Spent three hours browsing in Powell's City of Books yesterday. Being able to access the store's whole inventory via the web back in New York City has taken the edge off searching the store when I manage to get to Portland. Actually, I'd have to amend that; it's transformed the experience: now browsing is relaxed, rather than a desperate attempt to find a few vital texts before I have to leave. I wandered from travel writing to nuclear studies, to photography, to science fiction and back up to photography, on a stream of associations and remembered authors.
So I finally got to browse a book I covet: 100 Suns by Michael Light. In a pure expression jealousy, I said to the photo department clerk, "This guy's a genius. He's got a monograph and he didn't take a single photo in the book!"
But really, editing is a big component of good photography, and Light sorted scads of archive photos of U.S. atomic and nuclear bomb tests to arrive at this book, as well as adding text components and writing the notes. It's a beautiful book about weapons of mass destruction.
Posted by Emily at November 15, 2003 12:31 PM