Photography Unplugged [Hardcover]

If you are comfortable doing your own critiques this book could be for you. There is absolutly no narative. However, the photos are outstanding and presented one per page to great effect. I would suggest that you look inside "The Photograph" and if you like Mante's style then there is much to like here. Even better, get The Photograph and read that first to get a good grounding in the author's approach to color and composition. I rate the book at five stars, but I have to admit that this book is for lovers only.

Rats, Charles from Virginia beat me to it. I received my copy today. Charles's review speaks somewhat to the serious aspect of this, the largest portfolio-type publication of Mante's images that I know of.

But, knowing Mante's instructional writings fairly well, I was struck by the almost palpable joy Mante must have felt in seeing and taking these images. They are uplifting, fun, at times just plain funny and indicative of an optimistic view of life's possibilities. He is not a street photographer. Most images are of static subjects, but all are primo examples of the most sophisticated ability to see the visual potential in one's surroundings.

I was reminded of Hans Silvester's book, "Kaleideoscope," which was not available in the U.S., and of William Eggleston's work. WE's work is much less optimistic in feeling, sometimes emphasizing the graphic aspects in the most utterly banal to emphasize that banality. HS's book is more purposefully abstract, almost a lesson in nonrepresentational photographic imaging. Mante's new book has a very different, light hearted feel.

If one has studied Mante's instructional books, one can enjoy seeing many familiar illustrations on their own with a short caption stating the location, and many not published before. If this is one's introduction to Mante's photography, it is a delightful look at this master photographer/teacher's work and style.

The one bone I have to pick is that vertical images are not the same size as the more numerous horizontal ones, but two-thirds the linear size. The verticals' height is equal to the height of the horizontals. There being no difference in the quality of the verticals' images, they should have been presented with the same dimensions as the horizontals. There is plenty of page space to do that. If this was a book/visual design decision, I submit that printing the verticals on the same horizontal axis as the horizontal images is the way to go. The verticals seem diminished, or subordinated for some unknown reason to the horizontals in this book's presentation.

PHOTOGRAPHY UNPLUGGED: A TRIBUTE TO KODACHROME, THE GREATEST SLIDE FILM EVER MADE comes from a strong modern German photographer who began as a travel photographer and later taught composition. It gathers both Mante's works and teachers a different view of photography that goes beyond the usual modern focus on digital image editing, instead advocating uncropped and unmodified scenes. All these images were captured on Kodacrome's slide films and offers a fine focus on the power of photography composition.