Portraits and Photos Books

Bunny Yeager is a photographer active in the field to this day, capturing images of women outdoors and indoors. Her photos sold before she even graduated from photography school and she never had any troubles selling her works: FEMMES FATALES OF THE 1950S presents full-page black and white photos of her captivating images and is a 'must' for any collection strong in pin-up art.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

van Stralen has assembled a gorgeous collection of nudes. Students from the Academy of Dance in Arnheim model for him, so they are not just young and athletic figures. They have exceptional command over their bodies as well, so they create and hold poses that not many other models could even think of.

Some of these images, reminiscent of Weston's, present elegant, angular geometries in terms of the model's native curves (e.g. p.9,103), a pleasing visual paradox. Others (p.33) expand those curves, at every level from a flexing arm or sweep of bust, up to graceful arcs the whole length of her body. Then there are pictures that simply baffle, at first glance: multiple bodies (p.30), dramatic highlights (p.35), or seemingly impossible geometries (p.44,81). More than other photographers, van Stralen makes use of a model's hair in his compositions. Some times, it seems like a mask, to preserve the privacy of her face (p.20) or to provide compositional contrast against her skin tone (p.80). Other times (p.37) her hair becomes a major theme of the photo, or (p.42,98) a soft and flowing texture to set off the precise engineering of the model's muscled frame. Pregnancy's rich curves add unique sensuality to a few of these images (e.g. p.72), as well.

van Stralen has an obvious passion for these figures - the biographical note says he often works with dancers and other artists. This work owes as much to the models as to him, though. These anonymous young women have clearly put their finest skills into creating sculptures from themselves, using trained knowledge of their athletic potential. This combination of form and vision works uncommonly well. I look forward to future collections of these artists' collaboration.

-- wiredweird

The entire collection of Magnum photo books are both magical, and inexpensive. Perhaps I'm biased, but I found this glimpse into the lives of the stars and starlets of screen, and stage most appealing. I'd highly reccomend any of the titles in tha Magnum library to anyone interested in history, and or photography.

I enjoyed the pictures in this book, does Ed have any other books of the same, as my friend is an retired Rodeo Clown and I have heard that Ed had taken some pictures of him over the years in Idaho, etc., how would I find out if there is another book, calendar, etc., Terry

When this book was published in 1997 Harry Benson had photographed every first family from the Kennedys to the Clintons. Here in this beautifull collection published by Bulfinch are some of his photographs from that time. He divides the book into Introduction with forewords by Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush; Presidents; First Ladies; First Families; Politics; The White House; and Private Lives. While many of the shots are formal portraits (for example, the series of portraits of first ladies, pp. 88-93 where Nancy Reagan in her [borrowed?] Galanos dress looks every inch an elegant queen) often shot for magazines, Benson managed to photograph many members of these families in informal settings. This is what endears the book to me and I suspect to other viewers as well. Jack and Susan Ford (p. 49) show off their youthful attractive bodies in bathing suits. President Reagan clad only in shorts, shoes and socks was caught hammering in a fence post (p.52). In the only shot of Lillian Carter in the book (p.61), she is wearing a headdress to prove that she was "chief" of the family. The first President Bush plays in a swimming pool with his cocker spaniel (p.63) in a shot that shows that he was far more handsome than any of his sons.) The photo of Virginia Kelly (p. 73) clutching a portrait of her baby son Bill Clinton reminded me that you have to love a woman who at her age wore those outrageous false eyelashes, probably the only thing unnatural about this outspoken mother. Benson caught Nancy Reagan (p. 76) on a moving bus during the presidential campaign in New Hampshire eating a sandwich. (Some of us thought she never ate since she remained so thin.) He also photographed Nixon in 1978 (p. 120) in San Clemente wearing the plaid blazer from hell. Surely Pat had nothing to do with purchasing that article of clothing. Benson also includes a closeup of the Reagans kissing, along with a shot of their impromptu dance (a photo we all saw in "Vanity Fair" in 1985.) Whatever your politics are or how you feel about the Reagans, you would be hard pressed to argue that they did not have a deep and abiding love that shines through in every photograph of them.

Mr. Benson provides commentary for each photograph, giving the date and occasion for taking the shot. He also includes a thoughtful introduction. Some of his conclusions: White house staff-members remember Mrs. Nixon as their favorite first lady. Benson found George Bush to be the nicest and that the Carters put on no airs. Why does this not surprise anyone? The fact that the photographer often had only ten minutes to work his magic with these first families and came away with these photographs bears witness to his genius.

This is the most delectable book you will ever read! It has 235 pages filled with beautiful photos of presidents and first ladies, furnishings, anecdotes, and best of all, mouth-watering recipes spanning from President Washington to Reagan. It tells charming stories about the president's lives, has photos of their homes, state china, copies of hand written letters, and beautifully set dinner tables. Each chapter has a lovely picture of the president and his first lady. It really is a delightful book filled with history -- and those recipes -- along with colored photos of the prepared food -- china and all! It is well worth purchasing. I recommend it highly (can't you tell!) Bon appetite!

