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Days With My Father


Phillip Toledano - 2010
    Following the death of his mother, photographer Phillip Toledano was shocked to learn of the extent of his father's severe memory loss. He started a blog on which he posted photographs and accompanying reflections on his father's changing state. Through sometimes sad, often funny, and always loving observations, we follow Toledano as he learns to reconcile the elderly man living in a twilight of half memories with the ambitious and handsome young man he occasionally still glimpses. Days With My Father is an honest and moving reflection about coming to terms with an aging parent.

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.

Humans of New York: Stories


Brandon Stanton - 2015
    The photos he took and the accompanying interviews became the blog Humans of New York. In the first three years, his audience steadily grew from a few hundred to over one million. In 2013, his book Humans of New York, based on that blog, was published and immediately catapulted to the top of the NY Times Bestseller List. It has appeared on that list for over twenty-five weeks to date. The appeal of HONY has been so great that in the course of the next year Brandon's following increased tenfold to, now, over 12 million followers on Facebook. In the summer of 2014, the UN chose him to travel around the world on a goodwill mission that had followers meeting people from Iraq to Ukraine to Mexico City via the photos he took.Now, Brandon is back with the follow up to Humans of New York that his loyal followers have been waiting for: Humans of New York: Stories. Ever since Brandon began interviewing people on the streets of NY, the dialogue he's had with them has increasingly become as in-depth, intriguing, and moving as the photos themselves. Humans of New York: Stories presents a whole new group of humans, complete with stories that delve deeper and surprise with greater candour.

Burning Man: Art on Fire


Jennifer Raiser - 2014
    This vastly inhospitable location, called the playa, is the site of Burning Man, where, within a 9-mile fence, artists called Burners create a temporary city devoted to art and participation. Braving extreme elements, over two hundred wildly ambitious works of art are created and intended to delight, provoke, involve, or amaze. In 2013, over 68,000 people attended – the highest number ever allowed on the playa. As Burning Man has created new context, new categories of art have emerged since its inception, including Art to Ride, Collaborative Art, Art for Social Change, and of course, Art to Burn.The Art of Burning Man is an authorized collection of the best of Burning Man art from 1986 through today. Experience the amazing sculptures, art, stories, and interviews from the world’s greatest gathering of artists. Get lost in a rich gallery of images showcasing the best examples of playa art with over 200 photos. Interviews with the artists reveal not only their motivation to create art specifically for Burning Man, but they also illuminate the dramatic efforts it took to create their pieces. Featuring the incredible photography of long-time Burning Man photographers, Sidney Erthal and Scott London, an introduction from Burning Man founder Larry Harvey, and a preface from artist Leo Villareal, this stunning gift book allows Burners and enthusiasts alike to have a piece of Burning Man with them all year around.

Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe: A Biography


Philip Gefter - 2014
    Even today remembered primarily as the mentor and lover of Robert Mapplethorpe, the once infamous photographer, Wagstaff, in fact, had an incalculable—and largely overlooked—influence on the world of contemporary art and photography, and on the evolution of gay identity in the latter part of the twentieth century.  Born in New York City in 1921 into a notable family, Wagstaff followed an arc that was typical of a young man of his class. He attended both Hotchkiss and Yale, served in the navy, and would follow in step with his Ivy League classmates to the "gentleman's profession," as an ad executive on Madison Avenue. With his unmistakably good looks, he projected an aura of glamour and was cited by newspapers as one of the most eligible bachelors of the late 1940s. Such accounts proved deceiving, for Wagstaff was forced to live in the closet, his homosexuality only revealed to a small circle of friends. Increasingly uncomfortable with his career and this double life, he abandoned advertising, turned to the formal study of art history, and embarked on a radical personal transformation that was in perfect harmony with the tumultuous social, cultural, and sexual upheavals of the 1960s.Accordingly, Wagstaff became a curator, in 1961, at Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum, where he mounted both "Black, White, and Gray"—the first museum show of minimal art—and the sculptor Tony Smith's first museum show, while lending his early support to artists Andy Warhol, Ray Johnson, and Richard Tuttle, among many others. Later, as a curator at the Detroit Institute of Arts, he brought the avant-garde to a regional museum, offending its more staid trustees in the process.After returning to New York City in 1972, the fifty-year-old Wagstaff met the twenty-five-year-old Queens-born Robert Mapplethorpe, then living with Patti Smith. What at first appeared to be a sexual dalliance became their now historic lifelong romance, in which Mapplethorpe would foster Wagstaff's own burgeoning interest in contemporary photography and Wagstaff would help secure Mapplethorpe's reputation in the art world. In spite of their profound class differences, the artistic union between the philanthropically inclined Wagstaff and the prodigiously talented Mapplethorpe would rival that of Stieglitz and O’Keefe, or Rivera and Kahlo, in their ability to help reshape contemporary art history.Positioning Wagstaff's personal life against the rise of photography as a major art form and the simultaneous formation of the gay rights movement, Philip Gefter's absorbing biography provides a searing portrait of New York just before and during the age of AIDS. The result is a definitive and memorable portrait of a man and an era.

