HORACE BRISTOL: AN AMERICAN VIEW
By Ken Conner & Debra Heimerdinger
Published by Chronicle Books, October 1996

This beautiful and striking monograph, the first major publication of Horace Bristol's work, pays homage to his genius with over 100 exquisitely reproduced duotone images. In the tradition of the great populists Alfred Eisenstadt and Dorothea Lange, Horace Bristol used his camera to record human, intimate moments: from poignant images of migrant farm workers during the Depression (his photographs inspired Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath) to compelling portraits of post-war Japan and Southeast Asia. An early staff photographer for Life magazine, Bristol was wildly prolific in the '30s and '40s, and tireless in his pursuit of the revelatory moment. With a humility, precision, and formal composition that is as striking today as it was innovative in its own time, Horace Bristol's pioneering artistry assures his importance among the finest documentary photographers of our era.

144 pages, over 100 Duotone photographs, 9 x 11 inches
Hardcover
Currently Unavailable

RON CHURCH: CALIFORNIA AND HAWAII 60 TO 65
By Ron Church
Introduction by Steve Pezman, Publisher of The Surfers Journal
Published by The Surfers Journal and T. Adler Books, 2006

Having passed away prematurely at age 39 in 1973, just what led Ron Church to become momentarily fascinated with wave riding in 1960 is left to conjecture....Surfing was going through a quickening, and in hindsight, sad metamorphous during that same period. It had slumbered through prior decades as an esoteric pastime practiced at a scattering of pristine breaks around which gathered small tribes of eccentrics who, blissfully ignored by the mainstream, conducted their improbable dance with such passion that even the "kooks" and "ho-daddies" could sense the wonder of it. Nothing so innocent and evocative is left unfettered for long. Church turned his camera on surfing as it teetered on the verge of becoming a much-ballyhooed happening of wave jocks, plastic surfboards, and manufactured surf wear, complete with its own media. Worse yet, the realization that the still small surf culture was a commercially exploitable "lifestyle" was lurking just around the corner. He was there to capture its last moments of innocence.

180 pages
Hardcover, slipcased, edition of 2,650
Price: $75.00

RON CHURCH: SURF CONTEST
By Ron Church
Published by T. Adler Books, 2006

While surfers may look more relaxed than most, and may even be more relaxed, they are not exempt from the human desire to go higher, farther and faster. As the members of the developing surfing world of the early 1960s found themselves striving to surpass one another, and looking to quantify their most accomplished riders, the first surf contests were organized.

These loosely arranged affairs had, as Shirley Richards (Ron's former wife) recently remembered, silk-screened T-shirts as their prizes. Pretty innocent stuff. At 27, as Ron Church strode forcefully into this arena, he had already accomplished a great deal, first as a jet test photographer, then as an up-and-coming (and ultimately much-awarded) underwater photographer. In his ongoing quest for new material, he brought to surfing a headful of new ideas, camera angles and lighting techniques, at the very moment these earliest contests arose, at the moment that surfing, which had been considered a somewhat off-center activity, began to organize itself and enter the mainstream. Although Church only actively photographed surfing and its surrounding lifestyle for a few short years, he was there at the beginning of its transformation into something big, and, as viewers will see, his documentation of its first contests--which were at once mundane and heroic--brought surf photography to another level. All but a few of these images are previously unpublished.

144 pages
Hardcover
Price: $45.00

MONICA DENEVAN: THE RIVER ANTHOLOGY, PORTRAITS FROM BURMA
By Monica Denevan

My first glimpse of Monica Denevan’s photographs caught me entirely by surprise. I found myself simultaneously drawn between two extremes of interpretation. Immediately beautiful and compelling in their composition, I had the feeling that I was looking at a collection of vintage fashion photographs. And yet, here surrounding these graceful forms was the powerful and compelling landscape of Asia, with all its haunting, mystical appeal.

