Cosmonauts have lived and trained in Star City since the 1960s. In the Soviet era, it was one of the most top secret locations in the Soviet Union. Also known as The Yuri Gagarin Russian State Science Research Cosmonauts Training Centre) it is still a military research facility and consists of a training facility and a residential area for the cosmonauts and their families as well as the military and civilian personnel serving the facility. Baikonur, situated in Kazakhstan, was the world's first space launch facility and it is still the largest. Nowadays, the site is rented and administered by Russia. Direction-Space! is a fascinating study of Star City and Baikonur. Incorporating unique archive materials, it explores the reality of the space community at first hand, investigating the physical and psychological space as well the routine and lives of its residents. It offers a new insight into a subject central to the Cold War history of the Soviet Union and raises questions over attitudes and perceptions that have been formed over the years.

Charlotte Cory's "Visitors" are truly creatures of fantasy and fascination - each so delicately posed that we think "can that be real?" A noble tiger in full military regalia, a dejected donkey slumped in a chair in a sparse studio setting, and a haughty kangaroo holding a cricket bat and gazing out at us dismissively. What kind of extraordinary creatures are these? Cory's images rework cartes de visite, the photographic visiting cards that were a Victorian craze. Many millions were produced and are now so commonly discarded in junk shops that they are almost worthless.Can there be anything more poignant than a person got up in their best bib and tucker, preserved for a posterity that is no longer interested? Yet there is something assuredly sadder than discarded photographs of forgotten faces and family pets: all those stuffed animals in museums, shot long ago not on glass plates but with guns, their very bodies preserved for posterity to gawk at. Where did this moth-eaten lion sniff his last antelope? How many of us have stood with our noses pressed to the glass eyeing these captured creatures? "The Visitors" is a remarkable book that draws us into an imagined world of immense power and originality.

This truly global and visually stunning  compendium showcases some of the most breath-taking pieces of street art and graffiti from around the world. Since its genesis on the East Coast of the United States in the late 1960s, street art has travelled to nearly every corner of the globe, morphing into highly ornate and vibrant new styles. This unique atlas is the first truly geographical survey of urban art, revised and updated in 2023 to include new voices, increased female representation and cities emerging as street art hubs. Featuring specially commissioned works from major graffiti and street art practitioners, it offers you an insider’s view of the urban landscape as the artists themselves experience it. Organized geographically, by continent and by city – from New York, Los Angeles and Montreal in North America, through Mexico City and Buenos Aires in Latin America, to London, Berlin and Madrid in Europe, Sydney and Auckland in the Pacific, as well as brand new chapters covering Africa and Asia – it profiles more than 100 of today’s most important artists and features over 700 astonishing artworks. This beautifully illustrated book, produced with the help of many of the artists it features, dispels the idea of such art as a thoughtless defacement of pristine surfaces, and instead celebrates it as a contemporary and highly creative inscription upon the skin of the built environment.

'Brother|Sister' tells the story of Edvard and Bergit Bjelland who grew up with their parents and siblings on a small farm in a remote part of Norway on the south-west coast. The farmhouse itself dated back to 1800s and is now a listed building. Edvard was the fourth generation of his family to have owned the farm and had kept horses, cows, pigs, hens and over one hundred sheep. When Elin Hoyland first met him, his sister Berjit had recently died, most of the livestock had been sold off and the land rented out. He now lived alone looking after just a handful of sheep. Edvard had been the only one to stay on the homestead, though his sister Bergit eventually moved back into the farnhouse with him, after living several years in the city of Stavanger. In the late 1970s she moved out again, but this time to a new house that she had built just a stone's throw from her childhood home. Bergit died in 2011 and Edvard now looks after her house. This is a story of two very different lives, lived within a matter of yards of each other. Whilst the physical distance separating Edvard and Bergit may have been minimal, their emotional and lifestyle choices are so far apart. Through her photographs Hoyland explores these choices, the different dreams and needs that the brother and sister sought to fulfill, whilst award winning Norwegian novelist and poet, Gaute Heivoll provides a short fictional piece inspired by the images. The collaboration is both absorbing and moving.

