How does a photographer learn to see? How does he create his own visual language—as unique as a fingerprint and as inimitable as the voice of a great writer?In Iluminaciones, Jack Parsons's seventeenth book, he takes the viewer on a very personal, deeply intuitive journey that reveals how he has honed his photographic vision. The answer is subtle—and remarkable: It is by growing into his own photographs. Here he shares with us ninety-one of his favorite photographs taken over the long arc of his stellar career. These are images that, over time, taught him, as he says, "to see the everyday world with new and better eyes" and that encouraged him "to look deeply instead of glancing and forgetting."The photographs in Iluminaciones were taken all over the world, from the vast expanses of America's desert Southwest to a mosque in Turkey and temples in Laos, Burma, and Japan, of colorful streets in Mexico and Italy to quiet swimming pools in Southern California, from monumental urban landscapes in Eastern Europe to clouds forming over Ireland and Maui. Most of the pictures are of simple, commonplace things and places that we might not give a second glance. Yet Parsons did and in so doing both reveals and celebrates the subtle power and quiet beauty of the everyday. Complemented by the artful commentary of Frederick Turner, Iluminaciones is a stunning visual exploration of the beauty that shines through our world when we take the time to stop and look.** Nominated for a 2015 IPPY Award" from the Independent Publishers Association **

Jack Parsons has been investigating the incredible landscapes, amazing light, and diverse cultures of the American Southwest for more than thirty-five years, in turn becoming a master of photographic art. He has been the photographer for fifteen acclaimed books, including the seminal 1993 publication of Santa Fe Style, which helped to chronicle and establish a regional aesthetic for New Mexico's architecture that is now recognized worldwide.In his commitment to capturing and comprehending the land and life of New Mexico, Parsons has made more than 400,000 photographs of every type of landscape and culture in the 'Land of Enchantment,' as New Mexico is called. Dark Beauty features 100 of his rarely seen or published photographs of New Mexico, taken from the time of his arrival in the summer of 1969 right up to the present day.From captivating images of small towns, fiestas, and everyday life, to spectacular views of mountains, rivers, and plains, from enduring glimpses of old adobe houses, Pueblo villages, and religious structures, to refreshingly new views of murals, Main Streets, and iconography, Parsons presents a personal, elegiac narrative of his 'home place.' Seen as a whole, the photographs in Dark Beauty reveal a deep understanding and reverence for New Mexico's complex and rich history, unique multiculturalism, and unparalleled beauty. With Jack Parsons as our guide, we gain a true sense and appreciation of New Mexico's lure as a uniquely American place.From the Preface"I first came to New Mexico in the summer of 1969, driving into Taos in the late afternoon in an old VW convertible. I had gone to school in Boulder, and the West had been deeply imprinted on me. My master's thesis was on D. H. Lawrence, and this had made me wonder what effect this magical land would have on me. It didn't disappoint. Almost immediately, I fell in love with this difficult, demanding, dark, and profound world. All that we take for granted having lived here—the beautiful, slanting afternoon light, the Sangre de Cristos turning a deep red as the sun starts to disappear, sagebrush plains stretching far to the west—all of this greeted me when I first arrived in Taos, and I felt that, after many years, I was finally home." —Jack ParsonsFrom the Introduction"Among the things I admire about the photographs of Jack Parsons is that he is not afraid of the picturesque. He has not retreated from it nor found some arch way around it. Instead, Parsons walks right up to his subjects and points his lens at mountains, sunsets, cloud formations, weathered buildings, and Hispanic art. But he does so in ways that require us to really look at these things and ponder the meanings embedded in those very picturesque aspects of New Mexico that bring visitors out here while they turn many other artists away. It takes an artist to evoke this long and yet unfolding drama, yet in virtually every one of the images contained in these pages it is here for us to discover. But we have to be willing to look past the picturesque." —Frederick Turner

