Book Review : Steve McCurry, Joe McNally, Ying Ang

Had some nice deliveries from the Book Depository over the past two weeks or so.  We love a flat package in the post.  Two newish books and one oldie but a goodie.

In the newish category I looked through the new book by Steve McCurry (he of the "Afghan Girl" fame amongst many other things) called "From These Hands : A Journey Along the Coffee Trail".

Its a great collection of environmental portraits of people and communities from countries that make up the majority of the coffee production for the planet.  Being an avid caffeine consumer I couldn't pass up the by line and its well worth the purchase in my view.  The portraits are unmistakably Steve McCurry in stye of course, and the environments in which he captures really add to the story telling of this very manual labour intensive life.

Full single page portraits with a single text naming the country in which it was taken is the totality of narrative in this book, but the images tell several coffee related stories all at once.  Hardship, joy, pride, stress, sweat, tears, beauty, hope, and desire are all captured in the frames in brilliant colour profiles that pop off the pages.  The images where the actual beans get a look in are equally as compelling.

The quality is as you would expect from this Magnum photographic professional.  The cover feels like its recycled paper made in to a very strong outer cover, as do the dividing pages, with a very distinctive textured look.  The photo pages are great quality and feel, and make all the images look even better.  

Its a great story, and apparently he took well over 4 decades in documenting its pages. Well worth it.

In a totally different story telling mode we go into the world of Ying Ang, or more specifically, in to her view of the Gold Coast in Australia.  Part David Lynch, part Twin Peaks, and part photo journalism, this book is a surreal story of the Gold Coast and the lives it effects within its boundaries.  I will not declare too much about it as it is better left to the viewing.

On the presentation side this is one of the best presented project portfolios I have seen for a while.  Bold pink thick cardboard sleeve with a cutout covers a really nicely textured black and white zig zag strobe effect book.  It immediately sends your eyes and brain flicking, which may be the cinematic intention I don't know. But it trips you out.

Then Page 1 you are met with a run thru of the "screenplay" A Tale of Unexpected Menace.  And off you go ..... 

Surreal photos of Gold Coast suburbia and cheap trash and domestic menace follow.  Some of the pages are 1/3 extra gate sleeve style which gives the image great effect whenever its used. As narrative all you get are street locations, suburbs and /or times of day.  Until right at the end where an additional "photocopy" style leaflet is included of some actual Gold Coast newspaper articles supporting the mystery and skullduggery of the photographic project.

Intense, surreal and very very cool.

And finally in this posting, a portfolio/instructional book that is fairly old in the tooth, but could be well worth the read again for many. 

As the back cover states, Joe McNally's The Moment It Clicks has "one foot on the coffee table and one foot in the classroom."

First printed in 2008, like I mentioned it is an oldie - but a goodie.  If you ever want to know how to throw around a lightbox, or learn some three letter acronyms to impress artificial light junkies, this is for you.

The "coffee table" part of this book are the images - really strong, fantastic images.  Then, accompanying every image on every page, Joe gives content and colour to the frame and how it came about, and then a real deep dive in to the technical components of the image and in particular how the lighting was constructed much of the time.

Joe mixes great technical capability with the power of story telling very effectively so you never really feel too bogged down in equipment or technique. That said, it does drop a lot of acronyms (all explained) in particular around lightbox components so you need to get through all of that, but Joe also counters this with numerous practical and composition based tips and insights which continue to inspire read after read.

This book doesn't quite float my boat as I tend to only use natural light outside most of the time, but that shouldn't stop anyone who wants to learn from a true master of the art and craft.