A nostalgic collection of portraiture and interviews featuring not only your favorite artists from the 1980s, but also artists you should know. The influence of '80s culture is undeniable, perhaps most popularly in music. So what are the musicians who built the sonic landscape of the '80s up to? Photographer Mike Hipple seeks to answer this and other burning questions with 40+ influential performers of the '80s, including Lol Tolhurst from the Cure, Cindy Wilson from the B-52s, Robyn Hitchcock, punk pioneer Alice Bag, and Kristin Hersh from Throwing Muses. Join Hipple on this fan's journey to three countries and all four corners of the US to get an intimate look at these hit makers' stories. Some are still releasing critically acclaimed records and touring, some could be the rock star that lives next door, and at least one is living a bohemian lifestyle in a 100-year-old farmhouse. Complete with a deft foreword by television personality and Esquire's L.A.-based editor-at-large Dave Holmes, this is the perfect book for fans of the eighties.

Lighthouses may stand watchfully over serene waters one day and be bombarded by immense waves the next. They may look out on the most spectacular views, mark the entrance to a busy harbour or be placed in some of the world's most desolate locations. To seafarers they are guiding lights in dangerous waters, but, once decommissioned, they can acquire an air of mystery. They are the most strictly functional of all civilian buildings and yet they can be surprisingly beautiful and varied in design. Are they square, cylindrical or octagonal? Are they single structures or towers on top of other buildings? Are they made of wood, stone, brick, or concrete? Are they coloured with stripes or bands? From Lake Michigan to the Arctic Circle, from the British Isles to Brazil, Lighthouses celebrates more than 200 structures and the stunning vistas that surround them. Taking examples from all around the world, the book features an immense array of operating and disused lighthouses from the 18th century to the present day, from those marking ocean coastlines to structures besides lakes and on rivers, from lighthouses cloaked in ice to Art Deco classics to tilting structures abandoned in sand dunes. Presented in a handy pocket-sized format, Lighthouses is arranged geographically, with more than 200 colour photographs and captions explaining the construction, operation and history of each entry.

Through stunning digital photography, Roger Camp creates glorious collages of color to present five hundred of the world's most beautiful flowers. A feast for the eye, this is a fine art photographer's rendition of the natural world.

Details of the five hundred flowers displayed are included in an informative index.

'Rough Beauty' is a powerful and moving insight into the struggle of the community of Vidor, Texas, against poverty and its past links to the Ku Klux Klan.

Over the last five years Alessandro Imbriaco has been photographing issues around housing problems in Rome. This has led him to explore the peripheral and hidden spaces of the city. "The Garden" is one of these places. It is a small swamp next to the Aniene River, under a flyover on the ring road circling the eastern outskirts of Rome. Attempts have been made to protect the area's flora and fauna by designating it as a nature reserve, though these efforts have failed and it remains abandoned and with no environmental protection. Yet it has ended up protecting other living creatures: Angela, a six-year-old child, was born here and grew up here with her parents Piero, from Sicily, and Luba, from Russia, in a shack under the flyover. They have found sanctuary in the swamp - a safe shelter, hidden from the rest of the city - a different and invisible existence, unimaginable to all those who drive over the flyover every day.

Our beautiful planet is in danger: the warning signs are there, year after year – from vast forest fires across Australia to coral bleaching in the Pacific and the rapid break up of polar ice and the consequent rise in sea levels, threatening low-lying coastal communities everywhere. Arranged by continent, Endangered Places introduces the reader to many of the most stunning natural locations from the around the world that are currently under threat. Learn about the magnificent Bornean rainforest, home to threatened species such as orangutans, probiscis monkeys and the Sumatran rhinoceros; marvel at the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef, stretching 2,300 kilometres along Australia’s east coast and built by billions of tiny organisms, known as coral polyps; explore the Aral Sea, formerly the fourth largest lake in the world and today less than 10 per cent of it’s original size after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects; and understand the process of desertification, which has led to the huge expansion of the Sahara Desert and the dramatic shrinkage of Lake Chad. Illustrated with more than 180 photographs of more than 100 threatened locations, Endangered Places celebrates the beauty of our planet while reminding us of how easily this can be lost through human behaviour and climate change.

There are now precious few places left on earth with which we do not feel familiar, if not from first hand experience then at least from the perspective of the armchair traveller - and fewer still where the camera has not yet prescribed our vision. An unrivalled collection of images of one of the last unsullied wildernesses in the world: the vast, uninhabited spaces of north-east Greenland. These beautiful, majestic and poetic landscapes exist in one of the harshest environments on earth. Roy traces the historical background with a brief outline of Greenland's early exploration. He documents the poignant traces of the Inuit tribe - their winter houses, summer tent circles and graves and enigmatic stone mosaics - and the structures left by the European trappers who once plied their dog-sledges in the lonely fjords. Iain Roy's first expedition to Greenland was in 1982, to the mountainous region of the south near Cape Farewell. He was a member of a small group of Arctic enthusiasts who shared a love of wild spaces and whose ambitions were fuelled by the accounts of earlier pioneers - early whaling and expedition journals and memoirs of scientists and trappers from the pre-war period. The group pooled their resources in order to reach remote corners of a faraway region that had become their common obsession. Roy himself has since made ten expeditions to the region.

