America Flying High [Hardcover]

Jim Wark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 2010 | Series: Flying High

This book takes a pictorial look at the nation from above, with dazzling full-color photographs of each region of the United States of America. These territories continue to reach out to settlers and travelers, challenging those who would try to conquer its mountains, rivers, and canyons as well as those who try get to know its patchwork quilt of people and regional cultural variations. The reader takes a thrilling journey over mountains, deserts, mighty rivers, swaths of farmland, and the great cities and landmark skyscrapers, all shown from an aerial vantage point.
The design of the pages is carefully planned to bring out the panoramic qualities of the exceptionally beautiful photographs. The reduced album format of the book has been chosen to emphasize the wide-angle approach of the pictures.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jim Wark is an aerial photographer who specializes in capturing unusual landscape and cultural images of North and Central America.
Working alone, Wark has photographed the continent from Alaska to Labrador in the north; and from Costa Rica to the Lesser Antilles in the south.
In eleven years he has flown more than 5,000 hours, and taken more than 100,000 photographs. To guide him, he uses aviation skills gained as a Naval Aviator and airshow pilot, and a love of the earth and its forms gained from a career as a mining engineer and geologist. The photography is represented by photo agencies in the U.S., U.K., France, and Australia. Membership is maintained in ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers) and PAPA (Professional Aerial Photographers Association). His work was judged "Best of Show" by PAPA for four consecutive years (1995-1998).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 640 pages
• Publisher: White Star Publishers (September 7, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8854400033
• ISBN-13: 978-8854400030
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 1.8 x 6.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #612,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Aerial photography at its best, January 14, 2005

By 

M. Beaver "Marge Beaver" (Muskegon, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: America Flying High (Hardcover)

If you want to see gorgeous, unusual, aerial views of all parts of our beautiful America, this book is a must have! Jim Wark has an uncanny ability to find those soul stirring views and capture them perfectly on film which he has been doing for many, many years. The book is huge with 640 pages and over 500 of his finest fantastic aerial photos displayed in full color.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking down on America, February 8, 2005

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: America Flying High (Hardcover)

I first came across Jim Wark's work in 'A field guide to sprawl' by Dolores Hayden (ISBN 0393731251) where fifty-one of his aerial photos were used to decode the American man-made landscape. This latest work is a glorious celebration of the Nation, man-made and natural, in a thick chunky book and for the price this has to be a bargain.

The nine chapters cover it all, cities, rock formations, rivers, mountains, deserts (hot and cold) farming, coastlines, the land in color and finally, admittedly an unusual choice, mining. This last chapter though provides some amazing color images, it's hard to believe the abstract looking color of the potash evaporation ponds near Moab, Utah or the red of the water created by iron ore in Marquette County, Michigan. I particularly liked the sixty-nines pages devoted to agriculture, plenty of examples of contour farming (more abstract art shapes) and those amazing circular fields that use pivot watering systems, you just can't appreciate these when seen at ground level. Twenty-two cities are covered over 140 pages and even here there is something fresh to see, for instance, an amazing shot of the Chrysler Building (actually worthy of a poster) or the Westin in Atlanta.

If I have a criticism it is that many of the photos could have been bigger. This occurs on many spreads where there is a whole page photo and on the opposite page the captions and a single photo surrounded by just too much white or black space. Apart from that I think this a stunning book of over five hundred aerial photographs by Jim Wark, he clearly has an eye for the floor of the sky.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, Great!, June 2, 2007

By 

Trudy Jo (Tennessee) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: America Flying High (Hardcover)

I bought this as a gift and had a hard time putting it down when I looked at it! Love it...very thick book with such captivating photography that you get lost in it. This is a GREAT gift for a male or female, young or old, for someone who travels by air a lot or for someone who doesn't. It's just great!