ALL AMERICAN – a photo book by BARBARA DIJKHUIS and AUKE VLEER

October 12, 2010 Leave a comment

ALL AMERICAN

Barbara Dijkhuis & Auke Vleer

 

- The wonder of America is its National Parks and cities’ majestic buildings.

- [Yawn] We’ve heard this so many times. Tell me more, what else?

- People, faces, horizons.

- Hum, yeah, it could be, you’re getting closer.

- I’ve got an idea, let’s ask somebody that doesn’t live here, a couple of foreigners that come virgin-eyed and travel the States West-to-East.

- Hey, good idea, that’s just what Dutch designer Barbara Dijkhuis and photographer Auke Vleer did.

all american is the visual photo diary of a 5,000 mile journey from LA to NY, illustrated by 750 photos chosen from a few thousand originals, which give us a perception many American eyes can no longer.

all american is not concerned with canyons, arches or spires, however impressive they may be. It’s not about old quarters, mile-long bridges or sleepless cities. Rather it’s about the people that live amongst these wonders, passing their days inside X-mas lit American houses, driving on American cars toward serene American sunsets and flashing around huge American smiles. It’s a visual reality we often miss because we see it everyday. But it’s anything but ordinary. Dijkhuis and Vleer reveal the core of American life and landscape in its subtle and beautiful simplicity.

Double page photos of La’s swamps, NM vast desert, NC foggy valleys alternate with pages of Very Large Array, Ca and Nv residents, kids’ smiles and WV beer drinkers. Then come the breath-taking beautiful twenty-pictures-page series: the motel room decoration is style un-inspiring; the landscape sooths the spirit; the driver is exhilarating and the rear mirror is genius.

The book opens with a 3,000-word Tyler Whisnand sentence that is one of the most original declarations of love to his own country: America.

Michele Molinari

all images © Barbara Dijkhuis & Auke Vleer

The book opens into a map: the route from Los Angeles to New York, mainly driven on backroads.

Miliage numbers on the map correspond with the miliage numbers in the book images.

Buy all american.

 

Filed under photo books, usa Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

DEATH ROW – Angola, Louisiana State PENITENTIARY

October 5, 2010 2 Comments

The world continued to move toward abolition in 2009. The number of countries that have removed capital punishment entirely from their laws rose to 95 as Burundi and Togo abolished the death penalty for all crimes. While 58 countries retained the death penalty, most did not use it. Eighteen countries were known to have carried out executions, killing a total of 714 people. The United States came fourth in rank, after China, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, with 52 executions.

However, this figure does not include the thousands of executions that were likely to have taken place in China, which again refused to divulge figures on its use of the death penalty. In fact, since the outcries of the international community has become more fervent, certain countries still mantain the executions secret. This mostly happens were the press is muted.

Many humanitarian associations fight daily to abolish a nation’s right to decide the life, and the death, of their citizens. Among the most important are Amnesty International and Hands Off Cain. To help make change is easy, sometimes it’s enough to spread the word to open the eyes of those whom do not want to see.

More information about humanitarian organizations: The Moratorium Campaign, Derechos.

Many more links: 1000+ Death Penalty Links.

Some reading suggestions:

- The Green Mile, a novel by Stephen King

- Dead Man Walking, a novel by Sister Helen Prejean

- Condemned: Inside the Sing Sing Death House, by Scott Christianson, Director of New York Death Penalty Documentation Project

- Against the Death Penalty: Christian and Secular Arguments Against Capital Punishment , by Gardner C. Hanks

- Cell 2455, Death Row, by Caril Chessman inmate; an insider view.

Filed under life as it is, usa Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

FLOPHOUSE – a photo book by HARWEY WANG

October 1, 2010 Leave a comment

FLOPHOUSE

Life on the Bowery

photography by Harvey Wang, text by David Isay and Stacy Abramson

“This book takes you places you don’t want to enter, to people you don’t want to meet, to lives you think you don’t want to live – and makes you rethink all your assumptions. It reveals the tremendous strenght and humanity ot those who are usually ignored. And as you pay attention, your own humanity expands.”

Susan Stamberg, special correspondent, NPR

Flophouse is not a place where you want to live. You might get a Manhattan address for something like 10-15 bucks per night, but it’s not glamorous at all. You’ll be on the Bowery, with no A/C, with bedbugs, with a cubicle as a bedroom and chicken wire up above your head to give you privacy. But you’ll still hear farts, burps and nightmare’s screams from your fellows: the flop mates.

So, why do you want to live in a Flophouse? I don’t really want to go there, but, was it that your lady kicked you out of the shack ‘cause you were drunk all the time, or you couldn’t stand the Midwest any longer and then found that New York fucking City is too much for you, or you want to feel totally free since nobody gives you a damn on the Bowery.

Come, come on here, come to rest on the warm and soft belly of the City, come to where you’ll be yourself, time stands still and life get suspended.

And be nice, pose for the photographer. He’s shooting faces, places. He’s shooting souls throught the eyes, he’s telling your life in a pic, he’s making it rich and interesting. Because, you know, you might be a flop, but you have full hands of humanity to give.

Michele Molinari

all images © Harvey Wang

Buy Flophouse.

Filed under life as it is, new york city, photo books Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

AMERICAN NIGHT – a photography book by PAUL GRAHAM

September 28, 2010 1 Comment

American Night is not about the glamorous gloom of the after hours nor the exhilarating Bright Lights Big City atmosphere. There are no lights involved, but rather a subtle therefore powerful depiction of American society as seen through the eyes of an English-born photographer now living in New York City.

Graham has wandered downtowns and residential areas alike, juxtaposing the sprawling immaculate suburbs of the American West and the rundown rat-infested neighborhoods, transmiting the disparity between social classes, the differences in their quality of life expectations for the future. Instead of focusing on the blatant differences, he develops an elegant idea that goes far beyond the perfectly balanced composition and pinpoint lighting: the selection of less-obvious images that we all encounter daily, almost subconsciously, but that few of us take notice of.

The obvious is a big house with a nice spotless car parked in front, printed in full color like a birthday party picture.

The less obvious is a solitary figure walking along a highway, looking for scraps in a garbage bin or passing by a line of car for sale that he’d never be able to afford to buy, printed like it has been washed, as if to obliterate it from sight.

The only time when solitaries figures are printed in full color, they are is in sharp crude-as-life light situation.

A powerful collection of images that brings together dreams and reality, people with a future and those with only a present.

Michele Molinari

all images @ Paul Graham

 

Buy American Night

Paul Graham has been the recipient of many awards including a Eugene Smith Memorial Followship. His work has been exhibited extensively, including at the MoMA, NY, and the Tate Gallery, London. Previously published books include Troubled Land, New Europe, Empty Heaven and End of an Age.

Filed under photo books, usa Tagged with , , , , , ,

FOLLOWING Garry Winogrand

September 28, 2010 Leave a comment

I was walking along Fifth Ave and suddenly remembered some photos by Garry Winogrand.

“Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed.” GW

Photography booksby Garry Winogrand.
Great American photographers from the 60s and 70s: The Last Photographic Heroes.

Filed under mood explorer, new york city Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Newer posts →

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.