Photography and photographs Books

Book SynopsisIn the summer of 1906, a Milwaukee businessman set out with his young sons and some friends to canoe and camp in the north woods of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Canada. It was the first of several month-long journeys Howard Greene and “The Gang” would make over the years, each detailed in remarkable, handmade journals and documented in hundreds of large-format photographs. Reproduced here with a large selection of photographs and maps, these journals convey readers into a riverine world of outdoor adventure—a northland wilderness and way of life that were, even as Howard Greene charted their genuine charms, already vanishing. Introduced and annotated by Greene’s daughter, these observant narratives run rapids and portage and paddle lakes and rivers, including the Chippewa, Wisconsin, St. Croix, and Presque Isle as well as traveling in areas now in Quetico Provincial Park and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Along the way Greene, a skilled photographer, captures images of logging and mining operations, primitive dams and even more primitive camping, trading posts, and many remote Native American villages. Through it all runs the story of family and friendship forged over campfires in the north woods, reported with dry wit, a keen eye for detail, and an abiding interest in the natural world.Composed decades before Sigurd Olson or Calvin Rutstrum began documenting the wild life of the upper Midwest, Howard Greene’s journals are a window into a world at once familiar and strange, the wilderness caught on the verge of becoming the North Woods we know today.Trade Review"Howard Greene’s narratives are not only a grand adventure but a rare glimpse of life along northern waterways during the early 1900s. His superb photographs have a haunting quality that betrays the radical environmental and social change that was to come. You can almost hear Kent Ryden’s ‘quiet human voices whispering in the landscape.’"—Mary Graves, chief of Cultural and Natural Resources, Voyageurs National Park"Border Country is evidence of the long sway wild places have had over our lives and imaginations. The pages you’re about to read are, in short, a testament: to both past and future wildernesses, and the ways we inhabit them. And are inhabited by them."—Peter Geye, from the Foreword"Although my stack of books sent to review already contains four others, the oversize book: Border Country dwarfed them all."—Anne Swenson, Ely Echo"Although the sepia-toned historical photos are the most compelling part of this volume, Greene’s tales of shooting rapids, surviving hailstorms and dodging log drives are engaging, as are her homelier depictions of packing lists and offspring."—Star Tribune"A deep and unparalleled look at the state as it appeared a century ago. And because of Greene's writing style and his focused lens, Border Country makes it a joy to tag along on that journey."—OnMilwaukee"A rich snapshot of early adventure."—Star Tribune"This book will be of interest to historians as they describe a north country on the verge of becoming vacationland. It will also be of interest today’s wilderness enthusiasts, who are used to lightweight canoes and tents and modern fabrics - especially those who are fascinated by descriptions of vintage camping equipment."—Minnesota HistoryTable of ContentsContentsPrologueCanoeing the North Woods: A Field Guide1. The Wisconsin River, 19062. The St Croix River Trip, 19073. The Gang on the Presque Isle, 19094. The Rambles of the Gang in the Rainy Lake Country, 19105. The Rambles of the Gang on the Dawson Trail, 19116. The Gang and the Pigeon Outfit, 19147. Pack and Paddle from Tower to Ranier, 19158. The Chippewa River Trip, 1916CodaEpilogueAppendicesGlossaryFor further readingIndex

Read more less

Book SynopsisSee firsthand how war photography is used to sway public opinion.In the autumn of 2014, the Royal Air Force released blurry video of a missile blowing up a pick-up truck which may have had a weapon attached to its flatbed. This was a lethal form of gesture politics: to send a £9-million bomber from Cyprus to Iraq and back, burning £35,000 an hour in fuel, to launch a smart missile costing £100,000 to destroy a truck or, rather, to create a video that shows it being destroyed. Some lives are ended—it is impossible to tell whose—so that the government can pretend that it taking effective action by creating a high-budget snuff movie. This is killing for show.Since the Vietnam War the way we see conflict—through film, photographs, and pixels—has had a powerful impact on the political fortunes of the campaign, and the way that war has been conducted. In this fully illustrated and passionately argued account of war imagery, Julian Stallabrass tells the story of post-war conflict, how it was recorded and remembered through its iconic photography.The relationship between war and photograph is constantly in transition, forming new perspectives, provoking new challenges: what is allowed to be seen? Does an image have the power to change political opinion? How are images used to wage war? Stallabrass shows how photographs have become a vital weapon in the modern war: as propaganda—from close-quarters fighting to the drone’s electronic vision—as well as a witness to the barbarity of events such as the My Lai massacre, the violent suppression of insurgent Fallujah or the atrocities in Abu Ghraib.Through these accounts Stallabrass maps a comprehensive theoretical re-evaluation of the relationship between war, politics and visual culture. Killing for Show offers: 190 photographs encompassing photojournalism, artists’ images, photographs by soldiers and amateurs and drones A comprehensive comparison of the role of photography in the Vietnam and Iraq Wars An explanation of the waning power of iconic images in collective memory An analysis of the failure of military PR and the public display of killing A focus on what can and cannot be seen, photographed and published An exploration of the power and limits of amateur photography Arguments about how violent images act on democracy This full-color book is an essential volume in the history of warfare and photography