Route 66 was the iconic highway of twentieth-century America, stretching from downtown Chicago to the Mississippi River at East St. Louis and proceeding through the Indian lands of Oklahoma and the Southwest to Los Angeles and the Pacific Coast, connecting Americans physically and culturally. In this engaging, meticulously researched, and fully illustrated study, Arthur Krim explores the fascinating history and complex symbolism behind this most famous American highway—both on the ground and in the mind. Route 66 traces the iconography of US 66 first as an idea, then as a fact, and finally as an enduring symbol found in classic American books and films, songs and television programs, and pop art. While the antecedents of Route 66 are to be found in the prehistoric trade and hunting paths of the Indian peoples, in the Spanish expeditions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and in the wagon trails and railroad routes of the nineteenth century, construction of Route 66 during the twentieth century ushered in the revolutionary era of the modern American highway and of cross-country automobile travel.In his innovative study, Krim discloses how the highway transcended its gravel and concrete physicality to become an enduring metaphor for the American spirit of exploration and discovery, freedom and hope that is historically found by its people heading west. He draws on a wealth of scholarly and visual materials to examine how Route 66 evolved through each passing generation, from Main Street boosters during the road's early development to John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath during the Dust Bowl years, from Bobby Troup's unforgettable '(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66' to renditions of the song by Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones during the early rock and roll years, from Jack Kerouac's classic book, On the Road, to the cult film, 'Easy Rider,' and the television drama, 'Route 66,' during the pop culture years, to recent regional and mass-marketing advertising of products that rely on the transcendent Route 66 name.Combining history and geography, metaphor and captivating iconography, Krim reveals how Route 66 compressed disparate socio-economic events, traditional democratic ideals, and emerging cultural ideas into the national memory of Route 66 that prevails today. Route 66, now available in an elegant paperback edition, is a pioneering book not to be missed.** Nominated for a 2015 IPPY Award" from the Independent Publishers Association **

Honoring the Doughboys: Following My Grandfather's World War I Diary is a stunning presentation of contemporary photographs taken by the author that are paired with diary entries written by his grandfather, George A. Carlson, who was a soldier in the U.S. Army during World War I. Lowdermilk followed his grandfather's path through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany and returned with these meticulously crafted photographs and his own engaging stories that bring the diary to life for contemporary readers.Lowdermilk's passion for World War I and military history began as a young boy when he listened to his grandfather tell his stories about serving as an infantryman— a "doughboy"—in Europe during the Great War. When his grandfather passed away in 1983, Lowdermilk's mother gave him her father's diary, which included not only lengthy descriptions of the landscapes, towns, and battles he had experienced, but also keen observations and insights about life as a doughboy for Mr. Carlson and his buddies.Lowdermilk became fascinated with the diary, first transcribing it and then plotting his grandfather's course. He immersed himself in the history of World War I and its geography, eventually retracing, more than a dozen years, the path of his grandfather's journey.This image-rich tour of European landscapes, battlefields, and monuments offers the reader an experience that is at once an intimate reliving of Carlson's time as a doughboy, a lively collection of Lowdermilk's travel anecdotes, and a moving expression of gratitude to American veterans of the Great War. The foreword by Helen Patton, granddaughter of General George

Ireland is a place of mystical, enduring appeal, especially for the many millions of Americans who claim its special heritage, more than one in six according to the last U.S. Census. But Ireland has also become an international place of pilgrimage and discovery for all who venture there.This unique collaboration between Elizabeth Billups, a Santa-Fe-based photographer and activist, and Gerry Adams, the renowned leader of Sinn Fein, reveals a side of Ireland―and of Gerry Adams―not often portrayed in the guidebooks or magazines or news media. In this special book, the two kindred spirits wander the country together and share a deep love of the land and its people, with Ms. Billups taking gorgeous photographs and sharing her experiences and Mr. Adams contributing additional stories, tales, and facts about his country and his family's history.While Mr. Adams has written many acclaimed books concerning his political vision for Ireland, until now he has refrained from sharing his affection for his native land. And so, with Ms. Billups, we are able travel to his and her favorite places, the places that, to them, bespeak of Ireland as one island without borders.Looking at Ms. Billups's beautiful and captivating photographs—and reading her text and Mr. Adams's family stories, personal anecdotes, and relevant historical details, legends, and myths—we come to understand why Ireland is such a special place and why he fought so long and hard to achieve peace for the many generations to come.** Nominated for a 2015 IPPY Award" from the Independent Publishers Association **

The Memory of My Wardrobe, a project by Finnish photographer Ida Taavitsainen, explores the personal narratives given to clothing inherited or simply handed down to her by her family. Over the years, she acquired a lot of clothes, many once belonging to people she never knew - her great-great-grandmother, for instance - but all with family ties.

