Customer Reviews

On Fire (Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography)

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Having followed Larry Schwarm's carrer for the past decade his FIRE imagery produces a photographic essay that can be described as apocalyptic and rebirth. The sweeping imagery with different timed exposures produces a surreal view of controlled fire in the Flint Hills. Having recently met Mr. Schwarm and seeing his large scale imagery I came away with the feeling of seeing a master artist and his canvases. The emotion of his images remind me of Chuck Close, Diane Arbus, Tom Baril and Robert Mapplethorpe - all different in context but emotional charged with its simplicity.

I saw his work at a Chicago exposition and then bought the book and one of his photographs,(the cover photo in fact) The photographs are awe inspiring and eerily detached from the subject matter. Much like a Rothko painting, the photographs turn real fires into an abstract division line between earth and sky. It is as if we have stepped into a different world where darkness and flames are the norm. Buy this book!