October 2023 MBR The Photography Shelf

The Photography Shelf

Street Cat Tales and Tangled Times
Stephen Marc
George F Thompson Publishing
c/o Casemate Publishers
www.casematepublishers.com
9781938086984, $60.00, HC, 184pp

https://www.amazon.com/Street-Cat-Tales-Tangled-Times/dp/1938086988

Synopsis: In his previous and award-winning book, "American / True Colors", photographer Stephen Marc presented one of the most comprehensive photographic surveys ever conducted about America and Americans. For his efforts (the survey includes both the Obama and Trump presidencies), for his artistry, and for his unique African-American perspective, the Independent Publishers Book Awards gave American / True Colors its 2021 Gold Medal for the Best Book of the Year in Photography.

But Stephen Marc was not finished with telling the American story. With the publication of "Street Cat Tales and Tangled Times: An American Journey Continues", the visual artist/photographer takes us on another sweeping journey, coast to coast, this time straddling before and during the COVID years when America and Americans were confronted by a multitude of unprecedented challenges that affected citizens in every aspect of life no matter where they might live.

With an informative Introduction by Dr. Carla D. Hayden (the 14th Librarian of Congress and the first woman and first African American to hold that distinguished post since its founding in 1802), and featuring 210 full color, full page photographs by Stephen Marc (including 85 captivating digital montages), "Street Cat Tales and Tangled Times" offers a creative and highly insightful look at how Americans have been living their life on the streets during this time of COVID and controversial Supreme Court rulings and the severe impacts of climate change, social injustice, mass shootings and gun violence, inflation, intense political division, the Big Lie, the January 6 insurrection, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and so much more.

As was the case with :American / True Colors", in "Street Cat Tales and Tangled Times" we see how the American journey continues. How in our ongoing search for a more perfect Union we need to recognize and respect more fully the personal histories that brought us here and the truths we need to face. How in the process of moving forward toward an uncertain future we embrace the joy of living and learn to grow and heal as families, communities, and a nation.

Critique: Adhering to that old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words, "Street Cat Tales and Tangled Times: An American Journey Continues" speaks volumes with respect to the American people of this past decade and into the present. Unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and academic library American Photography collections, and with its large coffee-table style hardcover format, each individual, full color photograph is cited as to where it was taken. Simply stated, to browse through the pages comprising "Street Cat Tales and Tangled Times" is to take an armchair tour through what is aptly described as truly memorable American Journey across our diverse and divided nation.

Editorial Note #1: Stephen Marc is a documentary/street photographer and digital montage artist, who was raised on the South Side of Chicago. He is Professor of Art at Arizona State University, where he began teaching in 1998, after twenty years on the faculty of the Department of Photography at Columbia College Chicago. Marc has received grants from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, and his awards include the Society for Photographic Education's Insight Award. In 2021, Marc was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Photography. Marc has published three photography books: Passage on the Underground Railroad (University Press of Mississippi, 2009); The Black Trans-Atlantic Experience: Street Life and Culture in Ghana, Jamaica, England, and the United States (Columbia College Chicago, 1992); and Urban Notions (Ataraxia Press, 1983).

Editorial Note #2: Carla D. Hayden is the 14th Librarian of Congress, the first woman and first African American to hold the post since 1802. From 1993 until 2016, she was the CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore and served as President of the American Library Association from 2003 to 2004. In 1995, Dr. Hayden was honored with the National Librarian of the Year Award by Library Journal, the first African American to receive this prestigious honor, and in 2020 she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. Her books include A Frontier of Librarianship: Services for Children in Museums (Chicago, 1987) and, as editor, Venture into Cultures: A Resource Book of Multicultural Materials and Programs (American Library Association, 1992).

The Uyghurs: Kashgar before the Catastrophe
Kevin Burbriski, photographer
Tahir Hamut Izgil, contributor
Dru Gladney, contributor
George F Thompson Publishing
c/o Casemate Publishers
www.casematepublishers.com
9781938086991, $60.00, HC, 248pp

https://www.amazon.com/Uyghurs-Kashgar-before-Catastrophe-English/dp/1938086996

Synopsis: The Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as native to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. They are one of China's 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities. The Uyghurs are also recognized by the Chinese government as a regional minority and the titular people of Xinjiang.

