Australian Colors: Images of the Outback
by Bill Bachman
from Watson-Guptill Publications
Immense, haunting, unique in geology and life forms, the outback looms to the north and west of Australia's urbanized southeast coast. For two years, photojournalist Bill Bachman recorded both this forbidding landscape and the people who dwell--and even thrive--in it, compiling the images for his remarkable book, Australian Colors. Deftly avoiding all the usual clichés--there is not a single kangaroo shot--Australian Colors mixes stunning vistas of twisted cliffs and sweeping plains with more intimate portraits of outback culture. Here are the jackaroos and jillaroos (cowboys and cowgirls) who work the vast outback ranches, the sunken-jawed fishers of isolated creeks and shoals, the well-lubricated celebrants at a bush horse race. Bachman's striking photographs are well matched by his lengthy, colorful captions, which go far beyond typical coffee-table book text. In addition, each of the book's winningly titled 19 sections ("Trees as Men Walking," "Dogs? They Run the Country") begins with a short essay by award-winning Australian novelist Tim Winton, whose evocative, often humorous prose perfectly complements Bachman's images. There is one question that has to be asked, however: why are Australia's aborigines--the outback's original inhabitants--so underrepresented in Australian Colors? By revealing so little of them, perhaps Bachman reveals more of outback culture than he intends. --Rebecca Gleason
Australia
by Peter Lik
from Peter Lik's Wilderness Press Pty Ltd.
Inside Sydney
by Max Dupain
from New Holland Publishers,
A collection of outstanding images of Sydney spanning a period of more than seventy years, and showcasing the work of two generations of the Dupain family. Here, for the first time, the vision of father and son are presented together. Capturing both human and architectural landscapes, each photographer presents their particular take on life in the harbour city. Sydney is the constant factor in the linked, but non-overlapping photographic careers of Max and Rex Dupain, with certain places and motifs that echo between generations. Bondi, for instance, has been a hunting ground for both generations. So too, the harbour and the life of the streets. Rex has not consciously followed in his father¹s footsteps, but in photographing the city¹s landmarks, he is putting his own stamp on a motif closely associated with Max¹s distinctive vision. He can be assured that Sydney herself has not stood still, waiting for another Dupain to come along.
Photography and Australia (Reaktion Books - Exposures)
by Helen Ennis
from Reaktion Books
With its moving landscapes and famously independent cultural traditions, Australia is uniquely suited to having its national narrative told through visual documentation. Helen Ennis gathers here a selection of photographs that recount the story of Australia, and through this visual chronicle, she uncovers a distinctively Australian visual culture.
The striking images featured in Photography and Australia, drawn from the National Library of Australia and other public collections, powerfully document the iconic sights of the rugged Australian landscape such as the imposing Ayers Rock, as well as documentary photographs, wilderness shots, post-mortem studies of bushrangers, and other images both quotidian and extraordinary. One of the leading photography historians in Australia, Ennis argues that the colonial experience is a central element of these visual testaments, and embedded within this experience are the tumultuous relations between white settlers and Aboriginal peoples.
Her analysis explores how the photographs reveal the racial, social, and political tensions woven throughout Australian history, ranging from modern works by Aboriginal photographers to archival photographs of desolate mining towns and the peoples who eked out their living from the brutal terrain. The photographers’ personal perspectives are also embedded in the images, Photography and Australia argues, and the book examines how photographers’ responses to place, modernity, and globalization were expressed through their works.
Photography and Australia unearths an original and engaging perspective on Australian history, weaving a wealth of vibrant images into a compelling account that will appeal to the Aussie in all of us.
Malinowski's Kiriwina: Fieldwork Photography 1915-1918
by Michael W. Young
from University Of Chicago Press
Malinowski's Kiriwina presents nearly two hundred of Malinowski's previously unpublished photographs, taken between 1915 and 1918, of the Trobriand Islanders. The images are more than embellishments of his ethnography; they are a recreation in striking detail of a distant world. Michael Young, an anthropologist and Malinowski's authorized biographer, has selected the photographs based on one of Malinowski's unpublished studies of the region, and the plan of that abandoned project has helped structure this book.
Divided into fourteen sections, Malinowski's Kiriwina is a series of linked photo-essays based on Trobriand institutions and cultural themes as described by Malinowski. The introductory essay by Young appraises the founding anthropologist's photographic oeuvre, explains the historical circumstances and technical aspects of the images, and puts them in their colonial context. Young illuminates the photographs with quotations from Malinowski's diaries, letters, and field notes, thereby giving a biographical dimension to the collection. Commentaries on the images by contemporary Trobrianders add a further layer of interpretation. The result is a stunning record not only of a fascinating place, but of the mutual relationship between ethnography and the visual.
Australia Wide: The Journey
Sylvain's Tahiti
by Adolphe Sylvain
from Taschen
Adolphe Sylvain (1920-1991) stopped off in Tahiti in 1946 and, enchanted by the beautiful landscape, welcoming people, and a certain island beauty who called herself Tehani, decided to stay. He settled in and eventually married his hypnotic lover, working as a correspondent for magazines such as Paris Match, Life, and National Geographic. Drawn by an irrepressible desire to capture his surroundings and to share this lost, unknown world with those outside of it, he dedicated himself to photographing the island's many delights. Like Rousseau and Gauguin before him, he was captive to the people and places of a land so radically different from his own and chose it as his principal subject matter. Sylvain's rich, skilled black-and-white images are like visions of an earthly paradise, peopled with half-clad women wearing flowers in their hair, the sun reflecting off of their glowing skin. His images, capturing the timeless beauty of Tahiti, are a testament to the island's powerful magnetism.
After Sylvain's death, his widow Jeanine-Tehani had a dream that a European embarked upon her island country and that she gave to this person all of her husband's photos to be made into a book. In a storybook twist of fate, it just so happened that Tehani's dream became a reality when photographer Gian Paolo Barbieri- born on the same day and hour as Sylvain- stopped off for a visit a few years later. He was mesmerized by Sylvain's photographs and eagerly gathered together his work to take back to Europe. Thus was born Tahiti, woven together by the strands of destiny and the vision of an impassioned photographer.
Tahiti begins with a preface by Barbieri and an introduction by biographer, journalist, and longtime friend of Sylvain, Jean Lacouture, followed by Sylvain's best works, including landscapes, portraits, and images of celebrities visiting the island (such as Brigitte Bardot, Marlon Brando, and Charles de Gaulle). With these luscious, sensual images as evidence, it's not hard to see why Sylvain was enraptured by Tahiti's exotic, ethereal atmosphere, nor why he felt the need to photograph it. Sylvain's work has not met the success it deserves until now, as fate finally brings his photographs to the world with this retrospective tribute.
Amerika Samoa: An Anthropological Photo Essay
Spectacular Australia (Spectacular Series)
by Phillip Mathews
from Universe
Australia is a vigorous young nation astride an ancient continent. This vast, parched land - the flattest and driest continent - is revealed here in 200 splendid color photographs, including panoramic gatefolds by some of the most distinguished photographers working in the country today. State by state, the images here capture the Great Barrier Reef, the biggest coral reef on the planet; the massive glowing monoliths of the Red Centre in the Northern Territory; the snowcapped peaks and frozen lakes in the rain-soaked wilderness of Tasmania; the lush green plains of the Great Divide; and the scorched stone, sandy deserts, and crystalline white salt lakes of the interior.
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