This book presents a small collection of Mr. Strand's images, all titled and dated, and offers a glimpse of the entire span of his career. We are given a sense of his work through four of the major times and places during his life: his photographic apprenticeship in New York during the late 1910's, a sampling of his work done under commission in Mexico, his well known work in New England, and finally, images taken after his emigration to France, in 1950. A brief biography precedes the photographs that follow, and we are left to consider the images free from further didactic comment.

At first sight, one senses immediately the charm this man might have possessed in his relationships with both himself and those people and things surrounding his life. This sense is borne out in the wry humor of "Town Hall", with its off kilter framing, which we instantly recognize as Paul Strand. Ironically, a closer study of his personal life indicates Mr. Strand could be a difficult man. The well-known "Wall Street", an earlier piece of darkly shadowed monstrous windows overpowering passers by, is as close to the foggy pictorialist sense Strand will get, and the rest of the images show him breaking away from that style, and moving head first into the previsualized and almost straight photographic style that he was to help break ground for.

In this collection, several of the photographs stand out; but many seem rather innocuous, specifically the portraits of those he knew personally, and those he didn't - none seem to capture the viewers imagination like those of Mr. Strands' contemporaries might, Edward Weston for one. Instead, they seem unimaginative and emotionless. Furthermore, it doesn't help that, lacking that content, it may be that his reputation as an innovative technician in the darkroom goes unnoticed here, seeing these images only on the page (in small 7 inch by 6 inch reprint).

On the other hand, we are shown some photographs which show how powerful a view of quiet solitude can be. Of particular note,"Tir a'Mhurain" stands alone. A wide view of the silence surrounding three horses watering in the bay, and in the very left foreground, they are being watched from far above by a lone white horse. The leading of the three animals has turned its mane toward, and is eyeing the lone horse. The silvery water of the bay reflects the stand of horses, and more strongly, that of an immense and clouded sky, suggesting a powerful solemnity. Faintly, in mid-ground, wood buildings of a fishing village are left powerless in front of only a small mountain range. Taken in 1954, an American living in France (but not able to speak the language), Mr. Strand might have felt himself the lone horse. The obtrusive sky begging for silence. The artist contemplating his subject from afar.

"Driveway" was taken late in his life (in fact, three years prior to his death) where he lived in France. This poetic view leads us through an overgrowth, tunnel-like, of bare tree limbs and branches. Beneath this dark surrounding of hibernating growth, two parallel white cobblestone paths. Our eyes search the dark, shadowed background to where we are being lead; almost imperceptible, at the end of the driveway, we make out a decrepit structure: a country cottage, seemingly empty and abandoned. One cannot help but feel the author's probable recognition of the path of his own life, and the awful truth of life: of autumn, the oncoming winter, the drawing to a close, and of coming home to a place unknown.

In this collection, these are his strongest images, these landscapes. - whether "Fox River", from his acclaimed book "Time in New England", or the handful of New York cityscapes, or the country landscapes and village life scenes, such as "Marketplace", taken in Italy. Robert Adams has suggested that Mr. Strands work went into decline following his emigration to France in 1950 (1). In actuality, it is these images we wish for more of. Mr. Strand's capacity was not limited by time and place, but by subject and content. Seeing the images borne from his emigrated life, one is left wanting less of his still life's and portraits, and more of what showed a more genuine side of Mr. Strand through symbolic form. Not the modernist machine pictures like "Oil Refinery", or "Akeley Motion Picture Camera", but more of "Landscape, Sicily, Italy", with its bare, white birch trees having cloistered the villager's in their quiet homes.

However, in this book, as a simple compendium of Mr. Strand's oeuvre, the viewer is at least left with a closer understanding of a part of what this celebrated photographer was seeing throughout the varied stages and places, both known and foreign, of his life.