For more than 65,000,000 years, the alligator has inhabited the North American continent. One of the few remaining links to the age of the dinosaur, these ancient reptiles move gracefully through the water but are relatively awkward on land (though they can charge aggressively if threatened). In so many ways, the alligator embodies all that is truly wild in the world. Renowned photographer Martha Strawn, the founder of "visual ecology," spent a decade traveling throughout the American South, from Texas to North Carolina, taking more than 40,000 unforgettable photographs of this incredible creature—not only in their natural habitat of swamps, lakes, and ponds, rivers, bayous, and estuaries, coastal marshes and backwaters, but also along the white sands of Florida's landscapes and highways of Louisiana's Cajun country, in citrus and avocado groves, and in new suburban and commercial developments that now encroach upon the natural order. The 151 photographs featured here are presented in a series of visual sequences, each based on a concept or feeling designed to inform and recreate a network of field experiences that are complemented by vignettes, poems, lyrics to songs, and engaging text. Here is a unique book that combines art and science, history and folklore, a land ethic and literature in order to tell the story of one of the South's most amazing and evocative creatures. Here are the wetlands and deep waters where alligators feed, bask in the sun, perform courtship dances, mate, nest, and watch over their young. Here is the story about resource management, hunting and the commercial meat and skin industries, and the increasing tension between this wild creature and the human beings they encounter on their ancient landscape. In addition to Strawn's incredible photographs and enlightened text are three guest essays that bring home the relationship between alligators and humans: "Memories of Gator Hunts," by legendary alligator hunter LeRoy Overstreet; "Living by the Wetlands," by Jane Gibbon, a respected conservation anthropologist; and "Living with Alligators," by the acclaimed ecologist J. Whitfield Gibbons. Their stories give voice to the many people—the alligator farmers and hunters, the meat and skin processors, the scientists and wildlife managers—who spend their days and nights with this noble member of the order Crocodilia and who work hard to understand and promote a mutually beneficial relationship between these two dominant species who now must learn to live together in our one living landscape. I ran as fast as I could toward the banana trees with the gator right behind me, gaining on me with every step. Her jaws popping together sounded like a door slamming. I reached the first banana tree just ahead of the gator and climbed right up to it like it had stairs . . . I had climbed up about ten or twelve feet, and I was slipping back down, so I made a desperate effort and managed to get my hands into the base of the leaves. Just as I thought I might be safe, the tree started falling over. - LeRoy Overstreet

The transient nature of our place in the world has long been an abiding artistic concern of Andrew Beckham. Whether he stands firmly on the ground or star-gazes into the heavens, Beckham, through the frame of his camera, tries to answer questions that have accompanied human life over the millennia: How do we know where and when we fit in the scheme of Life? How do we find a meaningful place for ourselves within Nature? Is one place more or less important than another for contemplating the eternal questions of "Who am I?" and "What am I doing here?"In constructing "visual poems" that include single images as well as visual montages of sequenced photographs, Beckham tries to reconcile these questions by focusing on the synchronicity between the mundane and the infinite. By presenting these images as a new kind of "visual storytelling," Beckham juxtaposes the varying scales of photographic inquiry, from the private spaces near our homes to the expanding and unknowable universe.Firmament is a meditation on place unlike any other. In Portfolio I, Beckham discovers a unique stretch of land, one square-mile in Bear Creek Canyon near his home, where a curious sense of visual order is achieved amongst the chaos of impenetrable bramble and thick woods. For the artist, this is ground incarnate. In Portfolio II, Beckham explores a landscape so wide and vast that space can hardly be contained within the frame of his camera. Here, in the 20,000 square miles known as the Sand Hills, Beckham discovers a place where land and sky meet and often merge within a virtual sea of rolling prairie grassland. In Portfolio III, Beckham turns to the "incalculable distance" between the heavens and Earth, between grounded experience and infinite space. Here, Beckham's artistry is revealed in a visual assemblage of his own photographic work merged with the cosmologies of centuries-old star charts.In viewing Andrew Beckham's work, we see depth and beauty, serenity and enlightenment, and we gain a certain reassurance that there is something greater than ourselves when we contemplate the universe with a sense of reverence and even awe. We also come to realize that we have a sacred duty to understand and respect our individual place within the world, so that we may take better care of that which we have come to know, no matter how small or large the scale.