Often ravaged by the forces of wind and water, the people depicted here form a resilient front, a line of defense if you will, that engages them in an ongoing struggle for survival. Much in the manner of the trees and structures around them, nature demands of these bodies a similar willingness to conform. It is this engagement with nature that forms the subject of Monica's work. Introspective and meditative, Denevan's camera captures lives that have struck a delicate, often bittersweet balance. Full of visual vitality and natural symbolism, their spirit is a reflection of centuries of unchanging habits. Standing before us, each of these individuals manages to yield to the camera a quiet yet heroic presence. Her subjects, intimately connected to the man-made possessions that surround them, are caught in a transient moment, unfettered by what has passed, or what is yet to come.
- Scott Minick, Hong Kong, March 2007

30 pages, 15 black and white photographs
Paperback, signed
Price: $10.00

ROLFE HORN: 28 PHOTOGRAPHS
By Rolfe Horn
Published by Nazraeli Press, 2005

"Rolfe Horn is a seer in both the real and the other world. He shifts back and forth creating a balance of visual dynamics working as his photographic canvas. It is not the comings to his final destinations that is the goal; it is the curious journey in its wanderings that makes the creative possibilities." — from the Introduction by Dennis High

Whether focusing his lens on soft and misty undergrowth or stark, man-made structures, Rolfe Horn has a natural talent to arrest one's gaze and hold it captive. The striking selection of 28 black-and-white photographs in this, our second monograph of Horn's work, will impress from the very first viewing; the inevitable desire to explore more deeply will uncover significant details that might otherwise go unnoticed. With his subtle use of tone and lighting, this talented young photographer has produced a body of work that is touched with a quietness and an alluring, dream-like quality.

44 pages, 28 duotone plates, first edition
Hardcover, slipcased, signed
Price: $350.00

44 pages, 28 duotone plates, second edition
Hardcover, signed
Pages: $150.00

MARTY KNAPP: POINT REYES: 20 YEARS
Published by Mount Vision Press

Award winning photographer Marty Knapp celebrates twenty years of photographing the point Reyes Peninsula with the publication of his first book, available in two stunning editions that include many of his most evocative images and intimate essays documenting his journey.

Published by Mount Vision Press, this beautiful book faithfully reproduces 43 of Marty Knapp's photographs on archival paper. The accompanying essays reveal his feeling for the land, the light that illuminates it and his art.

144 pages, 12 x 12 inches
Hardcover, edition of 2,200
Price: $45.00

Special Edition available

MONA KUHN: ARTIST CATALOG
By Mona Kuhn
Published by Watermark Press, 2002

This small, unassuming catalogue of just fourteen images stands as a portal to the quiet visual language of a young photographer who is destined to grow in recognition with time.

Her images of bodies capitalize on a restrained depth of field and subtle tonal range, pulling into sharp focus only certain portions of the subject, creating a mysterious, gestural hieroglyphics worthy of study.

32 pages, 14 black and white illustrations
Paperback, signed
Price: $15.00

MONA KUHN: EVIDENCE
By Mona Kuhn
Essay by Gordon Baldwin
Story by Frederic Tuten
Published by Steidl, May 2007

Critics have observed that Mona Kuhn's subjects seem "nude but not naked". Completely relaxed before the camera, they give the impression that nothing could clothe them better than their own skin." Kuhn, who photographs in the naturist or nudist community, often in domestic interiors, weaves together gestures from the traditional iconography of nude studies with the comfortable body language of her subjects, creating a visual patois at once classical and contemporary. And beneath the mellow surfaces of her photographs lies an explosive energy: the artist's controlled play with the power of sensuality. Tension and uneasiness coexist with all that sunlight and soft flesh. The subjects and their gestures are suggestive but ultimately ambiguous. Tenuously held planes of focus provoke the imagination. Kuhn works very close to her subjects, often with a depth of field of only a few inches. Real world and image world seem to blend together as her figures unite the reality of human complexity with the blissful essence of nature. With only sparse reference to physical surroundings, they appear to float in an idyllic picture space, part of a dreamlike narrative just beyond the viewer's comprehension. These exceptional photographs exist in a space created by the artist and subject alone--the viewer is given a single fascinating glimpse, suspended in time, and then an enduring sense of the resilience and vulnerability of the human body.

88 pages, 54 color, 11.5 x 12.25 inches
Clothbound, signed copies available
ISBN-13: 9783865213723
Price: $55.00

Special Edition available

MONA KUHN: NATIVE
By Mona Kuhn
Essay by Wayne V. Anderson
Text by Shelley Rice
Published by Steidl, September 2009

After 20 years, Mona Kuhn returned to her native country, to reinterpret her past. Photographed entirely in Brazil, mostly in the rainforest and city surroundings, Native employs the green, gold and pink underlying palette of the country. In a contrast to her previous series, Native employs nature as a mirror of her encounters with people and human emotions.

