Tsunami Beaches: a tale of love and loss, hope and despair, innocence and passion When you look at a beach and say "this is paradise" or when you look at garbage and say "this is trash" the wording itself has so habituated your mind that the emotion it creates comes between you and what you actually see. To experience the true reality of that beach or trash, you must thus observe beyond words or labels, your heart must touch it. To grasp reality you must disregard outer labels, and let your innermost innocent matter observe what is there, with true love and affection. Love cannot be based on words or labels. It cannot be chased. It must come alive fresh and without motive, with no yesterday or tomorrow. It is only the innocent silent matter of you who knows that love and passion is a whole, without labels or borders. Love is absolute and comes without words of Right or Wrong. Life cannot be experienced without dying. To meet life's true reality you must be ready to die every moment. So, when you read this book, let yourself die to emotions, names and forms, and all what you cling to and grasp for. That dying is a mental surrender to the law of impermanence, the fact that everything is subjected to changes. The yielding to this law will make you touch reality: it will purify you and give innocence back to you. Only the one who is innocent can be truly passionate.

All of Which I Saw captures the United States Marine Corps during some of the most dramatic and important moments of the Iraq War. The book takes the viewer across the Pacific aboard ship, into the Battle of Najaf and Second Battle of Fallujah-where Read took his now-iconic photograph of a wounded Sergeant Major Bradley Kasal-and beyond into the bloody streets of Ramadi and the darkness of the Haditha massacre . . . only to return to the light of homecoming. During the Iraq War, no other photojournalist spent more time with the Marines, and this is a singular, stunning, and indispensable record of the conflict and the Marine Corps at war. Throughout, the book also contains Read's own contemporaneous accounts that tell the stories behind the photos and capture the grim truths about the war in all its violence, tragedy, heroism, and sacrifice.

On April 6, 1970, Vietnam War photojournalists Sean Flynn (son of Errol Flynn) and Dana Stone set off on two rented motorcycles to cover one last story and were captured by Communist forces, never to be seen or heard from again. Their friend and fellow journalist, Perry Deane Young, tells their story here in a remarkable memoir first published in 1975. This new Press 53 Classics edition features photos by Flynn, Stone, their friends Tim Page, Nik Wheeler, and others, including a new chapter with updates on the lives of those involved and the ongoing search for two of the missing.

Following on from her epic photographical journey behind the Iron Curtain in Soviet Ghosts The Soviet Union Abandoned: A Communist Empire in Decay Rebecca Bathory undertakes an emotional and thought provoking journey to Fukushima. As one of the first photographers to be granted access to the site, Bathory now presents never-before-seen images which provide a unique and moving meditation on human failure seen through the lens of an accomplished artist. Bathory's images take you behind the scenes of the ghost town that is Fukushima, at turns heartbreaking and devastating. These photographs ask the question - what next for a nuclear future?

Britain is changing. Don't panic! Let's talk. Who were we? Who are we? Who do we want to be? Look back. Leap forward. Explore this treasure trove of images from the Mirror archives that expansively covers the last 100 years. Made in Britain is an epic collection of photographs chronicling Britain at work - that both reminds us of our collective power and giving us hope for the future. These images are pieces of a lost world. Ships emerge at the end of the street. The faces of tough, proud people look at us through the lens of a camera. They had their own hopes and fears. What would they say to us? This was Britain at work. We used to make stuff on an epic scale. Life was not a rose garden, but together we achieved incredible things. We built the modern world. We were always a big family, welcoming workers from around the globe. Let's start a conversation. Let's look back to leap forward. Epic goals are exciting. Epic goals bring people together. We used to make stuff. Could we make stuff again? Should we?

