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Great booklet / pamphlet featuring the new architecture and construction of the Place Ville Marie complex in downtown Montreal, Canada. Photographs by "Gaby" 40 color and black and white illustrations / photographs of the buildings, interior and exterior views, interior design, architectural details, images of the skyline of Montreal in the 1960s.Softcover brochure / pamphlet. Unpaginated - 30 pages. Measures 8 by 10 1/4 inches. Interesting bit of ephemera, nicely illustrated. ... Read more

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The Columbia River Gorge exerts a powerful influence on the lives and imaginations of the inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest. For people who live here today, just as for those Native Americans and European settlers who preceded us, this dramatic natural landform is a source of awe. Since the 1860s it has inspired superb photographers who have framed and interpreted the way we see the Gorge, and who have in turn had their artistic vision shaped by this compelling landscape. The ninety-year period covered in Wild Beauty was a critical one in the river’s history. Over thousands of years the wild, free-flowing torrent of the Columbia River carved a passage—the Columbia River Gorge—through the Cascade Mountain Range. In the 1860s, when the first photographers arrived, the Gorge still looked much the same as it had when Lewis and Clark made their way down the river in 1805, and indeed as it had for centuries before that, when the native peoples’ culture of fishing and trade thrived along the river’s banks. In the mid-twentieth century, the character of the river was fundamentally altered by the construction of hydroelectric dams. Terry Toedtemeier and John Laursen have selected more than 130 images—most of them previously unpublished and many of them never before available for public view—by some three dozen photographers to chronicle the history of photography in the Gorge. Wild Beauty begins in 1867 with images by the legendary Carleton Watkins, creator of some of the greatest landscape photographs of the nineteenth century. Later photographers include Benjamin Gifford, Lily White, Sarah Ladd, Fred Kizer, Alfred Monner, and Ray Atkeson. The volume ends in 1957 with the completion of The Dalles Dam, which drowned Celilo Falls and with it the historic site where Indians had fished for millennia.The images in this beautifully designed volume are presented one to a spread, with captions on the facing pages. The book is organized into five chronological sections, each with a brief introduction; a map shows the locations where the photographs were made. The photographs have been meticulously restored and are exquisitely reproduced in four-color process to capture the subtle coloration and nuanced tonal values of albumen prints, gelatin silver prints, platinum prints, hand-colored photographs, and early Kodachromes.The photography of Watkins and his successors is a significant piece of the cultural heritage of the Pacific Northwest. Readers interested in the history of the Columbia River and the photography of the developing American West will be enthralled by the book’s scope and artistry. And those who love the Gorge’s stunning beauty will welcome how this volume has captured its grandeur.Wild Beauty represents, in the words of one reviewer, “a culmination of decades of research, exhibition, and total immersion in the geology, history, and photography of the Columbia River Gorge.” Oregon State University Press is proud to partner with the Northwest Photography Archive to publish this remarkable volume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge,
After viewing the TV program on Oregon Public Broadcasting I purchased the book so I could continue to enjoy the pictures at my leisure. The book is very well done and meets my expectations. We are fortunate to have such a book to preserve that part of the history of the gorge that is now under water from the many dams.Through this book generations to come will continue to experience the gorge through the beautiful old pictures.

Wild Beauty
A memorable collection of photographs displaying the beauty of the Columbia River Gorge over ninety years (1867-1957), from notables like Carleton Watkins and Ray Atkeson.A worthy tribute to the work of Terry Toedtemeier and John Laursen.

Book "Wild Beauty"
I live in Portland,Oregon and was trying to buy this book from Portland Art Museum as they had a display of early photos from 1800's to early 1900's at their museum. Did not get to the the display so was just trying to buy the book from them and was told they were all out. The reason I wanted the book was because I have original photos from this era and wanted to know which photo belonged to which photographer as some photos I have do not have photographer name. None of the photos in the book match up with the photographs I have but I did get info from this book as to which photographers were in the area. This helped me a lot.

Wild Beauty is beautiful
This is a beautiful book, based on a beautiful exhibit that was held at the Portland Art Museum.It's all the more remarkable given the photographic techniques used to make these photos, some dating back to the 1850's.
For those of us that know and love the Columbia River Gorge, it was very moving to see what it was like before all the dams were built.
For photographers, there was life before PhotoShop!