"This work began as a personal journey. Metaphorically, I was thinking of a bird that flies back into the forest, searching for its childhood nest. The images here are a creation of my abstracted wishes and dreams. As I was searching, instead of home, I found an empty past, just traces of it. Yet, my journey was filled with new friendships, and discoveries made along the way." — Mona Kuhn

96 pages, 65 colour plates, 29 cm x 31 cm
Clothbound hardcover with dust jacket
ISBN: 978-3-86521-913-8
Price: $55.00

MONA KUHN: PHOTOGRAPHS
Photographs and text by Mona Kuhn
Essay by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
Short text by Victor Tupitsyn
Published by Steidl, Spring 2004

Seeking the innermost self in her photographs, Kuhn achieves a mood of intimacy by photographing up close models she knows well. Her photographs are a product of lasting relationships built on mutual affection. In a sense, the images are based on the memory of shared experiences. – Julie Nelson

The people in Mona Kuhn's photographs are nude but not naked. Completely relaxed before the camera, they give the impression that nothing could clothe them better than their own skin. With a unique style, Kuhn's intimate photographs of both young and old are sensual compositions of skin and wrinkles, light and shadow, gestures and gazes. She creates taughtly composed images which balance sharply rendered portraits against blurred backgrounds to lure the eye and provoke the imagination.

108 pages, 20 color plates, 33 tritone plates, 10.5 x 11.25 inches
Clothbound hardcover with dustjacket
ISBN 3-86521-008-2
Price: $50.00

Special Edition available

JOEL LEIVICK: CARRARA THE MARBLE QUARRIES OF TUSCANY
Published by Stanford University Press, May 1999

This book is a collection of 44 stunning black-and-white photographs by Joel Leivick of the marble quarries and quarry workers in and around Carrara, in the province of Tuscany, in northern Italy. The photographs are printed as tritones, to capture their delicacy and detail, and are preceded by an introduction that describes Leivick’s goals and experiences as a photographer working at Carrara and provides a brief outline of the region’s geology and long history of marble extraction. In an Afterword, anthropologist Alison Leitch discusses the culture of quarry work and the role of landscape in historical memory.

74 pages, 13.3 x 11.8 x 0.5 inches

Softcover, signed
Price: $35.00

RONDAL PARTRIDGE: QUIZZICAL EYE
by Elizabeth Partridge & Sally Stein
Foreword by Daniel Dixon
Published by Heyday Books, 2003

Intimately associated with the great photographers of his time, Partridge has absorbed all the techniques his famous teachers could give him, yet he wears this professional lineage lightly, dedicating himself to following the paths down which his own strange genius leads him.

Quizzical Eye: The Photography of Rondal Partridge is filled with breathtakingly intimate portraits, devastating environmental statements, compositional wonders, and telling moments from six decades of American history‹the essential works of a man who has dedicated his long life to capturing single moments on film.

144 pages, more than 100 b&w duotone photographs, 10 x 11 inches
Price: $22.00

MICHAEL RAUNER: THE VISIONARY STATE
by Erik Davis
Photographs by Michael Rauner
Published by Chronicle Books, June 2006

California is famous for its diversity, its eccentricity, and its prophetic influence on popular culture. Since the 19th century, the Golden State has also been one of America's most fertile climates for spiritual and religious movements. Beautifully weaving together text and image, The Visionary State is the first book to address the full story of "California consciousness." Ranging from Yosemite to Esalen, from televangelism to Neopaganism, from Mormon pioneers to contemporary Kali worshippers, acclaimed culture critic Erik Davis weaves together the threads of California's religious history into an enchanting and vivid tapestry. Michael Rauner's haunting iconic photographs ground the book's many stories in the sacred landscape and architecture of the Golden State. Together Davis and Rauner map the peaks and faultlines that characterize the place that is both the nexus and far frontier of American religion.

272 pages, 164 photographs, 80,000 words
Hardcover, signed
Price: $40.00

GEORGE TICE: URBAN LANDSCAPES
by George Tice
Published by W.W. Norton & Company, 2002

The photographs of George Tice combine an appreciation of beauty with the grittiness of ordinary experience. Tice, the photographer/author of books like Hometowns: An American Pilgrimage, Fields of Peace, and the award-winning Paterson, has turned his camera many times to his native New Jersey. But these images of his home state, taken over the past thirty years, could be almost anywhere in America. They portray the movie theaters, shops, dwellings, and street scenes we have grown up with in cities large and small. Without the slightest effort to romanticize, Tice honors the commonplace with an extraordinary eye and a photographic excellence that is evocative to those of us who have experienced these settings. These pictures will stand the test of time as monuments to the American scene for future generations.