In the summer of 1936, writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans, on assignment
for "Fortune" magazine, went to central Alabama to document the lives of three white
sharecropper families. Agee's editors killed the article, and after a torturous five-year
struggle to do artistic justice to the material, the author finally published it in book form
as "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men," only to see it sink with barely a ripple. The posthumous
revival of Agee's literary fortunes led to the work's reissue in 1960, its adoption as an unofficial
bible by civil rights workers, and its enshrinement as an American classic. It has
remained in print ever since.
In this, the third volume in The Works of James Agee series, editor Hugh Davis not
only offers a thoroughly annotated edition of the Agee-Evans masterpiece, featuring invaluable
explanatory notes as well as notes comparing the published work to extant copies of the
original manuscript, but also supplements that text with a wealth of additional material: an
insightful critical essay, variant versions of key sections, unused chapters, correspondence
between Agee and others involved in the book's publication (notably Houghton Mifflin editor
Robert Linscott), generous selections from the author's notebooks, and much more. This
volume opens with the original gallery of Evans's thirty-one photographs from the 1941
edition and also includes, as part of the supplementary material, the expanded gallery of
sixty-two photos that appeared in the 1960 edition. Here as well is the text of the rejected
"Fortune" article, "Cotton Tenants," fully annotated for the first time.
Informed by Agee's love of his subjects, his acute observational skills, and his poetic,
passionate, raging voice--not to mention the stark artistry of Evan's black and white photography
"Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" is a book that to this day defies easy classification.
This volume recaptures the aesthetic impact of the original, corrects errors from earlier
editions, and, most important, illuminates the difficult process that spawned its creation.

Photography -- Southern Studies -- Travel

There is no place in America like New Orleans's famed French Quarter.

With photographs and history, "The French Quarter of New Orleans" explores the unique evolution of this district. The author and photographer team to reveal how war, fire, floods, politics, cultural conflict, and architectural innovation shaped the Quarter.

In West Freeman's 160 color photographs the present-day romance of the Vieux Carre is here to savor. But "The French Quarter of New Orleans" moves beyond the Old World facades and into the heart and history of the many peoples-Spanish, French, Creole, Native American, African American, and Italians-who have lived here.

From humble, wooden French cottages to stately, brick Spanish Colonial mansions, from Madame John's Legacy to the St. Louis Cathedral, the Quarter's architecture enthralls, and Jim Fraiser's text creates an anecdotal walking tour of memorable and storied sites.

Studying buildings, Fraiser points out the struggle between native Creoles and newcomers in the replacement of Creole townhouses and cottages with "shotgun houses" and American Greek Revival homes. Freeman's photographs and Fraiser's text detail the historical significance and architectural styles of over one hundred structures.

The history of the Quarter teems with vagabonds and saints, warriors and playwrights, musicians, and politicians. Fraiser animates the fascinating story with such evocative figures as the pirate Jean Lafitte, the conquering general Andrew Jackson, and the voodoo queen Marie Laveau. Riverboat gamblers, ladies of the night, duelists, opera aficionados, plague victims, jazz musicians, charlatans, and Mardi Gras revelers populate the streets and edifices Fraiser describes.

For those who have visited the Quarter, this book will be a treasured memento of the district's unparalleled romance and flavor.

Jim Fraiser is the author of "Mississippi River Country Tales" (2001) and, with West Freeman, "The Majesty of the Mississippi Delta" (2002). He lives in Jackson, Mississippi.

West Freeman is a native of New Orleans. His photographic work has been featured in "Architectural Digest" and is in the permanent collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art.

In The Whale's Eyelash, curator Timothy Prus compiles a series of 19th-century microscope slides in the form of a fictional play, narrating the origin and demise of humankind.

It was a big story in a small place. During the summer of 1925, the tiny hamlet of Dayton, Tennessee, became the setting for one of the most controversial trials in American history. In a move designed partly as a publicity scheme and partly as a means to test a newly enacted anti-evolution law, a young teacher named John Thomas Scopes agreed to be arrested for teaching Darwin's theory of natural selection in the public schools. The resulting courtroom showdown pitted Clarence Darrow, the brilliant trial lawyer and self-proclaimed agnostic, against Williams Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate and fundamentalist Christian. For twelve days all eyes focused on Dayton as a spirited public debate unfolded.
Published on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Scopes trial, this book vividly recalls that famous episode through an array of fascinating archival photographs, many of them never before published. Images of the circus-like atmosphere that overtook Dayton during the trial alternate with candid photos of the key players. The accompanying text and captions summarize the events and clarify the underlying issues of the trial. While the legal consequences of the trial were minuscule--it ended in Scopes's conviction, which was later overturned on a technicality--its symbolic importance was enormous, defining the science-religion debate in the twentieth century.
In addition to revisiting the Scopes trial, the book also examines its continuing legacy in Tennessee history, politics, religion, and education. Although the 1925 law was finally repealed in 1967, state legislators have made subsequent efforts to challenge the teaching of evolution. "Like life itself," notes Edward Caudill in his introduction, "the controversy does not simply stop, but keeps evolving."
The Contributors: Edward Caudill is associate dean for graduate studies and research in the College of Communications at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the author of Darwinian Myths: The Uses and Misuses of a Theory.
Edward J. Larson is Richard B. Russell Professor of History and professor of law at the University of Georgia. His book Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for history.
Jesse Fox Mayshark is senior editor of Metro Pulse, a weekly newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee.

