but the majority are proud of their service.'

What follows are full-page color portraits of fifty widely dissimilar veterans accompanied on the opposite page by an interview conducted by Wolin. Reading the content of each veteran as we stare at their experience worn faces makes a tremendous impact, a first hand sharing with thoughts about war that might never have surfaced had Wolin not had the bravery and delicacy of approach needed to gather this oral and visual history. This book will affect every reader and hopefully will add fodder to the concept that war is simply not a solution. Wounds heal at varying rates and with varying scars. Here are fifty examples worth examining. Grady Harp, February 07

A quick impression of the photographs by Lueders-Booth might cause one to remember conversations about 'colonialist gaze' and other such Postmodernist concerns with the representation of foreign cultures. The photographs, however, are much to powerful and engaging to be defeated by such narrow arguments. They present the people of Tijuana, Mexico, living in and around the large municipal dumps that surround their town. Children play, adults search for valuables or burn wood, while makeshift cemeteries are created from scraps and a broken baby crib.

There is a sense in all of these images that there is nothing foreign here at all. In truth, Tijuana is but a stone's throw from the U.S. border, and there is little about these people or their lives that cannot be found inside our borders. They are the faces of poverty, of destitution, and their representation here makes them doubly powerful as symbols of repressive capitalism and the victims of economic oppression.

If it's true that one picture is worth a thousand words, then Jack Lueders-Booth presents us with a 69,000 word book that you can finish in less time than it takes to read the last night's box scores--or that you can linger over in wonder, page by page, giving yourself over to each, and to the stories implicit in each, for many minutes at a time.

The border has become the topic du jour, and by now the very word border conjures up a reality apart from what, for most of us, is daily life. It's not a particularly evocative or unsettling image, the border, when referring to the dividing line between Italy and Switzerland, or Uruguay and Brazil, or even between two countries claiming, with occasional cross-border skirmishes to italicize those claims, each a piece of the other.

But talk of the border here and it's one and only one you mean and you cross it, north to south, at your own psychic risk. Fictional characters have been discovering it as far back at least as D.H. Lawrence and as recently as Cormac McCarthy, and as actual characters have learned, and continue to learn every day.

Ambrose Bierce was probably not the first and Jack Lueders-Booth will surely not be the last--but Jack's is just as surely as stunning a document of that mythic crossing as we're likely to get.

Now, mythology tells us that heaven belongs to god, hell to the devil, and the borderlands, the wastelands, the shantytowns, the DMZ's, the dumping grounds, the scabby, toxic, orphaned frontier places neither flanking country will acknowledge as its own--these belong to neither the one nor the other but to the trickster.

Call him Hermes. Call him Legba or Exu. Call him Coyote or Lord of the Crossroads. They are one and the same for all their many names. And the Tijuana dumps in "Inherit the Land" seem to have been the classic trickster crossroads for Professor Lueders-Booth.

For it was here that the god unblocked the path to a reality other visitors, perhaps, have experienced, but whose visionary intensity no one's camera ever captured quite this splendidly before.

McCarthy's border trilogy is a masterpiece of modern American prose. Luis Urrea's "Across the Wire," "By the Lake of Sleeping Children," and, now, "Inherit the Land"-is no less a masterpiece trilogy of modern American prose and photography.

Now, we often hear photographers--those who poke their lenses into the sores of the world, that is--accused of aestheticizing their subjects. Yet the poet Rilke tells us that in beauty is the beginning of terror. And the formal beauty of these pictures serve, to my eyes at least, to expose, not distract from, the terror--the terror and the humanity both. And expose them not once, but time and again, keeping them, as only great art can do, fresh, the pain and the beauty just as revelatory on the twentieth viewing, or the hundredth, as on the first.

Anything, however initially exotic or extreme, appalling or enchanting, becomes familiar over time. And while it doesn't necessarily breed contempt, familiarity usually breeds, even worse, complacency and indifference, even oblivion. Oblivion literally in that we forget what first surprised, engrossed, appalled, and bewitched.