1. Adams, Robert Why People Photograph, Aperture Press, 1994. pg. 85

as a person who has been close with the Strand family for a long time, i have to say that out of personal relations and out of knowing the full potential for paul and his family, this book is amazing. you have to remember that there is a face and a mind behind this camera, and the amazing talent that people must have in the first place to even be able to spot beauty in the everyday things. if you can take the time to look at the power of these photographs as a human being with a powerfully capable mind and not as a critic, prone to hang on every little detail instead of fully trying to enjoy the pieces in question, i can garauntee that you will be completely satisfied with this collection. in my mind it will always be stunning.

I buy one of these every time I replace one of my PCs. They do not stay up to date that long. I like Mueller's "Upgrading and Repairing PCs" better. It seems to have more information.

Yet Menasi's book is still useful after all these years for the older PCs in my stable. The information about setting hard-drives up in the Bios alone is worth the money I paid for the book.

The book will also help you understand how components of your PC works, yet it is not a reference on how to fix the operating system. Hardware troubleshooting is fairly well covered though. I did not find the cd-roms particularly useful.

This review refers to the 7th Edition (1996).

This book is one of the better resources on how to Upgrade a PC (don't bother too much about the repairing part!). The entire book is very well written, and can infact, be read from cover to cover! Info on any subject, say disk drives, is easy to find. Athough it has lots of hands-on stuff, it makes good reading even for those who don't want to get their hands dirty!

This is an accessory to the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, detailing numerous monstrous creatures from various Lovecraftian mileaus. It features a size comparison chart and wonderful art throughout. The Guide can quite easily be used by a non-gamer fan of Lovercraft as there are no game-specific statistics, only narrative. Overall, a well-done book.

The Guide is a book based on H.P. Lovecraft's novels. The creatures in those novels are given shape as they are drawn out and described here. Beutiful full page drawings accompany each creature, and a passage of the original text as well. I liked it a lot, the drawings are real nice and the descriptions are fun to read. By the way, Cthulu fans may be interested in this, H.P. Lovecraft/Cthulu, get it?

Helpful descriptions and paw ratings of dog-friendly hotels in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. However, they omit many of the smaller cities, and for the cities they do list it would be nice if there was a list of hotels that didn't accept dogs so you'd know they checked them. 'Doing the Northwest with your Pooch' lists many more hotels and many more cities (just no descriptions). We recommend 'Pets Welcome' as a useful additional cross-reference that is worth its price because of its hotel descriptions, but do not rely on this book exclusively. The authors donate 5% of book proceeds to the Humane Society of the United States.

This comprehensive well designed guidbook is informative, accurate and offers new opportunities for me and my canine pals.

I have been following Peyton Manning's career since he joined the Indianapolis Colts in 1998. This book provides an upclose look at his life and sports career. It takes readers to the 50 yard line to catch of glimple of Manning in action. It also goes behind the scenes. The information is correct and timely. It's also a very fast read. A must for Colts fans, young and old.

As a avid fan of football, I bought this book for my kid who is a Peyton Manning fan. Not only did he enjoy the book, I also found myself reading the book. It tells of his growing up with and NFL father. And his college career and starts off with the professional career. This is a must for all Manning fans. (young & old)

If you want some basic strategies, information and advice, this is a useful reference. But if you're looking for nitty, gritty, details and technical information on city building and the interation of all the elements of the game, the internet is still the only choice.

This book helped me so much. I was stuck on a level, so I refered to this book. It gave me some great tips and strategies to help me beat the game! I wold reccomend this book to anyone who is having trouble. I am sure it can help you. It had some great insight to the complexities of the game This is one of the best strategy guides I have ever read!

This book uses a Q&A format in an interview with Mary Ellen Mark and the Smithsonian asks all the right questions. They start out with how she got started, what it takes to put a photo essay together, if she uses assistants and if art directors have a say over what she does.

My only complaint about this is how short it is. But in these 62 pages the first half gives you what it takes to start in making great pictures and the second half shows you some of Mark's awesome work.

As a student of photojournalism looking to do similar work, this is a valuable resource.

Un excelente libro con soberbias imágenes de Mary Ellen Mark, edicion bien cuidada y papel de excelente calidad viene a ser la base para emprender un viaje por los ojos de esta gran fotógrafa documental a traves del Ensayo Fotografico, venga pues no dejen de darle una mirada de cerca!

