Couples: Found Photos [Hardcover]

Roger Handy (Author), Karin Elsener (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2007

From Romeo and Juliet to Sonny and Cher to Kermit and Miss Piggy, couples have always been part of the social landscape. In this poignant and nostalgic collection of found photographs, the timeless experience of falling in love is captured by photo booth snapshots, vacation candids, and wedding portraits cherished by lovers from long ago.

Young and old, playful or passionate, these photographs make it abundantly clear that love is all around us. Intimate and romantic, Couples is a must-have for anyone who has ever been struck by Cupid’s arrows.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Roger Handy is an artist and conceptualist whose previous publications include Made in Japan: Transistor Radios of the 1950s and 1960s. He lives in Los Angeles.

Karin Elsener is a Swiss-American graphic designer, mother of two, and self-described thrift store addict. She lives in Los Angeles.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 108 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (February 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810993120
• ISBN-13: 978-0810993129
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 8.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #562,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book for your favorite couple, March 7, 2007

By 

L.A. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Couples: Found Photos (Hardcover)

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Roger Handy and Karin Elsener bring you Couples: Found Photos, a collection of paired portraits that manages to achieve adorability without corniness. Every glossy page brings sweethearts' snapshots. Each comes complete with its own story - provided by the readers, not the authors; that's the real genius of the book: the acrobatics it lures the imagination into with each turn of the page. Flip to the black and white photo showing the back of a couple standing on a dock at a lake. He's holding a fishing pole. She's wearing a scarf on her head and is scratching a dog's neck. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Handy and Elsener provide you about 208,000 with which to construct your own stories.

This collection evokes curiosity, nostalgia and a sense of love's universality. The photographs feature couples of all ages and sizes; squeaky clean and roguishly passionate. Buy this book for your favorite couple's wedding or anniversary. Leave it on your coffee table and spark a discussion at a dinner party about the nature of love and intimacy. Or do as the season dictates and give it to the one you love, perhaps with a picture of the two of you pasted on the inside of the back cover to celebrate that you're paired, squared and mad for
each other.

- Heather Pamula [...]

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A little treasure of intimate moments, May 22, 2008

By 

G. Print (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Couples: Found Photos (Hardcover)

I recently came across this book, and I love it. I work in the Graphic Design Department for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon. As a keen photographer and lover of traditional photography, I find this book refreshing and uplifting. It is full of images that have captured a particular moment between man and woman. It reminds the viewer of a time when a photograph was a valued possession and a keepsake. I like that the images represent an intimate, personal moment between two people. Page after page depicts a different couple in a different time and place, but with the common them of togetherness and intimacy.

As a keen photographer I love that the book shows the prints in their original form. The old polaroids with the white borders, the photo booth prints depicted at actual size, black and white, and hand tinted prints are all represented. This helps the honesty of the images and processes, and the realness and truth of a captured moment.

This book is a wonderful collection. It is a little treasure of intimate moments between couples and now because of Karin Elsener and Roger Handy, these moments are shared with anyone who is lucky enough to page through it.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Put guests in a mood, May 16, 2008

By 

J. E. Tipre - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Couples: Found Photos (Hardcover)

Though "Couples" is more than a coffee table book, if it were, it would certainly stimulate conversation. Mr. Handy and Ms. Elsener prove to possess keen eyes for the witty and purely romantic in their photographic survey of American couples in years past. The fact that the pictures are found photos makes them all the more alluring in their mystery.