"What surprised, appalled, engrossed, bewitched me when I first went to live and work in Calcutta--yet another world," in the words of Luis Alberto Urrea's Introduction, "of stench and dirt and mangled dogs and untouchables--became old hat, hardly noticeable, six months down the line. Even three."

It's up to the artist to keep the knife-edge of perception, reaction and emotion sharp. And that knife's edge is as sharp, in "Inherit the Land," as the light of Mexico itself.

This book by Lueders-Booth was one of the 10 best of last year as rated by American Photo. I take their recommendations with a grain of salt, but this is really first rate documentary photography. Lueders Booth has such respect for his subjects who are struggling to live--with some grace--under the most difficult circumstances. He never
milks the situation, which so many photographers do today. He's also a photographer's photographer. His way of relating people to their environment is informative, moving, and memorable. The images stay with you. This is a book to own and live with. I can't recommend it more highly

A moving essay about the families living on the dumps of Tijuana by a courageous and talented photographer. Every single photograph is testament to the photographer's commitment to bring us closer to the circumstances of their lives. The portraits are poignant, honest, and beautiful.

Beautiful pictures (tho not as stunning as 2004) and inspiring words. Love that each page has a picture. Can't wait to order 2007 calendar.

"Inner Reflections Engagement Calender 2006" is filled with the writings of Paramahansa Yogananda. Each week of 2006 is being presented with words ringing in truth and wisdom. Furthermore, the illustrations which accompany these priceless comments, makes this calender an inspiration for all. Additionally, the words are subtly relevant to each painting and picture. This gently forces the reader to probe deeper into the meaning of these words by Yogananda.

Lastly, towards the end of the calender, there is an option for the reader to fill in important numbers and names of his/her closest associates. Thus, this beautiful and inspiring calender acts like a "mini" diary as well!

This is one of the most beautiful and inspirational calendars I have ever seen. Each page could easily be used as a focus for daily meditation. Wonderful!

I have been buying the Inner Reflections calendars for years. There is an incredibly beautiful picture and spiritual insight on the page facing each week. You find yourself looking at that picture and the words under it each day as you go through your week. Long after the year is over, you will keep and treasure what the calendar contains. I recommend this calendar for anyone who needs a little serenity in their hectic, stressful daily life.

Any fostering an interest in Irish history, culture and peoples will relish the gorgeous blend of color photos and cultural insights to be had from IRELAND: STANDING STONES TO STORMONT. From names and places to Irish legends, mysticism, and peoples, IRELAND captures all this during the author's personal journey through the country, surveying both links to ancient history - architecture, ruins, heritage sites - and modern landscape alike. The author's first-person insights contribute a lovely blend of travelogue and survey. IRELAND could've just as easily been featured in our arts or travel sections, but is reviewed here for its wide-ranging appeal across boundaries, defying categorization.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

The Irish people thrive in two worlds: the earthly and the divine, folklore and the present. To understand today's Irish, one begins in the past with their rich world of mythology. Ancient stories shaped the landscape, as much as they were wrought from it, and remain integrated into the everyday lives of a people who are unalterably tied to their land and generations. Kumpf retells the old stories, while revealing their modern-day form with superb photographs. Like all good art books, you may open it to any page or absorb it from cover to cover. It's a history lesson, cultural survey, and a bit of a tour book rolled into one.

Ireland: Standing Stones to Stormont is more than a "coffee table book." It's a reference filled with dozens of gorgeous photographs of Ireland. But it's also a collection of legends, lore and personal experiences of author Kumpf. I was compelled to read every page, astonished by the incredible pictures and entertained by stories about Irish history, faeries . . . even hazel nuts (my favorite story in the book). Yes, I proudly display this book on my coffee table. And I visit it a lot!