A must-have for the bookshelf of any serious regional landscape photographer
One of the last things the world likely needs is a photo book on the Columbia River Gorge. This scenic area, with its numerous waterfalls, mountains, scenic vistas, and easy freeway access is probably the most over-photographed region of the Pacific Northwest. One might be pressed to say that there is nothing new left to see. And you'd be right -- but there is a lot left to see that is old, as is proved by the release of Wild Beauty: Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge, 1867-1957.

Wild Beauty places the history of photography in the Gorge at the forefront. The compilers have chosen the period of 1867 to 1957 as their focus, the latter being the date when The Dalles Dam flooded Celilo Falls. The book opens with a broad essay on the river's geological and anthropological history, and the subsequent attempts to use tools of the "industrial revolution" such a photography to record those things. It's a good overview of what the book hopes to illustrate, if a bit over-familiar to the Pacific Northwest reader. The most valuable segment of this text is contained in its last two pages, where we meet some of the Gorge's earliest photographers, such as Joseph Bucthel and Carleton Watkins.

While Buchtel's work is considered to be "unimpressive", Watkins' work is the entirety of the first of five sections of plates in the book. It's a wise and fitting choice, as Watkins is a skilled artist, a man who had cut his teeth making the photographs of Yosemite that would convince Congress to save it as the first national park. It is a miracle that as many prints as shown in the book even exist; the authors point out that many of his glass plate negatives were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Watkins brings his skills to bear on the Columbia Gorge, making images at a time of great transition. Sure, the book's title suggests an emphasis on natural beauty, yet what we see even in these, the earliest photographs of the work is the firm hand of man, altering the landscape. While some of the images will prove familiar, but as local historian Dan Haneckow pointed out to me, others are more obscure or bear re-examination. A prime example of this is Plate 6, a moderately familiar image of one of the old portage railroads during the 1860s. Look closely at the back, however, and you discover a flatcar carrying a Conestoga wagon as used on the Oregon Trail. Was this a late part of the great migration, taking advantage of a more modern alternative to risking the rapids or taking the long and rough Barlow Road? If so, it's a rare glimpse indeed.

Watkins brings us these gems of zeitgeist, but he is not simply a documentary man. Many of his images have a sensitivity and an artistic composition that makes them excellent even today. Their sharpness, their haunting familiarity makes them seem recent rather than distant. This is but the first of many times a reader will find themselves staring into the distant past and yet feeling intimate with it, as if what has changed, great as the changes have been, is less than what is the same.

The next section deals with the images of various local commercial photographers who followed in Watkins' footsteps. The subject matter these photographers chose to shoot tended to concentrate on the more intimate scale of the Gorge, and here we see some of the first images of the native population. It is here where we first glimpse Celilo as a force of nature, rather than an impediment to trade. There are surprises here too, like the great sand dunes that used to lurk on the east side of The Dalles, or vast seas of Canadian ice. A few hand-tinted images pop through, but primarily we are still given monochromes of various tints.

Section three concentrates on the rise of a new phenomenon: the amateur. Thanks to the advances of technology, photography by the turn of the twentieth century was becoming almost common. For the first time it was now possible for someone who was not a professional (or a very very eccentric amateur) to make photographs. Most notably, the two amateurs that the compilers show us are different in yet another way: they are Lily White and Sarah Ladd, women. Professionals had been an all male bastion, but the amateur photography movement gave women something more meaningful to do other than paint china plates or embroider. Yet White & Ladd were not just random photographers in the wilds; they were connected enough in the growing intellectual photography circles that they were members of Alfred Stieglitz's inner circle. Their images are peculiarly timeless, feeling not far removed from images made in our own time. The cause is uncertain -- perhaps it is a certain sharpness and a scope that is not nearly so sweeping as the earlier panorama-mania. Perhaps, too, we see here the first technically proficient pedestrian imagery of the Gorge, the great-grandmother of every amateur's weekend snapshots.