The transient nature of our place in the world has long been an abiding artistic concern of Andrew Beckham. Whether he stands firmly on the ground or star-gazes into the heavens, Beckham, through the frame of his camera, tries to answer questions that have accompanied human life over the millennia: How do we know where and when we fit in the scheme of Life? How do we find a meaningful place for ourselves within Nature? Is one place more or less important than another for contemplating the eternal questions of "Who am I?" and "What am I doing here?" In constructing "visual poems" that include single images as well as visual montages of sequenced photographs, Beckham tries to reconcile these questions by focusing on the synchronicity between the mundane and the infinite. By presenting these images as a new kind of "visual storytelling," Beckham juxtaposes the varying scales of photographic inquiry, from the private spaces near our homes to the expanding and unknowable universe. Firmament is a meditation on place unlike any other. In Portfolio I, Beckham discovers a unique stretch of land, one square-mile in Bear Creek Canyon near his home, where a curious sense of visual order is achieved amongst the chaos of impenetrable bramble and thick woods. For the artist, this is ground incarnate. In Portfolio II, Beckham explores a landscape so wide and vast that space can hardly be contained within the frame of his camera. Here, in the 20,000 square miles known as the Sand Hills, Beckham discovers a place where land and sky meet and often merge within a virtual sea of rolling prairie grassland. In Portfolio III, Beckham turns to the "incalculable distance" between the heavens and Earth, between grounded experience and infinite space. Here, Beckham's artistry is revealed in a visual assemblage of his own photographic work merged with the cosmologies of centuries-old star charts. In viewing Andrew Beckham's work, we see depth and beauty, serenity and enlightenment, and we gain a certain reassurance that there is something greater than ourselves when we contemplate the universe with a sense of reverence and even awe. We also come to realize that we have a sacred duty to understand and respect our individual place within the world, so that we may take better care of that which we have come to know, no matter how small or large the scale.

Over the course of a dozen years, photographer Georgia Sheron took numerous photographs of her next-door neighbor, "Uncle John" Ludorf, a farmer who plowed with horses and milked cows by hand into his late nineties. Her striking prints, accompanied by John's observations as garnered in a number of interviews, offer an artful, nuanced, and unsentimental look at a bygone way of life."I love the way certain photographs overwhelm with the sheer immediacy and vastness of the terrain, so that it takes a few moments to realize there's a tiny person there. In other photographs, we're persuaded to perceive the way the photographer does: John's spread fingers are not so very different from the splayed branches of the towering tree; his veins are only the living version of the shape he holds." -From the introduction by Ann Beattie

People love dogs, and dogs love people. Walking a dog is one of the most visible and mutually beneficial manifestations of that bond. It is a ritual steeped in affection and obligation. It doesn’t have a day off. It doesn’t pay the bills or clean the dishes or do the laundry. Still, people and dogs alike gain the benefits of exercise, socialization, shared experiences and observations. Another benefit, often overlooked, is the pleasure of mutually indulging a trait that ordinary dogs share with extraordinary people: curiosity. This book is, in many ways, an ode to curiosity. Walking Magpie is about a dog and what a dog sees. It is also a work of serious photography by a well-known and pioneering landscape artist: Chuck Forsman, who, for more than forty years, has been a keen observer of the interface between landscape and culture as expressed through his paintings and photographic art. As a result, Forsman often goes to places that might not be on everyone’s radar screen. In this book, Forsman took a camera with him during his walks with Magpie, the family dog. Often, these walks are in the neighborhood and surrounding hills where Forsman lives: near the Flatirons in Boulder. But Magpie joins Forsman on other adventures, from Alaska and the Northwest Territories of Canada to Florida, Ohio, and New York City. The intent is to turn these experiences into art. With each picture we sense mystery rather than clarity, questions about place rather than answers. We hardly can know what a dog knows, but with this book we can appreciate better what a dog sees and senses and experiences, helping the human and canine imagination to meld, at least a little. Walking Magpie is published in conjunction with a retrospective of Chuck Forsman’s photographs at the Denver Art Museum in October 2013. Published in association with the Denver Museum of Art.

