West Coast

Bering to Baja

by David Freese and Simon Winchester

Introduction by Naomi Rosenblum

Imprint: George F Thompson Publishing

192 Pages, 9.5 x 11.5 in

Hardcover
9781938086045
January 2012
In Stock

$60.00

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Authors
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David Freese has spent the last sixteen years photographing North America’s major waters, resulting in a trilogy of books: West Coast: Bering to Baja (2012), East Coast: Arctic to Tropic (2016), and Mississippi River: Headwaters and Heartland to Delta and Gulf (2020). His prints are in many collections, including the Center for Creative Photography, Cleveland Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, Haggerty Museum of Art, and Library of Congress, and his photographs have appeared in Communication Arts, Photo District News, Photo Insider, Polaroid International, Popular Photography, Smithsonian Air and Space, and View Camera magazines.

Simon Winchester is a journalist and New York Times best-selling author of more than twenty books, including The Professor and the Madman (1999), Krakatoa (2003), and The Man Who Loved China (2008). His most recent titles include Atlantic (2010), The Men Who United the States (2013), and Pacific (2015). In 2006, Winchester was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to journalism and literature, and, on July 4, 2011, Winchester was naturalized as a U.S. citizen on board the U.S.S. Constitution.

Naomi Rosenblum was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1925, and moved to New York in 1933. She received her Ph.D. in American art history in 1978 from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and today is an esteemed photographic historian, writer, curator, and art critic. She has been on the Acquisitions Committee of the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography, a Scholar-in-Residence in the Photography Department at the J. Paul Getty Museum, and a member of the Board of Advisors for the Paul Strand Committee of the Aperture Foundation. She is the author of five landmark books, including A World History of Photography, originally published in 1984 by Abbeville Press and now in its fourth edition, and A History of Women Photographers, originally published in 1996 by Abbeville Press and now in its third edition. She has also written numerous articles on contemporary American, Canadian, and European photographers as well as various movements in photographic history. In 1998, Naomi and her husband, noted photographer and teacher Walter Rosenblum, were awarded the Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement by the International Center for Photography in New York City. Her Website iswww.rosenblumphoto.com.

"This black and white photography book has an unusual format in that the photos are rather small, about 4x6 inches framed by a large amount of white space surrounding them on each page. Mr. Freese is the first to make a book of photographs documenting the entire west coastline of North America from the Bering Straits in Alaska to the tip of the Baja peninsula at Cabo San Lucas. The photographs are presented as if you are traveling from North to South in the order in which a driver would see the sights. Each photo emphsizes nature, omitting almost entirely the impact of man, so that the resulting images could have been made in the 19th century. However, the skilled photographer that David is, he has combined film photography with digital and has manipulated the photos in the computer to their best presentation. The accompanying text is beautifully written and deeply enhances each image, as well as explaining what is depicted." ~Bonnie Neely, Real Travel Adventures

"Experienced freelance photographer David Freese and writer Simon Winchester have gotten together to change the way readers see the West Coast. They do it through a book of photographs of wild landscapes from the northwest tip of Alaska to Baja California. The photos are in black-and-white, beautifully printed with plenty of white space, and owe a great deal to Alfred Steiglitz and Ansel Adams. As simply a book of landscape photographs, they owe too much to Adams and Steiglitz, though they are often breathtakingly lovely. This is where the book's idea comes in. By combining digital sepia and black-and-white toning effects from the Photoshop tradition with skilled 35mm camerawork from the Adams/Steiglitz tradition, Freese's images get readers to notice that the iconic images of pioneer photographers are the same territory as contemporary California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. In its careful balancing of deep honesty and sleight of hand (in Los Angeles, the wilderness of the Santa Monica mountains is now a portrait of the sky), the book inspires us to ask where we have come from, where we are now, and where we may be going. It's an equally good question about art, the environment, and culture. The book's foreword is by photographic historian and critic Naomi Rosenblum. Winchester's text is a spare, restrained partner in the project. He focuses the reader's attention on geology, the fluid tectonic nature of landscapes that, on the scale of a human lifespan, seem poised between changelessness and catastrophe. The book offers a postmodern turn with old-fashioned care for skillful, serious craft. For any general reader, it can be simply a quietly beautiful coffee-table book. For readers tuned to its key, interested in photography, wildlands, West Coast history, or contemporary art, it may also inspire wonder on another level." ~Book News, Inc.

"What elevates West Coast: Bering to Baja above the level of a mere coffee-table book is the consciousness behind it. This deftly balanced combination of ecology, geology, geography, and history is presented through a photographic vision in which its environmental message comes through as clear as the natural imagery. While areas of the Pacific Rim have been captured visually many times before, it’s rare to find them presented sequentially in one volume. Though the reproductions are not as large as one might expect from a hardcover, the quality of the presentation compensates by offering very educational contents. Ultimately, this book instills within us an awareness of both the fragility of the landscape and the majesty of the vast geological forces over which we have little control." ~City Book Review

"There's a natural serene beauty that the Western side of North America carries, unique to it and it alone. West Coast: Bering to Baja is a collection of photography focusing on the western coast of the continent, from the frost touched coastlines and forests of Alaska to the sun and sand of California, using sepia tone to set a mood all throughout the coast with high quality photography all throughout. For those who want to experience much of North America's natural beauty, West Coast: Bering to Baja is a much recommended pick not to be overlooked." ~Midwest Book Review