Section four deals with perhaps one of the most familiar aspects of Gorge photography, the tourism oriented image. These photographs were made primarily by commercial photographers for the railroads and the highway promoters. Here are the photographic legends of the area, including the iconic views of waterfalls, scenic highway viaducts, and the view from Crown Point. It is during this time that the modern scenic Columbia River Gorge -- thanks largely to the photographers who promoted it -- acquires its classic identity. No longer is the region a somewhat frightening place, a place of hardship and travail, but instead it is a playground, a quick drive from your suburban bungalow at a bracing 35 miles-per-hour in your Model T. Many of the images are further "gilded" through garish hand coloring.

If such boosterism seems to cheapen the river, the next and final section of the book is the most tragic of all. Titled "The Engineered River", this segment delivers to us in stunning visual images the return of the river to a cruder understanding. The water now is no more than an unharnessed power source, something to be exploited for human advancement. In some ways, however, the images we see here of dynamiting channels, the construction of great concrete dams, and the burial of cultural treasures has more in common with than different from each of the previous understandings of the Gorge; each saw it as a resource to be utilized, whether for transportation, tourism dollars, or energy. From a photographic standpoint, this chapter contains two new developments, the first being the use of true color imagery. The second and perhaps more complex development is the aerial photograph, further detaching the viewer from reality on the ground. It is perhaps appropriate for a time when men tried to drastically alter the river that their point-of-view f choice was from the height of a God's eye view.

The book closes with little further commentary. A brief (one page) epilogue is included, and following this are plate listings (but without thumbnails), notes, and acknowledgments. The latter is lengthy: many of the images scene in the book are from private collectors and have never been seen in public or print before.

Visually, the content of this book is exceptionally good. There are many remarkable plates and they are presented in a logical order that makes their context more evident, both as indicators of how the Columbia Gorge was framed and viewed, as well as how landscape photography developed and grew. That said, the book is not without faults. The introduction, although able, is dry and does not give much of a feel for the flavor of the Gorge; an essay by a writer of regional or topical relevance would have been most welcome. This is even more the case for the epilogue, which felt far too short and left me wanting more.

Fit and finish on the book is excellent. Some other reviews have noted missing pages or other assembly problems; this reviewer's copy had no such defects. This book is hefty -- you could use it as a weapon if needed. It is perhaps as large as was practical to make it, but sometimes you do wish it could have been bigger, for yet more detail in the images. That said, image reproduction is high quality.

I'm tempted to simply give this book an outright recommendation and say to you "you must buy it". However, as I alluded to in the beginning of this review, I have qualms about yet another photography book on the Columbia River Gorge. Does the world need another? More importantly, do you need this one? It is against this skepticism that I come out with the answer, yes, you do. If you are a follower of regional landscape photography, then this book, more than any other, is essential to understanding the nature of the medium. The book has the right balance of historical overview, context, and precious images. If you want a discount coffee table book to send your distant relatives, so they can understand where you live, this is not your book. Rather, Wild Beauty is a chronicle of the inter-relationship between photography and the Columbia Gorge, and thus a must-have for the bookshelf of any serious regional landscape photographer, or followers of the same. ... Read more

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Andris Apse presents another collection of his unique, beautifully-crafted photographs, taken through the length and breadth of the country. ... Read more

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Sacred Sites explores the relationship between Place, Event and History.Each of these sites is sacred to someone.Places of transformative events; faith, sacrifice, and memory.A few What happened heres.. are encouraged and promoted.The significance of many places is forgotten.No evidence of tragedy or conquest, where forgetfulness is safer for the living or assumed by the victors.Spaces consecrated by those that choose to remember; their reckonings hovering, intuitively sensed.81 Full Color Pages.26 full size photographs. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Fonville: A Culture Preserved Through Photograpy
As a preface to my review of Vetter's book, .Fonville Winans' Louisiana: Politics, People and Places I am obliged to first speak about his subject, Fonville Winans.Not knowing who captured the images until much later, I was captivated by Winans' photographs early on.

Over time, living in Baton Rouge, LA, I learned more about the man and explored the different areas his wonderful photograpy encompassed. More than any other, I was and continue to be moved the most by his photographs of the inhabitants of Coastal and South Louisiana of his day; those of the old fisherman and oystermen, with their sun and wind-chiseled features that said much about who they were and the things they stood for in life.One of the first photos that I came to recognize as Winans' was that of the old bus on Grand Isle, LA.I believe it was Fonville Winans' work that sparked my life-long love of black & white photography.

