Author Photo: Portraits, 1983 - 2002 [Hardcover]

Marion Ettlinger (Photographer), Richard Ford (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 21, 2003

The writing life has long captured our collective imagination. What is it about writers, we wonder, that empowers them to work words into shapes and patterns that move us? The most affecting photographs possess that same power -- to reach out upon first sight, to capture our hearts and minds, to leave us smitten.

Such is the feeling that comes from gazing at the work of Marion Ettlinger, a photographer celebrated for her "literary portrait power" (The Wall Street Journal). Author Photo collects, for the first time in book form, more than two hundred of Ettlinger's most famous photographs. Immortalized in these pages are many of America's greatest writers, including Raymond Carver, Francine Prose, Walter Mosley, Mary Karr, John Irving, Joyce Carol Oates, Truman Capote, Cormac McCarthy, Patricia Highsmith, Ken Kesey, Edwidge Danticat, and Jeffrey Eugenides.

According to one of Ettlinger's Pulitzer Prize-winning subjects, "starkness and a sense of shadows" are at the core of her artistic allure. Shot exclusively in natural light and in black-and-white film, each of these images is an intimate artwork, putting the reader closer than ever before to the writers they revere and admire. A photographic paean to the literary spirit, Author Photo opens a rare and revealing window onto the timelessness of creativity.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Books can be works of art in terms of both their literary content and their design.

Richard Ford introduces Author Photo, an almost wantonly satisfying collection of photographs by Ettlinger, who has made a genuine art form out of taking author's pictures. Ford describes Ettlinger as "tiny, exotic-seeming, dark-eyed," then muses over what exactly makes her author portraits so powerful. He concludes that it's a "confronting sensation of personal nearness," and, indeed, each beautifully composed portrait, whether it's theatrical or frank, is the fruit of an intimate collaboration between photographer and subject. Who has Ettlinger photographed? Alice Munro and Jennifer Egan. Raymond Carver and Ana Castillo. Russell Banks and ZZ Packer. Haruki Murakami and Thomas Mallon. Richard Rhodes and Erica Jong. Some writers are no longer with us, others are not readily recognized, but all are compelling. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Marion Ettlinger has been a photographer since 1968. She lives in New York City.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743227344
• ISBN-13: 978-0743227346
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 9.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,341,597 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book, August 5, 2005

By 

Del Osman (Honolulu, Hawaii) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Author Photo: Portraits, 1983 - 2002 (Hardcover)

This 173-page hard cover book features more than 200 B&W portraits of authors. Good quality paper and print. Although the portraits in this book are highly manipulated, yet they represent a specific photographic style and an era. The artist has full command of the medium and the technology. Her ability to use available light to bring her photographs to life is remarkable. The techniques use to create Ronald Steet's photo as well Ron Rosenbaum's in 1983 are quite different from those use to create David Gates's in 2001. Marion has succeeded in revealing her subjects personalities in these remarkable photographs.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Author Photo: Portraits, 1983-2002, July 9, 2005

By 

Gail K. Steinbeck (Montecito, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Author Photo: Portraits, 1983 - 2002 (Hardcover)

Marion Ettlinger is one of the few contemporary artists left in the field of photography. This is a brilliant overview of her work and an exciting insight into the world of some of our great writers.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tribute to the photographer and her subjects, October 3, 2010

By 

Todd R. Lockwood (Burlington, VT United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Author Photo: Portraits, 1983 - 2002 (Hardcover)

In the fall of 1978, after I relocated from Colorado to Burlington, Vermont, I came upon an exhibit of black & white portraits of important Vermonters hanging in the front window of the Church Street Center, our city-owned art gallery. It was an ironic moment for me because only a year before, I had walked away from a 17-year career in serious portrait photography. I'd become familiar with all the significant players in this field, yet there I stood, gazing at some of the most beautiful work I'd seen in years. I had no idea who this talented photographer was.

Marion was still living in Burlington at that time, and I asked her if she would take a portrait of me. I was curious to see how she worked and what her interpretation of me might be. She worked in a very deliberate way, moving my arms, legs and head into the exact position she wanted, as if to match an image she already had in her mind. Her photographic technique was beautiful in its simplicity. She used natural window light and pieces of cardboard covered in aluminum foil to illuminate the shadow areas. I had technical training in photography, while Marion had simply evolved her own methods. She knew how to get what she wanted, and the proof can be found in this marvelous book.

Marion's work shows a bit of evolution over these 30 years, but at the same time I am pleased to see that she works basically in the same organic way. Perhaps the only difference is that she has even further mastered her medium as evidenced by the striking sculptural light found in many of the portraits.

Marion has a special way of connecting with her author-subjects. I sense a kind of mutual respect. The faces in this collection all seem to be speaking in a similar language, and that gives this book a powerful emotional resonance. It is much more than a portfolio.