In 1998, Kevin Bubriski was fortunate to spend time with the Uyghurs in Kashgar, their ancient city on the Silk Road in Xinjiang, China. While there, he made unforgettable photographic portraits and street scenes that reveal a haunting beauty and sense of the past in old Kashgar. Bubriski was drawn to the faces of ordinary people and their daily lives, with the intent that through photographs mutual understanding between people might be fostered.

Although 1998 was an uncomfortable time of rapid transformation for the Uyghurs, their oasis city in the high desert was still vibrant, even as the Chinese government's brutal crackdown was about to commence. In the last few years, up to a million Uyghurs have been detained in "re-education camps" while others have been subjected to forced sterilizations and wider persecution. The vibrancy, beauty, and grit that Bubriski witnessed and photographed more than two decades ago has irrevocably changed.

The Uyghur cultural, economic, familial, religious, and spiritual traditions are captured in Bubriski's images and the extensive text by Tahir Hamut Izgil and the late Dru Gladney. These traditions, interwoven in Uyghurs' lives and community for more than two millennia, have been severely impacted by the overt and disastrous policies of the Chinese government's crackdown on Uyghur civil, spiritual, and cultural activities.

The Uyghur community is now fractured and split due to widespread surveillance, mass detentions, and incarcerations. "The Uyghurs: Kashgar before the Catastrophe" is also presented in a bilingual (English/Uighur) edition so that it is not only accessible to Uyghur people living in non-English-speaking regions of the world, but a way for Uyghurs around the world to reaffirm their cultural and social identity wherever they now live.

As many Uyghur families are now separated due to detentions or flight to asylum elsewhere, the book is meant to be an enduring gift for the Uyghur people and for all who wish to understand better Uyghur culture and history. Bubriski's book is a stunning work of art that reveals an earlier time when Kashgar, beloved city of the Uyghurs, retained much of its traditional life and charm.

Critique: This large format coffee-table style edition of "The Uyghurs: Kashgar before the Catastrophe" made available to a contemporary readership by George F. Thompson Publishing is a stellar compilation of full page black/white photography (with the exception of 3 full page color photos at the end of the book) augmented by texts and poems from Tahir Hamut Izgil, an informative essay by the late Dru C. Gladney, and translations by M. A. and Darren Byler. A magnificent volume that will be of particular value to readers with an interest in Chinese Communist Party's racial discrimination campaigns against the Uyghurs and Photography. "The Uyghurs: Kashgar before the Catastrophe" is a unique and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library Travel Photography collections and supplemental Contemporary China/Uyghur Issues curriculum studies lists.

Editorial Note #1: Kevin Bubriski (www.kevinbubriski.com) is a documentary photographer whose photographs are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris, among others. He has received Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Endowment for the Arts, and Robert Gardner Peabody Museum Fellowships. Bubriski's other books include Portrait of Nepal (1993), Pilgrimage: Looking at Ground Zero (2002), Nepal 1975-2011 (2014), Legacy in Stone: Syria before War (2018), Our Voices, Our Streets: American Protests 2001-2011 (2020), and Nepal Earthquake (2022).

Editorial Note #2: Tahir Hamut Izgil is a prominent modernist Uyghur poet, filmmaker, and activist who grew up in Kashgar, in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. He is recognized as one of the foremost poets writing in the Uyghur language. Additionally, he has directed numerous documentaries, music videos, advertisement campaigns, and feature films. Fearing persecution from Chinese authorities, he and his family sought asylum in the United States in 2017. His poetry has been translated into English, Japanese, Swedish, Turkish, and other languages. He is the current chair of the World Uyghur Writers Union.

Editorial Note #3: Dru C. Gladney (1950-2022) was Professor of Anthropology at Pomona College where he also served as President of the Pacific Basin Institute. Gladney was the author of more than 100 academic articles and book chapters on topics spanning the Asian continent, and his books include Dislocating China: Muslims, Minorities, and Other Subaltern Subjects (Chicago, 2004), Ethnic Identity in China: The Making of a Muslim Minority Nationality (Wadsworth, 2003), Making Majorities: Constituting the Nation in Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey, and the U.S. (Stanford, 1998), and Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic (Harvard, 1991).

Michael Freeman On... Black & White
Michael Freeman
Ilex Press
c/o Octopus Books
www.octopusbooksusa.com
9781781579053, $29.99, PB, 176pp

https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Freeman-Black-White-Photography/dp/1781579059

Synopsis: A quiet revolution has been gathering pace in photography -- a new enthusiasm for exploring the subtleties, excitement and pleasure in making images in black and white. This is not a case of old traditions reasserting themselves, but rather a rediscovery of what imagery made purely out of tones can offer to the creatively curious.