Initially, not knowing its history, while in graduate school at LSU, I located a small cafe on the edge of a neighborhood called "Spanish Town." Its attraction to me was three-fold; the low price of a simple, yet filling meal, the live accoustic music featured nightly, and, more than any other, an unmistakable ambience that emanated from the old brick building with its front double-door facing the street corner.Soon, I learned the building was originally the studio of Fonville Winans.I believe the ambience there was the echo of his creativity and had little to do with current decor there.

Having said that, I believe Vetter's book captures all these aspects of Fonville, his work, and much more.Sans the ability to own an original made by this magical photographer or bottle the ambience borne of his creativity, this book provides a means of returning, many times over, to the photographs I have grown to love. This makes Vetter's book a "must have" for me and I think if you have any interest in the art of Fonville Winans, the same would be true for you.Furthermore, if you have not been introduced to Winans, Vetter's compilation will open the man and his photograpy to you.

Thanks for reading, Robb

A local classic
This is an unusual book. It offers a glimpse into a treasure trove little known beyond south Louisiana.How appropriate that LSU press should dedicate resources to preserving this material and making it available to awider audience.

For those of my parent's generation who grew up in BatonRouge, getting a "Fonville" portrait was as much a rite ofpassage as visiting the Paramount Theatre (now a parking lot) on ThirdStreet (now Riverside Mall).

Fonville Winans' reach went beyonddocumenting thelives of Baton Rouge society, however, and this bookcapture the remarkable range of his interest. All the major figures inLouisiana politics are here, either out on the stump or in more formalposed portraits. There are also photographs of other parts of Louisianalife: music, festivals, farmland and river bottoms.

The book offers arare glimpse into a long-gone time and place. Though it's a much bigger andelaborate book, it's reminiscent of Eudora Welty's_One Time, One Place_. A special treat is the evocative CD that paints an aural picture to matchthe photographs.

So now you, too, can have a Fonville. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Beautiful Photography!
This is a book of mostly photographs that chronicle the trip Peter Jenkins took in his book "Along the Edge of America." It should be seen as a companion book to "Along the Edge of America."It is best viewed after reading that book first- or perhaps concurrently with that book.
The photography is top notch.The comments add to your viewing pleasure.It could be a coffee table book, or read by itself.If you wish to have a collection of photos of the gulf coast, then this book is for you.Or if you want your reading experience of "Along the Edge of America" enhanced greatly, then this book is for you.If you're a Peter Jenkins fan, then this book is for you.Any way you put it, this is a terrific book!

Beautiful photographs
I enjoyed this book very much.I learned some new things about life in parts of my home state of Louisiana with which I was not familiar. Although Jenkins' love of nature and people is very apparent, I was somewhat disappointed that his vignettes of the people he interviewed and sometimes lived with, were not more in depth. ... Read more

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There is so much to discover in China that it can seem more like a different world than a different country. In this beautifully illustrated guide, you have the chance to explore the natural unspoiled splendour of more than 50 of the most scenic places in China - from the winter forests of the Little White Mountain to the Tibetan grassland and from the uninterrupted beauty of the Altay Mountains to the terraced fields in southern China. Tucked away in deep forests or situated in remote mountainous areas, reachable by infrequent bus services, horseback riding or trekking on mountain trails, the natural beauty and unique customs of these remote places attract travellers who crave adventure. Marvel at Dragon Cave with its stalactites and stalagmites of spectacular shapes and colours; discover the origins of the Yellow River, the mother river that has nourished Chinese civilization for centuries; explore the Yunshan villages - secluded mountaintop communities set up in the 14th century to protect the borders against 'barbarian invaders'.Illustrated with fantastic photographs and illustrations, the wonderful landscapes and spectacular off-the-beaten-path landmarks featured give an intimate portrait of the world's oldest civilization. ... Read more

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great scenery
The color, scenery, and diversity of China is awesome, as shown so beautifully in this wonderful book. Makes one want to spend a month or two traveling around the country. ... Read more

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