Throughout the world, the American West has defined the character of the United States of America as no other region in America ever could. The combination of awe-inspiring topography and landscapes, from the 100th meridian to the Pacific Coast, along with the integration of Indian and Hispanic cultures into the American fabric of life have long inspired citizens of the world to travel to and explore the vast lands that define the American West, from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present time. Photography helped to open up the West after the American Civil War by sharing views of nature unparalleled in any other place on Earth. And photography helped to create the beginning of a national park system that may well go down in history as America's greatest democratic ideal. It is no wonder that public lands have come to dominate the American West, from national parks to national grasslands and wildlife refuges, from national forests to national monuments and historical sites, from wild and scenic rivers to other sanctuaries of wilderness. Willy Sutton has spent much of the past thirty years getting out of his truck and into the landscape, taking his camera to places of natural wonder both well known and obscure. He has assembled one of the great photographic bodies of work dealing with the public lands of the American West, providing a glimpse of what these landscapes looked like before they were designated as national treasures. But, of course, because of their preservation, they are available to all citizens of the world today. Whether one has lived in or visited the West for an entire lifetime, or whether one is coming to the West for the very first time, all readers of this book will find in Sutton's photographs a magisterial guide to what makes the West so unique, so special. As essayists Toby Jurovics and Susan B. Moldenhauer make plain, Willy Sutton's photographs, as represented in this book, will long be held in esteem for the pioneering work they embody, even in this contemporary age dominated by urban development, social and economic inequality, and climate change. At Home in the West:The Lure of Public Land is a book for the ages.

Laurie Brown has long been fascinated with what happens at the edge of cities. In her pioneering, photographic work on Los Angeles, her focus was on the terraforming activities in that quintessential modern metropolis, where nature is literally scraped away and terraced to accommodate the most recent version of the American Dream: more roads and highways, more residential and commercial developments, more golf courses and city services, more pressure on the natural systems that undergird the city and region. It was only natural that Brown would turn her artistic attention to the eastern end of the Los Angeles corridor--Las Vegas--and she does so in full, living color. Few other places engender such a common image of excess and extravagance as does Las Vegas. But Brown reminds us that what makes Las Vegas such an alluring place to live and to visit is its location in the austere but beautiful landscapes of North America's driest and sunniest region: the magnificent Mojave Desert. As Las Vegas has expanded, the contrast between the native desert and recent human terrain is a palpable fact that Brown captures brilliantly in her panoramic format. In each photograph we see the impact of our newest designs and constructions on the land, raising questions about the availability of scarce natural resources and, ultimately, the wisdom of our vision for the place. By finding the interface between nature and culture that exists in these so-called paradisal environments, Laurie Brown takes us on a modern journey on a well-worn path in Western civilization: the pushing out of the city that emerged in ancient Greece and Rome and extended beyond the city walls of medieval Europe to today's political boundaries nestled beside nature's undeveloped frontier. But at what cost? Like the ruins of Pompeii, Brown's hauntingly beautiful photographs reveal how well (or not) we have created a modern American Eden: Las Vegas. (See the publishers website for a slide show and further information about the book: http://gftbooks.com/books_BrownLaurie.html ).

The Great Plains is one of Earth's greatest ecosystems. Comprised of short- and tall-grass prairie, it extends from the Canadian Arctic south to Texas and from the Rocky Mountains in the dry west to the north-south corridor of I-35, I-29, and Canadian Highway 6 in the humid east. Although some of North America's great cities are located on the Great Plains - Canada's Winnipeg, Saskatoon, and Edmonton, for example, and Denver and Dallas in the United States - the region is best known for its isolated small towns, villages, and hamlets whose livelihood, historically, is based on converting the native prairie into ranch land and agriculture. Working in the tradition of documentary photography and using contemporary photographic techniques, Danny Singer here records, as no other Canadian or American photographer previously has, the Main Streets of those tiny settlements that define the Great Plains. In grand panoramas, we sense what it is like to live in these prairie towns that offer their residents the essential services for living - a bank, food store, co-op, gas station, and garage, post office, school, church, watering hole, public park, you name it. But when we look down the side streets of a Danny Singer photograph, we see what lies beyond: the infinite space and big sky that not only establish the character of the Great Plains landscape, but also overwhelm all but the hardiest of citizens. Danny Singer's Main Street offers an original and lasting view of the heart and soul of the North American Great Plains: its small towns, villages, and hamlets at the turn of the twenty-first century. Here we rediscover that, far from the maddening noise and traffic, hectic life and polluted air of the city, rural life in the hinterland still matters. A concluding essay by the renowned art critic and curator, Grant Arnold, establishes Danny Singer's place among the continent's great visual artists of all time. This beautiful book comes slip cased and shrink wrapped. (See the publisher's website for further information: http://gftbooks.com/books_Singer.html ).