168 pages, 141 duotones
Hardcover, first edition, signed
Price: $60.00

THE PORTFOLIOS OF BRETT WESTON — VOLUME 1

SAN FRANCISCO
by Brett Weston
Published by Lodima Press, 2005

Lodima Press proudly announces a landmark publishing event in the world of fine photography books: San Francisco, the first in a nineteen-volume series on the portfolios of Brett Weston. Each book in the series will be published in a softcover edition of 1,000 copies and a hardcover edition of 100 numbered copies.

Published in 1939, the ten photographs in Brett Weston's San Francisco portfolio were offered for sale at a price significantly lower than if each of the photographs were purchased individually. The market for fine photographs was over thirty years away and Weston sold only three portfolios. And because most of the photographs that were included were never printed again, this is a side of Weston's oeuvre unknown to all but a few.

32 pages, 10 quadtone reproductions printed actual size from 8x10 inch contact prints
Softcover, edition of 1000
Price: $55.00

THE PORTFOLIOS OF BRETT WESTON — VOLUME 2

WHITE SANDS
by Brett Weston
Published by Lodima Press, 2005

The original White Sands portfolio, produced in 1949, contained twelve photographs and was printed in an edition of fifty. In 1975 Weston printed a second edition of the portfolio in an edition of seventeen.

It included eight of the original ten photographs made in the 1940s (negatives from two of the photographs in the original portfolio were damaged and unprintable), two others from the 1940s that had not been included in the first portfolio (Plates 11 and 12), and two from 1975 (Plates 13 and 14), for a total of twelve prints. White Sands contains the original ten photographs plus the four new pictures from Weston's 1975 edition. The original 1949 title page and the introduction by Nancy Newhall are reproduced in facsimile. Included is an afterword by art historian Roger Aikin.

As a bonus, we have included an additional photograph along with a facsimile reproduction of Brett's letter describing the picture as "Edward's favorite." Although it was not included in either of the original portfolios, Brett included it as a gift with the portfolio from which this book has been reproduced.

12 1/2" x 12 1/2" 15 reproductions, 56 pages
Softcover, edition of 1000
Price: $55.00

THE PORTFOLIOS OF BRETT WESTON — VOLUME 3

NEW YORK
by Brett Weston
Published by Lodima Press, 2006

The New York portfolio was produced by Weston in 1951. It contains Weston's photographs of New York from the 1940s—photographs that contrast with his photographs of San Francisco and evidence Weston's growth as a photographer.

The original 1951 title page and the introduction by Beaumont Newhall are reproduced in facsimile. Included is an afterword by art historian Roger Aikin.

12 1/2" x 12 1/2", 12 reproductions, 44 pages
Softcover, edition of 1000
Price: $55.00

THE PORTFOLIOS OF BRETT WESTON — VOLUME 4

FIFTEEN PHOTOGRAPHS
by Brett Weston
Published by Lodima Press, 2007

Brett Weston's fourth portfolio, Fifteen Photographs is the first not tangibly "located" in place or time as is San Francisco, White Sands, and New York; rather, it is, in effect, a retrospective exhibition because Weston selected the photographs from his entire oeuvre going back to 1934, when he was just twenty-three.

The fifteen pictures include macrocosmic landscapes with recognizable deep space and horizons, microcosmic landscapes, or "elegant bits" of nature, as Brett was fond of calling them, and man-made subjects that are usually close-ups. This portfolio also contains a number of renditions of virtually flat subjects that can rightly be called abstractions.

The original portfolio included no printed text. The book contains an afterword by Roger Aikin.

12 1/2" x 12 1/2", 15 reproductions, 44 pages
Softcover, edition of 1000
Price: $55.00

THE PORTFOLIOS OF BRETT WESTON — VOLUME 5

TEN PHOTOGRAPHS
by Brett Weston
Published by Lodima Press, 2008

The ten photographs in this portfolio are contact prints from 11 x 14 -inch negatives, the largest format Brett Weston ever used, and the largest practical format for any but the most ardent devotee of view cameras and contact prints.

Brett employed this camera between 1944 and the early 1960s, when he realized that new medium-format roll-film cameras like the Rollei SL66 (which made relatively small 2 1/4-inch square negatives), were so good that he could abandon contact prints altogether.

By 1963, Weston felt confident that he had enough 11 x 14 prints to select ten pictures that fit his criteria for a portfolio-quality, variety, unity, and ease of printing-and since he did not use the 11 x 14 camera after this time, he may have intended this portfolio as a farewell to the big camera itself.

Like his previous portfolio, Fifteen Photographs, the title Ten Photographs is neutral, and the portfolio has no text or predetermined order. As a group, these pictures are quieter, more relaxed, and somewhat less shocking or abstract than his previous portfolios, perhaps because of the limitations of the camera.