The fourth book in Michael Freeman's newest series, "Michael Freeman On... Black & White: The Ultimate Photography Masterclass" is a clear and concise guide to a unique, enduring and very popular subset of photography. Broken down into chapters covering every type of monochrome photography, the book provides both a practical guide to working without the distraction colour, details of the unique challenges posed by a genre that is so defined by shape and light and the ways in which working in monochrome can hugely improve your photographic practice.

Critique: Expertly written, organized and presented, "Michael Freeman On... Black & White: The Ultimate Photography Masterclass" is an ideal DIY combination of instructional guide and illustrated 'how-to' manual that will be of special and particular interest to both novice and experienced photographers alike. While also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $15.99), "Michael Freeman On... Black & White: The Ultimate Photography Masterclass" is a thoroughly 'user friendly' and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and academic library Photography instructional reference collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.

Editorial Note: Michael Freeman (http://www.michaelfreemanphoto.com) is a professional photographer and best-selling author, who was born in England in 1945, took a Masters in Geography at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and then worked in advertising in London for six years. In 1971 he made the life-changing decision to travel up the Amazon with two secondhand cameras, and when Time-Life used many of the pictures he came back with, he embarked on a full-time photographic career. Since then, working for clients that include all the world's major magazines, most notably the Smithsonian Magazine (for which he has shot more than 40 stories over 30 years), Freeman's reputation as one of the world's leading reportage photographers has been consolidated. He is the author of more than 60 titles on the practice of photography. For this photographic educational work he was awarded the Prix Louis Philippe Clerc by the French Ministry of Culture.

Queen Elizabeth II: A Photographic Portrait
Philip Ziegler, photographer
Emma Blau, foreword contributor
Thames & Hudson, Inc.
www.thamesandhudsonusa.com
9780500026359, $55.00, HC, 272pp

https://www.amazon.com/Queen-Elizabeth-II-Photographic-Portrait/dp/0500026351

Synopsis: Queen Elizabeth II was a remarkable figure on the global stage for well over half a century. Hundreds of thousands of visitors to Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle each year are attracted by an image of this exceptional monarch that has been shaped, in significant part, by the work of royal photographers, many of whom are internationally distinguished practitioners of their art.

Drawing on an unparalleled collection of official portraits of the queen, each of the book's chapters begins with a text by best-selling historian and biographer Philip Ziegler, covering the key royal and historical events of the period, with some contextual photographs, followed by a sequence of plates in chronological order.

With over two hundred images of the queen by photographers such as Cecil Beaton, Lord Snowdon, and Rankin, the queen is captured in a variety of poses, from formal photographs as a working monarch to intimate portraits relaxing with her family at Balmoral and Windsor.

All the images have been officially approved by the palace, making this the ultimate illustrated book chronicling the life of England's longest-reigning monarch!

Critique: Impressively illustrated throughout with what are arguably the finest photographs taken of the life of Queen Elizabeth II, from her first official photograph as a baby in 1926 to her Platinum Jubilee in 2022, "Queen Elizabeth II: A Photographic Portrait". Expertly compiled with accompanying citations by Philip Ziegler, this truly exceptional large format (9 x 1.1 x 11.4 inches, 3.62 pounds) hardcover edition from Thames & Hudson is enriched for the reader with the inclusion of an impressively informative Foreword by Emma Blau. Extraordinary and memorable, "Queen Elizabeth II: A Photographic Portrait" is unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and academic library Photography & Biography collections -- and a 'must' for the legions of the late Queen Elizabeth II -- the longest serving British ruler in the history of this island kingdom.

Editorial Note #1: Philip Ziegler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Ziegler) is the author of Mountbatten: The Official Biography, King Edward VIII: The Official Biography, Diana Cooper: The Biography of Lady Diana Cooper, and London at War, 1939 - 1945.

Editorial Note #2: Emma Blau (https://emmablau.com) is an award-winning photographic artist, curator, and commentator. She is co-owner of Camera Press, the photo agency founded by her grandfather that hosts the work of royal photographers from throughout the queen's life. She directed and produced the documentary Camera Press at 70: A Lifetime in Pictures. Her photography is held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, and the Parliamentary Art Collection, U.K.

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