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisCharles Demuth is widely recognized as one of the most significant American modernists. His precisionist cityscapes, exquisite flowers, and free-wheeling watercolors of vaudeville performers, homosexual bathhouses, and cabaret scenes hand in many of the country's most prestigious collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, the Art Institute of Chicago, and in Demuth's Lancaster, Pennsylvania, family residence, now home of the Demuth Foundation. At a time when many American artists remained tied to Europe, Demuth \u0022Americanized\u0022 European modernism. This collection of 155 of his letters offers valuable views of the arts and letters colonies in Provincetown, New York, and Paris. Besides offering information on Demuth's own works, the letters also shed light on the output of his contemporaries, as well as references to their trips, liaisons, and idiosyncrasies. Demuth numbered among his correspondents some of the most famous artists and writers of his time, including Georgia O'Keeffe, Eugene O'Neill, John Reed, Gertrude Stein, Alfred Stieglitz, Carl Van Vechten, and William Carlos Willliams. In his travels in the United States and abroad, he encountered many other talented contemporaries: Peggy Bacon, Muriel Draper, Marcel Duchamp, the Stetthemer sisters, artists and writers, patrons, and gallery owners. Whether he is offering to pick up a copy of Joyce's Ulysses for Eugene O'Neill or trying to convince Georgia O'Keeffe to decorate his music room (\u0022just allow that red and yellow 'canna' one to spread until it fills the room\u0022), Demuth is always in the thick of art and literary life. Flamboyant in attire but discreet in his homosexuality, Demuth also reveals in his letters the life of a talented homosexual in the teens and twenties. With his best friends Robert Locher and Marsden Hartley, he circulated through the art colonies of Greenwich Village, Provincetown, and Paris, meeting everyone. The book also contains reprints of some short appraisals of Demuth and his work that were published during his lifetime, long out of print, including pieces by A. E. Gallatin, Angela E. Hagen, Marsden Hartley, Helen Henderson, Henry McBride, Carl Van Vechten, Rita Wells, and Willard Huntington Wright.Trade Review"Editor Bruce Kellner, an emeritus professor of English at Pennsylvania's Millersville University, provides a lucid introduction to Demuth's life and to his work: this 'fashionably high-stepping strutter' may be in for a big, deserved revival." -Publishers WeeklyTable of ContentsCONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction A Note on Editing The Letters An Appreciative Appendix What Is Happenings in the World of Art * Henry McBride Demuth * Henry McBride The Underground Search for Higher Moralities * Henry McBride Demuth * Willard Huntington Wright from Art and Artists in Review * Helen Henderson from Florine Stettheimer and Charles Demuth * Carl Van Vechten from American Water-Colourists * A. E. Gallatin Demuth * Henry McBride Charles Demuth * A. E. Gallatin Water-Colours by Charles Demuth * Henry McBride Demuth Watercolors and Oils at "An American Place" * Angela E. Hagen Pen Portraits: Charles Demuth: Artists * Rita Wellman from Farewell, Charles * Marsden Hartley Demuth Memorial Exhibition * Henry McBride INDEX

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1939, just before graduating from high school in the small town of Ridgeway in northeast Iowa, Everett Kuntz spent his entire savings of $12.50 on a 35mm Argus AF camera. He made a camera case from a worn-out boot, scraps from a tin can, and a clasp from his mother's purse. For the next several years, especially during the summers when he worked on his parents' dairy farm, he clicked the shutter of his trusty Argus all around the quiet town.Everett bought movie reel film in bulk from a mail-order house, rolled his own film, and developed it in a closet at home, but he never had the money to print his photographs. More than two thousand negatives stayed in a box while he married, raised a family, and worked as an electrical engineer in the Twin Cities. When he became ill with cancer in the fall of 2002 - sixty years after he had developed the last of his bulk film - Everett opened his time capsule and printed the images from his youth. He died in 2003, having brought his childhood town back to life just as he was leaving it.Trade ReviewThese pictures, resting like treasures in a time capsule from 1939 until now, are delights. They will take you backward almost 70 years. They show you the faces, fields, and porches of an America before World War II, a rural, almost innocent world. A little nostalgic? So what. Never has a country needed a little sane nostalgia more than this one. The photographs are garnished by Jim Heynen's quick, witty, affectionate commentary. It nudges us smartly into the time capsule ourselves. If 2007 looks insane to you, peruse for a while this lovely, charming book that reminds us of what we used to look like - even sometimes be like. - Bill Holm

Read more less