12 1/2" x 12 1/2", 10 reproductions, 36 pages
Softcover, edition of 1000
Price: $55.00

THE PORTFOLIOS OF BRETT WESTON — VOLUME 6

BAJA CALIFORNIA
by Brett Weston
Published by Lodima Press, 2008

Brett Weston first picked up a camera in Mexico as a fourteen-year-old when he spent several months there with his father Edward in 1924, and Baja California, made between 1964 and 1967, demonstrates his love of Mexico and its unique light and natural forms. The Baja portfolio has no text or picture titles and no predetermined order, but the pictures in this portfolio, like those that came before and after it, were carefully selected from hundreds of photographs for their variety and continuity: Baja contains four relatively deep-space landscapes with horizons, one medium close-up, and several relatively flat and abstract close-ups of sand, rocks, water, and plants.

The term "lyric" is usually understood to refer to poetry that is meant to be sung out loud, but it can also be applied to artworks in any medium that have musical or rhythmic qualities. These photographs are the most "lyrical" group Brett had created to date, and they pulsate with joyful, organic rhythms.

12 1/2" x 12 1/2", 15 reproductions, 44 pages
Softcover, edition of 1000
Price: $55.00

REID SAMUEL YALOM: COLONIAL NOIR, PHOTOGRAPHS FROM MEXICO
by Reid Samuel Yalom
Published by Stanford University Press, 2004

Using the expansive vernacular of black and white night photography to modify the antiquarian sensibility ordinarily brought to the study of Mexico’s colonial architectures, Colonial Noir brings together the unsettling tenor of Mexico’s colonial legacies with the ambiguous landscape of noir. Set against the backdrop of Baroque and Neoclassical architecture, the images in this collection draw on the aesthetics of Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism to create the collection’s existential tone—where the innuendo of chiaroscuro becomes an analog to the tenuous relationship between Mexico’s celebrated cultural plurality and its nefarious colonial history.

120 pages, 10x9 inches
Hardcover, signed
Price: $50.00

HORACE BRISTOL: THE COMPASSIONATE EYE
by David Rabinovitch

In the mid 1950's Horace Bristol vanished along with his photographs. For the first time on screen, the larger than life story of Horace Bristol, Photojournalist produced and directed by David Rabinovitch with an introduction and narration by Graham Nash.

DVD, 2006
Run Time: 51 Minutes
Price: $30.00

IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM: PORTRAIT OF IMOGEN
by Meg Partridge

With a sharp wit and a unique perspective on photography, Imogen Cunningham reveals how she carved out her impressive career while maintaining a household and raising a family. In a professional career of 75 years, Imogen had an enormous influence on the aesthetics of American photography.

DVD, 1988
Run Time: 28 Minutes
Price: $25.00

DOROTHEA LANGE: A VISUAL LIFE
by Meg Partridge

This film is an engaging and penetrating look at a life devoted to photography, profiling the life and work of an artist who recorded some of the most evocative photographic images of the 20th century.

Dorothea Lange's artistic achievements and untiring investigations into the diversity of American life and culture are presented through interviews with her sons and assistants.

DVD, 1994
Run Time: 46 Minutes
Price: $25.00

RONDAL PARTRIDGE: OUTTA MY LIGHT!
by Meg Partridge, Dyanna Taylor & Elizabeth Partridge

Spend a little time with Ron, as he explains his photographic process, from shooting to darkroom work. Working with a 2 1/4 to 8x10 camera, we see Rondal in his environment; shooting, developing, and finding photographic inspiration in the most ordinary objects.

Produced by Dyanna Taylor, granddaughter of Dorothea Lange and Elizabeth and Meg Partridge, Rondal Partridge's daughters, this film is an intimate portrait of Rondal crafted by his own family.

DVD, 2002
Run Time: 24 Minutes
Price: $25.00

RONDAL PARTRIDGE: PAVE IT AND PAINT IT GREEN
by Rondal Partridge

Never one to stand on protocol, Rondal Partridge took his 16mm camera into Yosemite National Park to uncover some of the inner workings of the Park and challenge the contemporary view of Yosemit in the 1960's.

This film extends Rondal's photographic 'voice' as an outspoken and compassionate critic, using the medium of film as he uses photography - to show the impact of people upon our environment, often creating a statement that is difficult to ignore. And at the same time Rondal documents thew cost of human transgressions upon the land, he also celebrates the alarming beauty of our world.

DVD
Price: $25.00