Families come in all sizes, shapes, and traditions, each a unique variation of a universal human theme. Whether one comes from a heterosexual, single-sex, or one-parent home, stability and love are paramount. Unfortunately, in the United States, the absence of fathers from their children’s lives has become a real problem. In fact, the Brookings Institute has identified absentee fathers as America's most pressing problem—greater than the economy, education, the environment, health care, infrastructure, you name it. Why? Because nearly every social ill finds an umbrella, a home if you will, in the fatherless home. Choosing Fatherhood: America's Second Chance is meant to explore this issue as no previous book has. And it does so through the art of photography, in which Lewis Kostiner makes portraits of dads who are involved in their children's lives. The book is also accompanied by essays written by leading authorities on the subject: Juan Williams of FOX News, David Travis who was Curator of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago for more than thirty-five years, sociologist Shipra Parikh at Loyola University in Chicago, sociologist Derrick M. Bryan at the Morehouse College, and Roland Warren, former director of the National Fatherhood Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing fatherhood in America, who also served on President Obama's task force on fatherless homes. Getting fathers to be more involved in their children’s lives is of paramount importance, if the United States is to regain ground as an international leader. Right now, the statistics look grim: forty years ago only eleven percent of America's children lived in homes without fathers, but today more than a third do. This translates into high poverty rates, high drop-out rates in high school, high rates of incarceration, multiple behavioral problems, and the list goes on. As President Obama has declared, fatherhood does not begin with the ecstasy of conception but with the beauty of childbirth and the responsibilities that come with creating and caring for a human life. Although changes in custody rulings and other policy remedies are possible, behavioral patterns are often outside the reach of policy. Choosing Fatherhood offers a hopeful direction that America does have a second chance at correcting a troubling trend, but time is slipping, and awareness of the problem is an important start. (See the publishers website for further information about events and a slide show from the book: http://gftbooks.com/books_Kostiner.html ) Go here to see an interview with the photographer Lewis Kostiner and Juan Williams who wrote the introduction: http://video.foxnews.com/v/2197946608001/

Since 1983 David Wharton has photographed the twelve states that define the American South, focusing his attention on rural and small-town culture, vernacular architecture and landscape, the role of religion in Southern life, and the relationship between Southerners, their natural surroundings, and the communities they have built. Small Town South is the result of Wharton's travels through a region that extends from Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas in the west to Virginia and the Carolinas in the east, from Kentucky and Tennessee in the north to Florida in the south, with Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia forming the region's center in between. No other photographer has devoted so much time and attention to recording this distinctive American place. The 115 duotone photographs which serve as the book's core, combined with the author's insightful text, convey an overall sense of what the small Southern town has become and looks like during the early twenty-first century. Wharton organizes his study into thematic portfolios that address themes such as the intersection of tradition and modernity, local commemorations of the past, the omnipresence of the church in town life, the difficulties of making a living in the New World economy, the look of Main Street, the display of public murals and memorials, and the iconographic unfolding of community values. Many have likened Wharton's photographic eye and approach to the work of other photographic masters of the South, including Walker Evans, Eudora Welty, William Christenberry, Shelby Lee Adams, Alex Harris, Rob Amberg, and Martha A. Strawn. And, just as we turn to those artists to help us understand and reckon with Southern history and culture, we now can look to David Wharton as another pioneer photographer of the Southern small town in all its simplicity and complexity. (See the publisher's website for further information: http://gftbooks.com/books_Wharton.html ).