This book contains a careful selection of photographs from the set of nearly 900 images of Javier Campano that the Archivo Lafuente preserves, which could be seen in the next exhibition dedicated to him at PHotoESPANA festival in Madrid. The photographic selection is divided around three axes: * A series of images from the first stage of Javier Campano's artistic career, which stands out for its strong documentary character. Time when he was a member of a group that promoted a fairer urbanism and claimed the needs of Madrid's neighborhoods. * A section focusing on his photographic production throughout his travels within Spain and to countries such as Egypt, Italy, France or the United States. * A final sequence dedicated to the black and white photographs that were exhibited in his first exhibitions together with a selection of Polaroids.

Art as Witness is a cluster of barbed writings and biting images from the underbelly of turbulent India and its neighboring countries. Relying on the sustained work of eminent photographers and artists on rights issues in and around South Asia, and on writings by courageous activists, lawyers, journalists, and social scientists, the book focuses on the terror unleashed by armies, states, and courts of law, and tells the stories of brave survivors. Here, text and image are strained to their limits to convey the hopes and anguish of prisoners, death-row victims, murder-victim families, families of missing people, populations living under martial law, and displaced communities, in a world where democratic rights and freedoms are shrinking every day. Based on Amnesty International India's 'Art for Activism' project, this book hopes to strengthen global campaigns for a world without fear and torture, a world without death penalty, or disappearances and custodial violence. It hopes to reach out to a wider and more diverse readership/viewership through its parallel narrative of images as visual testimonies, and spillover references to the popular worlds of cinema, music, slogan, and performance.

Alexander Gardner is best known for his innovative photographic history of the Civil War. What is less known is the extent to which he was involved in the international workers’ rights movement. Tying Gardner’s photographic storytelling to his transatlantic reform activities, this book expands our understanding of Gardner’s career and the work of his studio in Washington, DC, by situating his photographic production within the era’s discourse on social and political reform. Drawing on previously unknown primary sources and original close readings, Makeda Best reveals how Gardner’s activism in Scotland and photography in the United States shared an ideological foundation. She reads his Photographic Sketch Book of the War as a politically motivated project, rooted in Gardner’s Chartist and Owenite beliefs, and illuminates how its treatment of slavery is primarily concerned with the harm that the institution posed to the United States’ reputation as a model democracy. Best shows how, in his portraiture, Gardner celebrated Northern labor communities and elevated white immigrant workers, despite the industrialization that degraded them. She concludes with a discussion of Gardner’s promotion of an American national infrastructure in which photographers and photography played an integral role. Original and compelling, this reconsideration of Gardner’s work expands the contribution of Civil War photography beyond the immediate narrative of the war to comprehend its relation to the vigorous international debates about democracy, industrialization, and the rights of citizens. Scholars working at the intersection of photography, cultural history, and social reform in the nineteenth century on both sides of the Atlantic will find Best’s work invaluable to their own research.

This book reminds me, in the sweetest way possible, that I probably should have never left Nashville." - Chris Thile Introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning Author Jon Meacham A dynamic, experiential, and intimate portrait that explores the many sides of the legendary Southern city and country music capital, from award-winning writers Ann Patchett, Jon Meacham, and acclaimed photographer Heidi Ross. Nashville is a creative collaboration that awakens the senses, providing a virtual immersion in this unique American city hailed as the Athens of the South. Patchett, Ross, and Meacham in his introduction, at once capture both the city's iconic historical side-its deep, rich Southern roots, from its food and festivals to its famous venues, recording studios, and style-and its edgier, highly vibrant creative side, which has made it a modern cultural mecca increasingly populated by established and upcoming artists in art, film, and music. Nashville celebrates Nashvillians' beloved locales and events, both established and new, that are the heart of the city's character including: Bobbie's Dairy Dip Buchanan Arts District Bolton's Chicken and Fish East Nashville Tomato Arts Festival Germantown The Gulch Grand Ole Opry Pie Town (SoBro) Pride Festival Prince's Hot Chicken Schermerhorn Symphony Center Stanley Cup Playoffs Tennessee Performing Arts Center Tennessee State Fair Third Man Records Here, too, are engaging vignettes spotlighting the diverse talent that makes the Tennessee city a significant cultural incubator and influencer, including singer-songwriters Marty Stuart, Gillian Welch, and Dave Rawlings; film director Harmony Korine, textile designer Andra Eggleston, country music fashion designer to the stars Manuel, chef Margot McCormack, acclaimed pastry chef Lisa Donovan, and model and musician Karen Elson. Blending exceptional narrative, evocative photography-including 175 black-and-white and color photographs-and a bold graphic design, Nashville is an intimate, textured panorama that brilliantly illuminates one of America's most remarkable treasures.