"Swiss explorer and photographer Stefan Forster admits that he is no stranger to dodging alligators and hiking for weeks in pursuit of the perfect photo. And an impressive new photobook shows that his efforts pay off handsomely." - Sarah Holt, Mail Online "This tome is a potential classic in the making and a masterclass in how straightforward landscape imagery should be done." - Amateur Photographer "Stunning pictures...luminous images..." - Examiner "Unbelievable...just amazing..." - WGN TV Chicago Captured in vivid colour and magnificent quality, the unique moments that photographer Stefan Forster discovers in out-of-the-way places in nature take place on adventurous backcountry trips far from civilisation, with Forster lugging up to 80 pounds in camera gear and camping equipment. With enormous enthusiasm and prepared for anything, he often hikes through remote areas for weeks at a time on his search for the extraordinary. He has taken long solo kayak expeditions along Greenland's west coast, hopped from island to island in Micronesia, and slogged through the swamps of Louisiana and Texas to find the area's most beautiful cypress trees, dodging alligators all the while. The results are unique and fascinating photos. This book presents this young photographer's most beautiful experiences to date, including everything from rare rainstorms in the world's driest desert and the Northern Lights shimmering through icebergs to spectacular shots of the Rocky Mountains. Forster was one of the first photographers to use state-of-the-art quadcopter drones, giving his pictures fresh, new perspectives. Stefan Forster published some of these aerial shots for the first time in Above the World - Earth Through a Drone's Eye, released by teNeues in September 2016. The following locations are included in the book: Switzerland Iceland Greenland Antarctica Peninsula Utah Colorado South Dakota Louisiana Washington Namibia Westcoast, Scotland Uganda New Zealand Seychelles La Gomera Tasmania Philippines Australia Indonesia Text in English, French and German.

Israel's history can be understood through its vast archaeological heritage. Its past exists not only in the written word but also in its land, in the architecture and ruins, in the stones themselves. Each civilization overwrites another, layer upon layer - a sophisticated palimpsest. A single frame can expose the sediment of thousands of years. The recycling of spaces, from one empire to the next, shows how each sought to conquer and rule the land, all with a similar outcome: eventual failure. Kremer shows the vestiges of this complex multi-cultural saga, testimonies unearthed from the past that show a different perspective. It is landscape as a place of amnesia and erasure, for Israel is a strategic site where the past has been buried and history veiled by natural beauty. Kremer's Israel exists beyond the media headlines and tourist hotspots: it is landscape as cultural force, an instrument in the construction of national and social identity. For Kremer, it is a provocation to critical debate about a country where different perspectives existed, and continue to exist, and where new possibilities can be reflected upon.

To describe the complexity of this ever-changing and multi-layered terrain, Kremer creates aesthetic, orderly and beautiful compositions that parallel the defense mechanisms developed to protect Israelis from the painful reality of the current political situation. Rather than confronting the Israeli occupation in the way that it has been absorbed by the world's media, Kremer adopts a more subtle approach. For him, the media's aggressive representation of reality numbs people's sensibilities making them callous to the suffering of others.Instead of shock, Kremer seeks to challenge the viewer, using the landscape as a focus to understand the overwhelming impact of the situation at the deepest of levels. Four decades ago the historian and philosopher, Yeshayahu Leibovich, forewarned that the Israeli occupation was a cancerous disease in the heart of the nation. As Kremer himself says, 'my goal is to reveal how every piece of land has become infected with loaded sediments of the ongoing conflict'.

Throughout India images of babies appear everywhere - on posters, in calendars and on billboards. But these are no ordinary babies. Chairman Baby, Scientist Baby, Farmer Baby, Doctor Baby and Army Baby all make an appearance. Carriers of dreams, both personal and social, these babies find themselves in a bewildering and delightful variety of professional roles. One hundred classic baby posters go to make this book unashamedly zany.

Red Thistle, the 2011 winner of The European Publishers Award for Photography, is a powerful and fascinating exploration of the important but relatively unknown region and people of the Northern Caucasus. It lies between the Black and Caspian Seas and is within European Russia. Wars have been fought here for centuries - the most recent in Chechnya. Monteleone examines the stubborn, rebellious culture of this region, which although part of Russia, differs in the ethnicity, religion and social customs of its inhabitants.