The Soul of the Camera: The Photographer's Place in Picture Making


David duChemin - 2017
    But with over one trillion photos taken each year, why are there so few successes? Why do so many fail? With advances in camera technology, it is not because the images lack focus or proper exposure; the camera does that so well these days. Photographer David duChemin believes the majority of our images fall short because they lack soul. And without soul, the images have no ability to resonate with others. They simply cannot connect with the viewer, or even--if we're being truthful--with ourselves.In The Soul of the Camera: The Photographer's Place in Picture-Making, David explores what it means to make better photographs. Illustrated with a beautiful collection of black-and-white photographs, the book's essays speak to topics such as craft, mastery, vision, audience, discipline, story, and authenticity. The Soul of the Camera is a personal and deeply pragmatic book that quietly yet forcefully challenges the idea that our cameras, lenses, and settings are anything more than dumb and mute tools. It is the photographer, not the camera, that can and must learn to make better photographs--photographs that convey our vision; that connect with others; that, at their core, contain our humanity.

Inside Oregon State Hospital: A History of Tragedy and Triumph (Landmarks)


Diane Goeres-Gardner - 2013
    In desperate attempts to cure their patients, physicians injected them with deadly medications, cut holes in their heads, and sterilized them. Years of insufficient funding caused the hospital to decay into a crumbling facility with too few staff, as seen in the 1975 film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Today, after a $360 million makeover, Oregon State Hospital is a modern treatment hospital for the state's civil and forensic mentally ill. In this compelling account of the institution's tragedies and triumphs, author Diane Goeres-Gardner offers an unparalleled look at the very human story of Oregon's historic asylum.

Jamestown


Marshall William Fishwick - 2017
    They would establish a British colony, find gold, and discover a water route to Asia. But what awaited them was far different - fire, hunger, sickness, death, even cannibalism. Here, from the noted historian Marshall W. Fishwick, is the dramatic story of Jamestown and the struggle of its leader, Captain John Smith, who, with the help of Pocahontas, daughter of the Algonquian chief Powhatan, succeeded against all odds.

A-Z of Punishment and Torture


Irene Thompson - 2008
    I was hooked from A to Z." - James HerbertWho were the Maccabees? A pop group? Or a mother and her seven sons who suffered racking, skinning, burning, amputation and having their tongues pulled out and fried? And what was foot roasting? A way of keeping warm in the winter? Or a technique from the Spanish Inquisition that involved coating the prisoner’s feet in fat and toasting them over hot coals? From Amputation to Zero Tolerance, ‘The A-Z of Punishment & Torture’ is a grisly yet mesmerising compendium of the horrors inflicted on the human body over the centuries.A fascinating social history, it provides as a wealth of weird folklore, such as the power of the hanged man's hand; astounding tales, like Mary Hamilton, the cross-dressing 14-times bigamist; to more recent outrages, such as the use of ‘squassation’ at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. “Fascinating from beginning to end.” – Robert Foster, best-selling author of ‘The Lunar Code’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher.

The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine


Rozsika Parker - 1984
    In this fascinating study, Rozsika Parker traces a hidden history--the shifting notions of femininity and female social roles--by unraveling the history of embroidery from medieval times until today.

Why Jazz Happened


Marc Myers - 2012
    It provides an intimate and compelling look at the many forces that shaped this most American of art forms and the many influences that gave rise to jazz’s post-war styles. Rich with the voices of musicians, producers, promoters, and others on the scene during the decades following World War II, this book views jazz’s evolution through the prism of technological advances, social transformations, changes in the law, economic trends, and much more.In an absorbing narrative enlivened by the commentary of key personalities, Marc Myers describes the myriad of events and trends that affected the music's evolution, among them, the American Federation of Musicians strike in the early 1940s, changes in radio and concert-promotion, the introduction of the long-playing record, the suburbanization of Los Angeles, the Civil Rights movement, the “British invasion” and the rise of electronic instruments. This groundbreaking book deepens our appreciation of this music by identifying many of the developments outside of jazz itself that contributed most to its texture, complexity, and growth.

Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album


Matthew Robertson - 2006
    music explosion of the late '70s through the '90s with groups like Joy Division (soon to be the subject of an Anton Corbijn movie), New Order, and Happy Mondays leading the New Wave. At Factory, musicians and designers commingled creatively, with innovators such as Peter Saville, Den Kelly, Mark Farrow, 8VO, and Barbara Kruger elevating album covers to a new art form. The label broke further ground when it opened its own disco, the legendary Hacienda. Factory Records is the ultimate and only collection of Factory's complete graphic output, including every single piece it produced: extremely rare record sleeves, club flyers, and posters all gathered together for the first time. A must for collectors and enthusiasts, Matthew Robertson's meticulous compilation of underground ephemera is poised to introduce a new generation of music and design fans to the creative genius of Factory.

Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait: The Art of Celebrity and Editorial Photography


Michael Grecco - 2006
    His beautiful, insightful work is all around us--on movie posters, in advertising, on magazine covers, everywhere. “I delight in inspiring people,” he writes. “I want them to stop, think, and feel.” Now Grecco shares the secrets of great portraits with photographers at every level, in Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait. Sections on cameras, illumination, film and digital, creativity and conceptualization, connecting with the subject, and having a point of view, plus intriguing case studies that show “how I got that picture,” make this book a resource photographers will use again and again through the years. Whether the subject is a star or a soccer mom, Grecco shows how to add artistry, drama, wit, humor, and personality to their portrait.

Meggs' History of Graphic Design


Philip B. Meggs - 1983
    Under the new authorial leadership of Alston Purvis, this authoritative book offers more than 450 new images, along with expansive coverage of such topics as Italian, Russian, and Dutch design. It reveals a saga of creative innovators, breakthrough technologies, and important design innovations.

The Bikeriders


Danny Lyon - 1997
    A seminal work of modern photojournalism, this landmark collection of photographs and interviews documents the abandon and risk implied in the name of the gang Lyon belonged to: the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club. With images and interviews that are as raw, alive, and dramatic today as they were three decades ago, this new edition includes startling new images: 15 additional black-and-white photographs and 14 color prints--long thought missing--of works originally published in black-and-white. With a new introduction by the author, The Bikeriders rides again, capturing like never before the dawn of the counterculture era.

The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss


Dr. Seuss - 1995
    Dr. Seuss) in a whole new light. Depicting outlandish creatures in otherworldly settings, the paintings use a dazzling rainbow of hues not seen in the primary-color palette of his books for children, and exhibit a sophisticated and often quite unrestrained side of the artist. 65 color illustrations.

Bound Feet & Western Dress


Pang-Mei Natasha Chang - 1996
    Growing up in the perilous years between the fall of the last emperor and the Communist Revolution, Chang Yu-i's life is marked by a series of rebellions: her refusal as a child to let her mother bind her feet, her scandalous divorce, and her rise to Vice President of China's first women's bank in her later years.In the alternating voices of two generations, this dual memoir brings together a deeply textured portrait of a woman's life in China with the very American story of Yu-i's brilliant and assimilated grandniece, struggling with her own search for identity and belonging. Written in pitch-perfect prose and alive with detail, Bound Feet and Western Dress is the story of independent women struggling to emerge from centuries of customs and duty.

50 Modern Artists You Should Know


Christiane Weidemann - 2010
    Starting with James Abbott McNeill Whistler and ending with Matthew Barney, nearly every prominent figure in Modern art is represented in vibrant double-page spreads that show how these artists continued to redefine norms and challenge tradition. Fascinating biographical and anecdotal information about each artist is provided alongside large reproductions of their most celebrated works, stunning details, and images of the artists themselves. A color-coded timeline spans the entire volume, showing overlapping careers and important historical dates. From the impressionists to the surrealists, the cubists to the pop-artists-readers will find a wealth of information as well as hours of enjoyment learning about this popular and prolific period in art history.

An Outline of European Architecture


Nikolaus Pevsner - 1943
    Through several revisions and updates during Pevsner's lifetime, it continued to be a seminal essay on the subject, and even after his death, it remains as stimulating as it was back in the mid-twentieth century. Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983) was one of the twentieth century's most learned and stimulating writers on art and architecture. He established his reputation with Pioneers of Modern Design, though he is probably best known for his celebrated series of guides, The Buildings of England, acknowledged as one of the great achievements of twentieth-century scholarship. He was also founding editor of The Pelican History of Art, the most comprehensive and scholarly history of art ever published in English. A revised and updated full-color edition of the classic study of the history of European architecture

Da Vinci's Ghost: Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image


Toby Lester - 2011
    Deployed today to celebrate subjects as various as the grandeur of art, the beauty of the human form, and the universality of the human spirit, the drawing turns up just about everywhere: in books, on coffee cups, on corporate logos, even on spacecraft. It has, in short, become the world’s most famous cultural icon—and yet almost nobody knows about the epic intellectual journeys that led to its creation. In this modest drawing that would one day paper the world, da Vinci attempted nothing less than to calibrate the harmonies of the universe and understand the central role man played in the cosmos.Journalist and storyteller Toby Lester brings Vitruvian Man to life, resurrecting the ghost of an unknown Leonardo. Populated by a colorful cast of characters, including Brunelleschi of the famous Dome, Da Vinci’s Ghost opens up a surprising window onto the artist and philosopher himself and the tumultuous intellectual and cultural transformations he bridged. With sparkling prose and a rich variety of original illustrations, Lester captures the brief but momentous time in the history of western thought when the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance, art and science and philosophy converged as one, and all seemed to hold out the promise that a single human mind, if properly harnessed, could grasp the nature of everything.