For more than twenty years, Maria Paula Acuna has claimed to see the Virgin Mary, once a month, at a place called Our Lady of the Rock in the Mojave Desert of California. Hundreds of men, women, and children follow her into the desert to watch her see what they cannot. While she sees and speaks with the Virgin, onlookers search the skies for signs from heaven, snapping photographs of the sun and sky. Not all of them are convinced that Maria Paula can see the Virgin, yet at each vision event they watch for subtle clues to Mary's presence, such as the unexpected scent of roses or a cloud in the shape of an angel. The visionary depends on her audience to witness and authenticate her visions, while observers rely on Maria Paula and the Virgin to create a sacred space and moment where they, too, can experience firsthand one of the oldest and most fundamental promises of Christianity: direct contact with the divine. Together, visionary and witnesses negotiate and enact their monthly liturgy of revelations. Our Lady of the Rock, which features text by Lisa M. Bitel and more than sixty photographs by Matt Gainer, shows readers what happens in the Mojave Desert each month and tells us how two thousand years of Christian revelatory tradition prepared Maria Paula and her followers to meet in the desert. Based on six years of observation and interviews, chapters analyze the rituals, iconographies, and physical environment of Our Lady of the Rock. Bitel and Gainer also provide vivid portraits of the pilgrims-who they are, where they come from, and how they practice the traditional Christian discernment of spirits and visions. Our Lady of the Rock follows three pilgrims as they return home with relics and proofs of visions where, out of Maria Paula's sight, they too have learned to see the Virgin. The book also documents the public response from the Catholic Church and popular news media to Maria Paula and other contemporary visionaries. Throughout, Our Lady of the Rock locates Maria Paula and her followers in the context of recent demographic and cultural shifts in the American Southwest, the astonishing increase in reported apparitions and miracles from around the world, the latest developments in communications and visual technologies, and the never-ending debate among academics, faith leaders, scientists, and citizen observers about sight, perception, reason, and belief.

"The Bronx has a terrible beauty, stark and harsh, like the desert. At first glance you imagine nothing can survive. Then you notice life going on all around. People adapt, survive, and even prosper in this urban moonscape of quick pleasures and false hopes. . . . Often I am terrified of the Bronx. Other times it feels like home. My images reflect the feral vitality and hope of these young men. The interplay between good and evil, violence and love, chaos and family, is the theme, but this is not documentation. There is no story line. There is only a feeling."--Stephen Shames

A 1977 assignment for Look magazine took Stephen Shames to the Bronx, where he began photographing a group of boys coming of age in what was at the time one of the toughest and most dangerous neighborhoods in the United States. The Bronx boys lived on streets ravaged by poverty, drugs, violence, and gangs in an adolescent "family" they created for protection and companionship. Shames's profound empathy for the boys earned their trust, and over the next two-plus decades, as the crack cocaine epidemic devastated the neighborhood, they allowed him extraordinary access into their lives on the street and in their homes and "crews."

Bronx Boys presents an extended photo essay that chronicles the lives of these kids growing up in the Bronx. Shames captures the brutality of the times--the fights, shootings, arrests, and drug deals--that eventually left many of the young men he photographed dead or in jail. But he also records the joy and humanity of the Bronx boys, who mature, fall in love, and have children of their own. One young man Shames mentored, Martin Dones, provides riveting details of living in the Bronx and getting caught up in violence and drugs before caring adults helped him turn his life around. Challenging our perceptions of a neighborhood that is too easily dismissed as irredeemable, Bronx Boys shows us that hope can survive on even the meanest streets.