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Title: Crosstown by Helen Levitt, Francine Prose ISBN: 1576871037 Publisher: powerHouse Books Pub. Date: October, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $100.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5
Rating: 5
Summary: Manhattan Images Must Have
Comment: This is my latest favorite photography book. I have a large collection that includes many with Manhattan as subject. The images captured by Levitt are stunning and the binding of the book itself is wonderful.
Rating: 5
Summary: Taking Time To Look Around
Comment: Helen Levitt is not one of those New Yorkers who look neither to the left or right as they travel the streets of the city. This is a book about life. The neighborhoods she shoots are generally poor ones, yet we see people that are involved; people who are actively engaged in life even when they seem to be doing nothing. Her subjects -often children- play, they love, they communicate, they are lost in thought, and occasionally are sleeping.
A fine sense of humor permeates many of the scenes. Some subjects are caught in contorted, puzzling positions. We see the incongruous position of objects: an old 33rpm record in the street; a pair of shoes sitting by themselves on a sidewalk; three chickens wandering around a decrepit room -where did they come from? A mother's head is buried in the bottom of a baby buggy while the tyke yelps with joy. A dog is caught in the act of mistaking his owner's leg for a fire hydrant while she talks to a friend.
In general HL catches the warm side of humanity. Only a couple of pictures look like they were taken from a file of Jacob Riis (a 19th century photographer of New York tenement life). There was one particularly sad shot of a woman and her three children sitting on their front steps. They are obviously impoverished. The two youngest children seem quite content, but the mother seems weighed down with her life, and in the teen-age daughter we see the beginning of lost hopes.
This book is a must for anyone interested in street photography. It will take you a long time to get through this book as each photograph will hold your attention for some time.
Rating: 5
Summary: A classic book of street photography
Comment: Helen Levitt's name is less well known than some of her images of New York street life. Perhaps that is the way she would wish it since she seems to have never sought fame. The book is as reticient as she and there is little commentary, but in truth little is necessary though I would love to know more about her and her work. This is a beautifully printed, organized and designed book and it was a pleasure to spend hours looking at the photographs. Often it was difficult to turn the page because each image is so compelling and resonates on many different levels. In a way, they are the perfect street images; they have the look of a snapshot but are so much more than that. Though they are all of New York they have a universal quality and speak about the truth of people's lives in a profound way. I admired the formal qualities of the photographs but what resonates most is the deep humanity of what she does, what she sees and records. It sometimes seems to me that photographers, in their quest for a good images,treats subjects with a level of distain and distance that is uncomfortable and ultimately manipulative. Crosstown is nothing like that and even when the photos are funny, and several are, they are funny in a very human way. There is nothing saccharine or trite in her work either and she has a great gift of photographing children without slipping into cuteness. I am a photographer and I treasure this book. I would certainly recommend it to others interested in photography, but I thinks its' appeal extends to anyone interested in the human condition and how we relate to one another.
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Title: William Eggleston's Guide by William Eggleston, John Szarkowski ISBN: 0870703781 Publisher: Distributed Art Publishers Pub. Date: 15 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: The Americans by Robert Frank, Jack Kerouac ISBN: 3931141802 Publisher: Scalo Verlag Ac Pub. Date: May, 1998 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Elliott Erwitt Snaps by C. Murray/Flowers Sayle ISBN: 071484330X Publisher: Phaidon Press Inc. Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
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Title: Winogrand: Figments from the Real World by Garry Winogrand, John Szarkowski ISBN: 0870706357 Publisher: Museum of Modern Art, New York Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $55.00 |
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Title: Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image and the World: A Retrospective by Philippe Arbaizar, Jean Clair, Claude Cookman, Robert Delpire, Peter Galassi, Jean-Noel Jeanneney, Jean Leymarie, Serge Toubiana, Henri Cartier-Bresson ISBN: 0500542678 Publisher: Thames & Hudson Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $75.00 |
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