Paul Martineau

Rodney Smith: A Leap of Faith by Paul Martineau is a beautiful collection of Smith's photographs as well as an wonderful look at his life and career.

My primary interest in a coffee table, or oversize, book is appearance, both cover and inside. This volume passes that test for me with flying colors (or mostly blacks and whites in this case). The plates are reproduced vividly and showcase the many juxtapositions in his art. From formally attired models in locations where you don't expect it to objects in places that seem less than normal. Yet they all work, largely by having the viewer be more active in looking and understanding the image.

What moved this book up for me was the biographical essay that opens the book. It is more than simply letting us know about what he did and where he lived. We learn about the environment within which he practiced his art, his ideas about different approaches, and about how events around him often gave him opportunity to grow.

I would recommend this to those interested in photography in the 20th century (and into the 21st) as well as those who simply enjoy excellent photography. Those interested in the art and business of photography will enjoy the essay as much as the plates.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (more)

Imogen Cunningham: A Retrospective from Paul Martineau and, much more importantly, Susan Ehrens is a wonderful work that will please both those familiar and unfamiliar with her work.

As I have come to expect from Getty Publications this book serves as both a visual and textual pleasure. The essays, especially those from Ehrens, are insightful and help to place the photographs in context. In addition to the arc of her own life and career the contexts needed, and did, place her work in the broader scope of art history, and even social history to a large extent. For my personal preference I would have liked less of Martineau and more of Ehrens, or even just less of Martineau. I don't want to get into what put me off about his voice and the, perhaps incorrect, impression of him that came through, but you will get a strong feel for it if you just skim through the difference between the photographs used in his essay and those throughout both Ehrens essays as well as the plates. But I also admit that this is more personal preference on my part than a serious flaw in the book.

For those familiar with Cunningham this offers both the essays and many images that have been overlooked or not previously published. For those new to Cunningham, this is a great introduction because you both learn about her life and work while also seeing a wonderful collection of photographs that span her career.

On a more coincidental note, I recently read a great biography of Ruth Asawa (Everything She Touched by Marilyn Chase) and then seeing that Cunningham had photographed her and her work made yet another connection for me. There are just enough known names in the book that I think many readers may have similar experiences. I don't know whether some of the photographs in the Chase book, in particular the cover, are from Cunningham, but they look similar to my unexpert eye.

Highly recommended for those who appreciate photography and the history of the art form. It makes a nice display book, big enough to show but not so oversized that it dominates a coffee table or display table.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (more)

In the summer of 2013 I read an article bemoaning the artistic divide between professional / artistic photographers and hobbyists who share their work primarily online. The gist of the article was that most hobbyists can't name a single photographer whose work is in a gallery or museum.

At the same time (coincidence? or perhaps a librarian responding to the article?) my local library put together a display of books about famous photographers as wells as history books on photography movements and techniques.

Eliot Porter: In the Realm of Nature by Paul Mortineau and Michael Brune is a retrospective of the artwork of a man who studied under Ansel Adams and used his techniques to make color photography a recognized and legitimate art form.

Porter's main passion was bird watching. Along with perfecting the craft of capturing colors on film, he worked at techniques to get naturalistic shots of birds in their habitats. His elaborate set ups in trees that could accommodate his bulky camera equipment without spooking the birds are the precursor to the repurposed ducklings used by Thomas D. Mangelsen (review coming).

Porter also took photographs of rocks, leaves, grass and other natural odds and ends. If anything, I no longer feel silly hiding on my balcony trying to snap shots of the chickadee who loves to tell me off. Nor do I feel silly about stopping to shoot a stray leaf or an odd tuft of grass.… (more)