Murder in the Front Row: Shots From the Bay Area Thrash Metal Epicenter


Brian Lew - 2011
    Featuring hundreds of unseen live and candid color and black-and-white photographs, "Murder in the Front Row" captures the wild-eyed zeal and drive that made Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeth into legends, with over 100 million combined records sold.

Until Now


Anne Geddes - 1998
    In Until Now, Geddes takes us behind the scenes to find out what she was thinking when she captured these images, her 113 most-favorite photographs. Her text also provides a background to each photograph and helps readers understand how this artist and her subjects work together.Consider, for example, Geddes' comments about the shot she captured in 1991, which she titled "Rebecca": "She didn't want to hold the tulips, and she didn't want to sit on the chair-there were too many other things to be done. How do you get a 14-month-old to sit still' Show her the jelly bean, and then put it down her trousers."From signature photos of newborns to touching interactions between parent and child to enthusiastic poses from older children, this gift-size hardcover edition of Until Now gathers together Geddes' most revealing and compelling work. Whether she's posing babies in the garden or in the studio, Anne Geddes' deep affection for babies and children is obvious in the award-winning images she creates.

Horses of the Sun


Robert Vavra - 1995
    As in Vavra's most popular books, all are alone and running free in glorious natural settings: a white Arabian in a sun-washed desert; a black Friesian galloping in snowdrifts; a gray Andalusian amid violet flowers; a chestnut Arabian prancing in autumn leaves.These lush photographs are accompanied by poetry and are followed by text and drawing that profile each breed, highlighting the particularly outstanding traits of each horse depicted. Vavra pays special attention to the Andalusian, providing an essay on its romantic history. Presented on natural, handmade paper, Horses of the Sun fuses the beautiful simplicity of Vavra's earlier works with a new, fresh image of horses. For anyone who loves horses or simply appreciates the finest of photography, Horses of the Sun is a lovely gift -- a paean to this most beloved of animals.

Off-Camera Flash: Techniques for Digital Photographers


Neil van Niekerk - 2011
    Seeking to address the various challenges of off-camera lighting, professional photographers and advanced amateurs alike will find a range of confidence-building instruction, beginning with basic how’s and why’s of lighting for creative effect, the types of equipment available and instruction about their proper use, clear definitions of various technical concepts such as managing shutter speed and controlling flash exposure, using ambient light as well as natural sunlight during a shoot, and incorporating off-camera flash into a portrait session. Concluding this lesson plan is a look at five different real-life photo sessions, each employing a different flash technique. Here, photographers get a deeper understanding of each concept put into practice, marrying the elements of lighting with the natural elements presented by the shoot.

Skulls


Noah Scalin - 2008
    But nothing equals Noah’s incredibly beautiful, odd, and often humorous pieces: they’re made from an astounding variety of materials, from toothpaste to melted candle wax, from tea leaves to plastic straws. One is even carved into a watermelon! (Yes, it was eaten.)Each of the 150 skulls shown is accompanied by a brief description and fun anecdotal stories. As a bonus, there are four skull projects to make. Irresistibly merging pop, Internet, and craft culture, this fantastic collection provides an inspiring example of how to find creative potential in every aspect of daily life.