At first glance this looks like an ideal book for someone who is moving from the point-and-shoot stage of photography to something beyond snapshots. Everything most people want to know about photography from the relationships of f-stops, shutter speed and film speed all the way to underwater photography is in this book. Unfortunately the book throws the information at you so quickly and with so little discussion and few examples of applications that you may miss some very important concepts and confuse others.

It would be nice to think that a person could improve his or her photography without a lot of effort, but that just isn't so. It's not enough to have a new rule thrown at you. Most people need photography principles to be explained, usually in several different ways, with plenty of examples. You'd expect lots of pictures to be used to illustrate points. After all, this is about photography. But that is not the approach taken by this book. The principles are stated, and later in the book, restated, but not illustrated well.

It's really a shame, because this book is small enough to carry with you in case you want to check on something in the field. Art Wolfe, whose pictures appear throughout the book, is one of the great outdoor photographers (Gardner's pictures also appear to a lesser extent, but they aren't in the same league as Wolfe's.). Unfortunately the pictures aren't tied to the teaching points very strongly. That's a shame because stronger ties to Wolfe's pictures could really teach one about outdoor photography.

The book gives a nod to incorporating digital photography, but only in the most rudimentary fashion. For example, I consider an understanding of "white balance" to be essential for a serious digital photographer, but this book just barely acknowledges that there is such a thing.

There are several mistakes in this book. A chart on page 83 suggesting exposure guidelines for low-light photography captions a column ISO 50 (film speed) when it means ISO 400. Follow these guidelines and your picture will be hopelessly underexposed.

The author discusses pushing film. This process involves setting your camera as if the film you are using is more sensitive than it really is and then asking your lab to develop the film in a way that will make it that sensitive. The author says that pushed film is less grainy then film with a higher rating shot and developed normally. It's not true. If it were, all we'd ever need is one speed of film.

If I absolutely needed a guide that would fit in my pocket in the field I'd consider this book. Otherwise I'd buy a book like John Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide. It's physically bigger, but will be more effective in improving your outdoor photography.

Photography Outdoors is a must-read for any serious photographer. I read the book from cover to cover and it was easily as pleasent to read as a best-selling novel. Art and Mark present the subject matter in a way that keeps you constantly interested. Their writing is as good as thier photography.

I learned that lenses have a "sweet spot" aperture for producing the sharpest image.

I learned why my snow always looks gray, and why black objects always come out too light.

I learned more about working with my images after digitzing them.

There's too much to list here. I learned a little more about every topic they covered than I knew before reading the book. This book opens up a whole new world of techniques for you to experiment with.

There are tips and tricks inserted throughout the book. Many I transcribed into my PDA, others I scanned and printed to keep in my camera bag.

Buy it. You'll like it.

-CK

The book contains some great photos, and is well written for the most part. But the author's 0-60 times and top speeds on one or two of the models were off. A good enough reader, but not to be used as a referance book. And the fact that the GT3 road car was put in and the Turbo S was omitted was a confusing move by the writter, not to mention a few other exerps. A good book for the YOUNG Porsche enthusiast, not a real collectors book.

This book is the finest Porsche related book I've ever read. The book has excellent specs on almost every Porsche model there is, the only two models that I didn't find in the book were the 912 and the GT1. If you are a Porsche fanaric like me, this is a must!

This book is awesome but the pictures could be a little better organized. In addition there are some basics that could be addressed better. tippet, leader, line, backing...show me a simple picture with all these in order so I know what I am taking about at the fly shop without having to re-read the section. Other than that this is a great book for me, a beginner of fly fishing but a seasoned spinner real fisherman.

Rosenbauer's text and the accompanying illustrations provide an excellent introduction to fly fishing. As a beginner, I found most of my questions answered. Also, I found the drawings of the techniques for tying different knots to be a godsend! (I was never a boy scout, and have trouble knotting my tie.) I was a little disappointed that the text had some typos and grammatical errors. However, it was interesting and very helpful nevertheless