Customer Reviews

Friedlander

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An excellent overview of Lee Friedlander's pioneering career. If you are only peripherally interested in Friedlander and his photography, this is the book to buy. If you are a longtime admirer of his work, this will be the book you will return to again and again.

In addition to a generous display of photographs, the introductory essay (although a bit dense at times) gives insight into Friedlander's motivations and achievements.

Friedlander seems to be a controversial subject on photography forums across the Net. It's interesting to read the opinions of other photographers on these internet forums who think his work is sloppy, unsophisticated, amateurish, etc. Once confronted with this enlightening overview of Friedlander's work, it becomes obvious that what is truly sloppy, unsophisticated and amateurish is the perspective of those espousing these opinions. What evolves is the fact that Friedlander is a treasure.

Without question one of America's great photographers, Lee Friedlander can also be regarded as among the world's most influential photographers. This heavy, massive coffee table-sized book is a collection of every important body of work Lee Friedlander has made since the 1950's, beginning with his early commercial photographs of jazz musicians to his classic "American Monuments" series from the 1970's, to his unique nudes taken over two decades, Sonoran cacti depicted in his classic mid 1990's landscape book "The Desert Seen", and of course his recent body of work. It is the companion volume to the current Lee Friedlander retrospective - the first in over a decade - organized and shown currently at New York City's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). It contains an excellent critical overview by the exhibition's curator, Peter Galassi, chairperson of MoMA's photography department.

Lee Friedlander first appeared as one of several influential photographers who had a "Snapshot Aesthetic" to their documentary photography (Others include the late Garry Winogrand, William Klein and Joel Meyerowitz, to name but a few.) during the 1950's and 1960's. However, Friedlander's vision has always been unique, drawing upon his love of jazz music for his often spellbinding, distinctive photographic compositions. At first glance a Lee Friedlander image may be poorly composed, but upon further inspection, you can't help but feel impressed by his odd, yet still sensible logic in composing images. If you have a chance to visit New York City before the end of August, then by all means see this exhibition, which contains more than 500 images selected and sequenced by Galassi himself; otherwise, I highly recommend acquiring this splendid book.

by its scope, this book, like the photographer who's work it represents, is unique. not just the amount of photos, but the richness of them, their cool intelligence. it is a major volume, by one of the most influential non-color artists of our time. many people either hate or love friedlander's work, and i love it. if you do, just looking at this book a few times will be a great joy. if you're lucky (and rich) enough to buy or own it - what a treat.

This is the most comprehensive look at the work of Lee Friedlander to date, ranging from the beginnings in American jazz photography to landscapes to a large body of self-portraits. It is accompanied by an inclusive essay that surveys Friedlander's entire career, written by Peter Galassi the Chief Curator in the Department of Photography at the MoMA.

This is not the average retrospective catalog. A broad range of work is presented in 764 plates spanning five decades and arranged in groups. Some organized by theme and style while others are dedicated to specific books (Friedlander has published over 25 to date.) The photographs were not maliciously narrowed down or traditionally arranged. The artist himself had a large part in the selection and sequencing processes. The photographs are organized so that we can look back and see what the artist may or may not have intended from the beginning.

One group in particular compares new and old photographs and investigates the large change and learning experience that comes with a new camera. Friedlander started with a 35mm Leica, a street photographer's best friend, and he perfected his craft with it. Later in his career he decided to make the change to medium format and he revisited all the same problems. This section demonstrates the similarities and differences of working with different formats such as composition with a square frame, but also shows a new understanding of the medium and a range of new possibilities.

Friedlander's sense of humor is apparent in much of his work. It is not coincidence, but a decisive moment that captures these juxtapositions and visual metaphors that communicate irony and humor. The large size and scale of the book is necessary to accommodate comparisons between several similar photographs on a single page. For Lee Friedlander the quantity becomes part of the quality. His best photographs are made better by sharing the page with an image from the same series.

At 8# and 480 pages, this book is an immense collection of Friedlander's portraits, self-portraits, nudes, landscapes, images of the streets and more. In 2005 the Museum of Modern Art held a traveling retrospective of Lee Friedlander showing 500 of the photographs in its collection.

This catalog, which accompanied the retrospect, gives us closer to 800 photographs. The work extends back to 1964 when John Szarkowski saw a bold originality in the photography of Lee Friedlander and began collecting his work for the Museum of Modern Art. Three years later in 1967 Friedlander, Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus became the new face of documentary photography in the MOMA exhibition `New Documents.' Under Szarkowski's direction, and later that of Peter Galassi, the museum amassed Friedlander photographs for the next four decades.

The size of this collection provides a rare opportunity to see the span of an artists work. Unlike a concise selection of what is considered an artist's best images, this catalog is a detailed description of Friedlander's life's work. Its size suggests that Friedlander is one of America's greatest photographers because he is one of the most prolific.

for anyone. beautiful pics of the american landscape and around the world... beautiful portraits, whimsical and unique. everyone should own this, even people who don't care for photography. you'll understand the beauty and art of it after looking through this.

Lee Friedlander is one of the most important photographers within the history of the medium. His uncanny sense of irony merges with a refreshing use of formal design, producing provocative visual metaphors. His use of frames within frames comments on the nature of photography itself. It is hard to look at the american landscape the same after viewing his work, and that is a good thing! If you can afford another Friedlander book besides this one, i highly recommend "Like a One-Eyed Cat"!

You should get the hardcover version of this book if you can. Friedlander is the greatest living photographer. If this book doesn't prove it, I don't know what will.

This is an outstanding collection from a legend of the image Lee Friedlander, a massive, massive book that's quite affordable.
There is art, street imagery, nostaglia, a gusher of photos of sheer beauty from a glance that Friedlanders eye is drawn to.
Beginners, collectors or professionals will find this tomb a timeless collection that cannot be ignored.
Look into photographers William Eggleston, Helen Levitt, Saul Leiter, Robert Adams and Garry Winogrand just to mention a few for more visual classics.
Saul Leiter's new book is quite unique relative to style, really a beauty.

Ok, sorry to say but once you have this big bad boy what more do you need really? The section at the back about the development of Lee's printing over the years is especially interesting for photographers who are about to make a book. It's yellow which goes well with most coffee tables...Frankly they could have trimmed 20 percent of the photos but in this day and age more is more so what the heck...Totally worth it.