I have read several books on Ireland and this one is my favorite so far. He not only gives you information about Irish history; but, does so in a way that really makes you feel as though you were there. His respect for the heritage, traditions and legends was what I found most enjoyable. Ireland is a country rich in so many ways. It's beauty and stories I never tire of reading or hearing. Tom Kumpf has created a fabulous book which brings out the magic of this wonderful place.

Photographer Lorenzo Gomez and publisher Bruno Gmunder make a very good fit: Gomez knows how to create full body bulk with luminous lighting and Bruno Gmunder is as superb as any publisher at bringing the finest quality of color photography in the business. Long a proponent of capturing the physicality of the male physique, Lorenzo Gomez has assembled a group of perfectly sculpted body builders, placed them in context with machinery, pipes, ladders, ropes, leather aprons, and other paraphernalia of the hot work place, and in doing so he has blended the male machine with the work machine into a series of sensual poses that while reminiscent of the early 20th century Physique Photos are by nature of his models very contemporary.

Interestingly Gomez more often than not elects to bypass total nudity with quasi-nude choices, and as has been an accepted art stratagem for centuries, a bit of cover makes his models even more erotic. If there is a constant in these lush color photographs aside from the theme of 'iron', it is the use of light: his light source always appears to be the sun from all portions of the day. The result is a soft golden ambience that illuminates these body builders and brings them down to earth - in the best sense of the term.

Though this portfolio has an obvious captive audience, the casual browser will find much to entice the eye in this fine body of work! Grady Harp, November 05

Iron Men by Lorenzo Gomez is spectacular! There is not as much full-frontal nudity as one might typically expect in this genre of book but that in no way diminishes the magnificent photography and selection of models. The choice of men that appear in Iron Men is outstanding - well developed specimens of all that is naturally male and wonderfully athletic. It might be easy to create a photospread of men posing around an industrial site but to do so without appearing "queerly campy" takes real artistic talent! Iron Men achieves this and celebrates the incredible beauty of the male form as art. Lorenzo Gomez is the kind of creative master for whom professional cameras are made.

Lorenzo Gomez is well known for photographing Latino men in books & calendars and bringing out their sensuality and sexuality. In this book he doesn't disappoint as this is another top-notch collection of photos that showcase his incredible talent and the beauty of his models. As in his other book, the now out-of-print "Dios Latino", he photographs his subjects in a variety of poses wearing overalls, work boots etc. set to an industrial backdrop. This book is a little different as there IS full-frontal nudity, something that "Dios Latino" did not have. This is a great collection of photographs and a testament to Lorenzo Gomez's photographic talent.

If you are in the mood for a collection of photos of magnificent men this is the book to buy. You will find yourself lingering over each picture, and if you have a truly vivid imagination, you can create for yourself a fantasy about each of the hotties in this book that should take you to the edge of total satisfaction. WOOF!

I have been a collector of pottery for years. I own several pieces of Iznik pottery because I find the artistry superb.

My husband gave me this book for Christmas and I have been learning so much more about the pieces I own, the culture behind them, the motifs, etc. The photos in the book and the quality of the print process and binding are fabulous.

I am now proud to display this book on the table beside my pottery collection.

If you are a lover of beautiful art, a student of Ottoman culture or just a fan of gorgeous books... Do not think twice. This book s a wonderful publication!

This is the authoritative work on the magnificent ceramics and tilework of 16th century Ottoman Turkey, one of the high points of Islamic art. Beautiful photographs; informative, readable text.

The book tells a fascinaing story,accompnied by beautifully presented colour plates of work done by skilled 16th century craftsmen. Some of the pieces and tilework can still be seen in Istanbul today.

I'm not a fan of art or religion, I'm a practical sort of girl. I took a class on Islamic art though, and found myself fascinated by Ottoman ceramics. Finding this book in the library, I sat down and flipped through it, and to my surprise, found myself crying. Crying, because everything in this book was so beautiful. I've never done that before. I have to buy this book. I must own this. I've never felt so moved by anything my whole life, and I don't say that lightly. The photographs are exquisite, the details visible are finer than the unaided eye can see. The colors are beyond words. The historical context presented is well-written, interesting and exciting. I told my teacher after the class that she'd opened the door to a whole new world for me, and this book just blew that door off its hinges.