The Art of Boudoir Photography: How to Create Stunning Photographs of Women


Christa Meola - 2012
    This beautifully illustrated guide will not only enhance your understanding of how to bring out the best in every woman, but also sharpen your photography skills in order to capture her successfully. Whether shooting with a pro model, plain-Jane, curvy gal, or soccer mom, Christa gets to know her subject intimately in order to help her look and feel beautiful, sexy, and confident. Christa shares her personal tips and techniques throughout the entire process, creating an amazing experience that produces photographs packed with emotion. She covers every step in creating a successful boudoir shoot, including how to prepare a subject who has never posed before, coaching sensual movement, beautiful lighting setups with minimal equipment, how to flatter every figure, and more. With "Before and After" profiles and "Do and Don't" scenarios throughout, essential lists, practical tips for male photographers, metadata for every shot, as well as post-processing techniques in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, this book offers clear and inspiring instruction. The Art of Boudoir Photography is about transformation. It's about cultivating sex appeal and enthusiastic positivity. It's that jolt of confidence and bolt of sexual prowess to tease out of your subject. It's for each woman to recognize her individual beauty, provide an opportunity for her to break through her comfort zone, honor her body, and celebrate femininity. For photographers with varying levels of experience, this book is for you-to appreciate and embrace boudoir photography, enhance your understanding of what it is, what it can do for women, and most importantly, how to have fun with it!

Brian May's Red Special: The Story of the Home-Made Guitar that Rocked Queen and the World


Brian May - 2014
      In 1963, Brian May and his father Harold started to build the Red Special, an electric guitar meant to outperform anything commercially made. "My dad and I decided to make an electric guitar. I designed an instrument from scratch, with the intention that it would have a capability beyond anything that was out there, more tunable, with a greater range of pitches and sounds, with a better tremolo, and with a capability of feeding back through the air in a 'good' way'." (Brian May). Brian used the Red Special guitar on every Queen and solo album that he recorded and at the vast majority of his live performances: the roof of Buckingham Palace, Live Aid, the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics . . . and beyond. Here, Brian talks about his one-of-a-kind instrument, from its creation on. Along with original diagrams, sketches, and notes, May has included a great selection of photographs of himself with the guitar, in action from the last 40 years, and photographs of every stage of the Red Special's creation, which was fully dismantled and photographed inside and out just for this book, as well as close-ups and X-rays, and Brian will be commenting on it all. It is a unique guitar with unique sound. Any fan of Queen, Brian, or electric guitars will find this book utterly fascinating. 200 clr and b&w illus.

Clear Seeing Place: Studio Visits


Brian Rutenberg - 2016
    Brimming with the joy of process and a love of art history, Brian Rutenberg reveals the places, people, and experiences that led to the paint­ings for which he is well known today. This book is packed with ideas, observations, techniques, and career advice all thought­fully arranged into six sections designed to inspire artists of all levels, as well as anyone interested in creativity.Clear Seeing Place is a companion to the artist's popular YouTube series, "Brian Rutenberg Studio Visits," and is a love letter to painting written by a painter.

The Meaning in the Making: The How and Why Behind Our Human Need to Create


Sean Tucker - 2021
    We’re each trying to describe what we know about life, to create a collective sense of “safety in numbers.” When we reach the end of our traditional descriptive powers, it’s time to weave collective meaning from poetry, painting, writing, dancing, photographing, filmmaking, storytelling, singing, animating, designing, performing, carving, sculpting, and a million other ways we daily create Order out of the Chaos and share it with each other for comfort.On this journey we need a creative philosophy which will help us find our voice, discover our message, deal with the responses to our work, maintain inspiration, and stay mentally healthy and motivated creators as we strive to find “the meaning in the making.”

Prebles' Artforms: An Introduction to the Visual Arts


Patrick L. Frank - 2005
    We form Art. Art forms us. The title of this book has a dual meaning. Besides the expected discussion of the various forms of art, the title also reflects the fact that art does indeed help to form us as people. As we create forms, we are in turn formed by what we have created. Several years ago, the title was changed to "Preblesa Artforms," acknowledging the pioneering contribution of the original authors, Duane and Sarah Preble, to the study of art. Their vision and spirit have touched hundreds of thousands of students who have studied this book. "Artforms "grew out of a desire to introduce art through an engaging visual experience, and to expose students to a culturally diverse canon of work. It is written and designed to help readers build an informed foundation for individual understanding and enjoyment of art.By introducing art theory, practice, and history in a single volume, this book aims to draw students into a new or expanded awareness of the visual arts. Beyond fostering appreciation of major works of art, this booka s primary concern is to open studentsa eyes and minds to the richness of the visual arts as unique forms of human communication and to convey the idea that the arts enrich life best when we experience, understand, and enjoy them as integral parts of the process of living.