City of Secrets: photographs of Naples by Jed Fielding
[Hardcover]

Jed Fielding (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0965888703 | ISBN-13: 978-0965888707 | Publication Date: December 25, 1997

These extraordinary images, the product of twenty years spent photographing in the streets of Naples, constitute a major body of work by an important American photographer. Fielding's unforgettable portraits are illuminated by an insightful essay contributed by photographer Nan Richardsonl.

Editorial Reviews

Review

All Fielding's pictures seem to have many stories behind them. It's the chance that the stories might reveal themselves that makes these portraits of strangers in a troubled city worth looking at. -- Chicago Tribune, Nov. 14, 1997

The Village Voice The Photography Books of the Holiday Season by Vince Alletti ...Jed Fieldingfs City of Secrets collects photographs made over the past 20 years in Naples, a city that became an obsession: g I love it and dreaded it and just kept going back.h Its citizens, from wiseass kids in diapers to weathered old men, loom into the frame like characters out of Fellini, bursting with antic, earthy energy. Fielding confronts and embraces his subjects, building up a portrait of a place thatfs as visceral as it is cinematic-a true theater of the streets.

Chicago Tribune All Fielding's pictures seem to have many stories behind them. It's the chance that the stories might reveal themselves that makes these portraits of strangers in a troubled city worth looking at. -- Book Review

From the Publisher

Fielding's unforgettable portraits are illuminated by an insightful essay contributed by photography writer Nan Richardson. Naples itself is beautifully detailed by Shirley Hazzard, who provides a historic and poetic context for Fielding's work. But a the heart of the book are photographs themselves. City of Secrets: photographs of Naples by Jed Fielding has been published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name organized by and on view at The Museumof Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago, November 1997 through January 1998. The exhibition will tour.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 124 pages
• Publisher: Takarajima Books (December 25, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965888703
• ISBN-13: 978-0965888707
• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 10.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,279,936 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:

5.0 out of 5 stars wow!!, June 26, 2006

By 

amy "boot_cat" (usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City of Secrets: photographs of Naples by Jed Fielding
(Hardcover)

I have had this book for years, I still never get tired of it. I wish the author/photographer would have done another book

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars City of Secrets: Photographs of the PEOPLE of Naples, January 26, 2001

By 

markzero "markzero" (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City of Secrets: photographs of Naples by Jed Fielding
(Hardcover)

This is not a book for people looking for architectural or landscape photographs of Naples; the pictures focus solely on the people (mostly female children) of this ancient Italian city.

The photographs in this book are not technically brilliant, even by standards of the time, yet the dark shadows are rich with secret meaning: a woman in a doorway is seen only as a skirt and arms holding an infant, for example. The essay does a dutiful job of answering questions about why the photographs were taken in the loose fashion that some of them were, and why they are mostly focused on girls, but is neither boring nor compelling.

However, the real reason to get this book is to get a sense of the living, breathing city, both old and young, in its extremes of glamour and squalor, that makes you both wish you could go see that time and place and hope that it has vanished.