Buy this book.

I bought the book to learn more about Jack's photo sytle and techniques (because I plan to do a workshop with him this Spring), but the book hasn't left our coffee table. Everyone loves it. Big, beautiful photos. If only I could....

My wife and I have lived in Arizona for over 20 years (we're native New Englanders). This book perfectly captures the beauty of our wonderful adopted state. I'll have to buy another copy soon as my son keeps borrowing it!

Jack Dykinga is, in all likelihood, the only photographer to have already won a Pulitzer Prize before finding his photographic calling. That was in Chicago, before his 1976 "leave of absence" to Tucson. Before the "leave" became a "move." Before his switch from B&W film to color transparencies, and from 35mm to 4x5 view cameras. Before the desert got under his skin, along with the writings of Ed Abbey and Everett Ruess. Before Arizona was, as it is now, home.

25 years later, Jack has, in his eighth book, finally produced a large format photographic tribute devoted exclusively to his adopted home state. To Arizona's incredible rock formations, and the incredibly delicate flowers that border them. To the cacti, agave and octillo that abound. To the water, and the areas that are beautiful precisely because they lack water. And, most of all, to light. Most people would count themselves fortunate indeed to witness such moments of ephemeral light on even a handful of occasions. Frozen on these pages, there are dozens.

The 4x5 Arca Swiss and Wista view cameras and Schneider lenses with which Jack works produce tack-sharp images. They also produce very large images, more than 1300% greater than a 35mm chrome or negative. Thus, Jack's photos have been enlarged only minimally in this book, and the effect is stunning. As you initially turn each page while progressing through the book, it will probably be a rainbow with lightning, or a foreground saguaro framing a twin on a distant hill, or a juxtaposition of light and shadow that initially quickens your breath and pauses your hands on any given page. But after pausing, you will linger to marvel at the visible spines on a cactus, the sand grains on a dune, or the individual trees visible in a distant forest. The vistas are sweeping, but the details are not neglected.

I own hundreds of large format nature photography books and have read hundreds more, but take the time to review very few. "Arizona," however, is special, even in a state with an exceptional history of producing talented artists and stirring photographic monographs. Among Jack's books (all of which I own), this is my favorite save only "Desert: The Mojave and Death Valley," and I suspect it would surpass even that work in my mind if I were not a native Californian. The book was plainly not rushed, whether in conception, production, or presentation. It shows a clarity of vision beyond coincidental pairings of serendipitous or "pretty" photos. This is the work of a man that knew exactly what he wanted, set out to find it, and kept at it until not just an image or two, but the breadth of his intent, was "in the can." Characteristically erudite observations on the Grand Canyon State by Jack's longtime collaborator and essayist Chuck Bowden serve as the unifying, and finishing, touch.

I have had the pleasure of photographing in the field with Jack, and of conversing with him about a wide range of subjects both photographic and non-. He is an extraordinarily talented and generous photographer, and a passionately outspoken advocate for the natural world (particularly his beloved southwestern deserts). We are all fortunate to have him laboring on our behalf. The purchasers and recipients of this book are, in turn, fortunate to have such a marvelous testament to that labor. You will not find a book with a finer display of Arizona's natural beauty. Because, quite simply, there isn't one.

This is easily one of the finest books of landscape photography that I have ever seen. Dykinga has a brilliant eye and fantastic technique, but what really makes this book stand out is the quality of the printing (done in China, by the way). I would be pleased to get photographic prints of my own work that are as good as the prints contained herein. Dykinga's previous book, "Desert," is extraordinary, and I heartily recommend it, but "Arizona" somehow manages to top it.