FIRST SEEN is a brilliant traveling museum exhibition currently ensconced at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, an important collection of 250 photographs from the Wilson Centre for Photography in London accompanied by this magnificent catalogue by Kathleen Stewart Howe. This is a museum catalogue that is the equal to any book on photography on the market, not only because of the importance of the concept of the exhibition, but also because of the insightful narrative by Howe that leads us through the earliest forty years of the now prominent art form of photography.

The Portraits of the World's Peoples are not exactly superior art works technically, but the impact of the subject matter is compelling. Based of the photographs of mostly unknown photographers, these daguerreotypes (an early form of capturing images on light absorptive material that required enormous patience on the part of the sitter) are of people from every continent of the globe. They include wondrous profiles of American Indians, hooded monks, Victorian families complete with slaves, aborigines, the hairy people of Burma, Japanese ladies - many of the subjects could be replicas of sideshow participants were it not for the fact that they are compliant sitters for nascent photographers who hold them in great respect for their station and patience.

The result of this exhibition and catalogue is a reflection of life approaching 200 years ago: people in the now perceived primitive form are actually from a relatively recent past! The other phenomenon generated by this catalogue is an appreciation of an art form and its development to the present stage of highly scientific engineering. The power is in the faces and these faces will haunt you long after seeing the installation or the first reading of the magnificent book. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, September 05

As a huge fan not only of Estee Lauder but also of the magic of Victor Skrebneski's alliance with the Lauder empire over the course of 3 decades, this book is a revelation! The only glaring omission was that Paulina Porizkova, who was perhaps the most beautiful face Estee Lauder ever signed was not added to this re-released edition (even though the title would then be "Six Beautiful Women" but the name change would have been well worth it!). My only hope is that at some point, Victor and the Lauders' will see fit to publish a "sequel" in which Paulina's tenure with Estee Lauder will be pictorially documented.

My family and I really enjoyed looking at the pictures in this book. It is fantastic about the many horses. Great gift

Between 1996 and 2002, Fleur Olby illustrated all the articles I wrote for The Observer Magazine. Where her work is at it's very best, and where she stands out from any other plant photographer, is where the plant drifts away in it's abstraction. Invariably people would compliment me by saying my page 'looked' fantastic - and invariably it did because Fleur and the designer had made it so. Fleur, the editor and I would draw up a list of topics to cover over the coming month and we would work independently of each other, she taking the pictures and I writing the words. The first time I swathe pictures taken to accompany the piece was when I bought my copy of The Observer on a Sunday morning. It was a delight and a surprise.
Fleur has just published a collection of plant portraits called simply and aptly 'Fleur'. Quite a few of these pictures first appeared in The Observer, though there are plenty that I have not seen before, and this is the first time I have looked at her work without any connection to my own words. I can see now that I shackled her to the page.
Fleur's flowers often fall like watercolour onto the page, almost slipping away from their outline. The garden is left far behind and the pictures are more akin to looking down the lens of a microscope than swishing through a border. These are plants out of time and place, and locked into their own perpetual strangeness which, of course, they have always had, but which you had failed to notice in among all the gardening.
I am looking at a lisianthus, twisted twisted like a shell. Then there's a bearded iris (also purple - Fleur does purple especially well) whose petals loom, almost sinister, behind the beard that is caught in a patch of light. This small part of the flower - hardly more than a botanical marker in the garden - becomes the spotlit focus of the image and you realise you have never really looked at an iris at all.
I think my favourite picture is of a salvia which, at first glance, is almost a sketch or an impression caught in the wonderful, intense, pale-sky blue. It is not until you look closer and see the tiny hairs all up the plant that you realise this dreamy abstraction has been observed with the exactitude of a rare lepidopterous specimen.
Turn the page and there is a picture titled 'Red Rose Thorns'. These are the blood red thorns of Rosa sericea pteracantha, whose small flowers, born in late April, are white. The thorns are at their most translucently shocking on new growth, so one tends to prune it back in early spring to encourage vigorous new stems.
The downside of this is that the flower buds are formed from the previous seasons wood, so spring pruning removes them. In other words, you sacrifice the flowers for the thorns. To see the thorns - which is the reason I grow this fantastic rose - looking like this in my garden, they must be backlit, so it means looking at them in the evening. So these crimson flanges invariably come packaged with a low sun, weariness at the end of the day, the other familiar plants that accompany this particular bush, and even the cattle in the field the other side of the hedge. Fleur has ruthlessly excluded all of that and taken the plant back to the absolute essence, with it's vicious cleanness of line and shock of colour. It is just it's astonishing self with no history, no future and absolutely no horticulture, pinned to the page.

Monty Don. The Observer Magazine.16th October 2005.