Customer Reviews

Full Moon

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Yes, Michael Light could have chosen better known photgraphs. Yes, Michael Light could have supplied NASA Index numbers for each photo. Yes, Michael Light could have done many things differently.

What Michael Light has produced is one of the most stunning collections of photographs I have ever seen in a single volume. I have sat looking at these images and found it hard to drag myself away. The stark monochromatic beauty of the moon together with the fragile humanity embodied in the astronauts has been exposed in a way I have never seen before.

I cannot understand why NASA has never made better use of its image library in bringing to the attention of the public its space program. If a picture paints a thousand words then this volume would take a lifetime to read.

Who cares about words with a book like this! Full Moon is the greatest book ever and it has no text at all (except for the author, copywrite, et cetera...) Michael Light chose the most fascinating pictures of the history of our moon and told the most accurate history of the moon through it, better than any other book could. Every photograph in this book takes a lifetime to look at. And as someone else said, "If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this book would take a lifetime to read." Very true. Buy this book ASAP and cherish it forever!

I have read most of the books about manned space flight published to date. Although several of these books are outstanding, and provide an in-depth perspective that can only be expressed through the written word, none of them gives me the virtual moon-trip experience that this beautifully constructed book does.

It's not just a book of beautiful photographs (and they are beautiful). There is appropriate text that accompanies the photos in a separate section. The very large photos are printed with NO text on the page to detract from the scenes displayed. Descriptive text is provided at the end of the book along with accompanying thumb-nail prints of the photos.

Whatever NASA invested in educating the astronauts in photography paid-off. I'd love to see more!

This book is absolutely incredible! The quality of the photos is simply outstanding, making the moon shot feel like it just happened yesterday not 30 years ago. It brought back all the goosebumps I felt as a highschooler when the astronauts first stepped on the moon. Presenting the pictures separate from the text makes you focus entirely on the visual before you. The foldouts are so impressive and encompassing.

In addition, the essay answered basic questions about the space program brought up by the photos but kept it short enough to not read like a history book. This is a book I'll return to again and again. Already I have run after friends, book in hand, shouting, "Look at this one! Look at THIS!" A fabulous additon to anyone's library but most especially for anyone with even the slightest interest in the space program. It offers an artist's interpretation and presentation of a truly amazing and life-altering event.

I can use "picture book" to describe Full Moon, as images contributed as the major part of this book. Don't think that this book is not worth reading, indeed, it is on the contrary, this is an extraordinary book, because of the photos.

There are a lot of astronomy books contain lots of photos, but when you read them, you would find the images are not so good at all, but not because of the photo itself, because of the low resolution. And if you are familiarize with those photos, you would immediately notice that the original photo is not so small in resolution. It is really a very bad idea for the publisher and editor to ignore the importance of image resolution.

However, when you first look into Full Moon, you will find you're getting into a different world as you are already delighted by the spectacular images of the Moon taken from Apollo Mission. Normally, owing to the technological limitation in 1960s and 1970s, all images are only mostly available as hard copy and not so high resolution. However, Project Full Moon can turn those hard copies into very high resolution images. I can even tell you that, NASA even don't have such high resolution images before.

Since these reasons, I would rank this book as my list of Top 10 Astronomy Book. If you really love astronomy, you must not miss this book, miss the extraordinary journey to the Moon

This is an outstanding coffee-table book. The photographs and double-truck fold-out pages of the lunar surface are stunning.

The effect that the compositor--that's really what Michael Light is here--is after is a little on the arty side, though. For instance, he strips out most, if not all, color on the Moon (which is notoriously difficult to reproduce--there's a good discussion of the problem on the Lunar Surface Journal online), leaving only back and white tonal ranges. That's not a complaint but rather a simple observation about the compositor's intent.

Also, the sequence of images is really taking you to and from the Moon, with little regard for the proper order of the various Apollo missions -- six in all (Apollos 11 thru 17, minus Apollo 13, which orbited but never landed) -- and their unique sets of photographs. But that works well here, I must admit. In this regard, it's LIKE a book version of the fantastic film, and now a Criterion Collection DVD, called For All Mankind (directed by Al Reinert).

Note that there are two editions of this book on Amazon. One is 11.7 square and the other is 8.5 square--or about 25 percent smaller. In a book like this, that's a significant difference. But is the larger trim worth twice the price? Well, that all depends on you. I think the larger book is better, but I've also bought the smaller book to give away as gifts, since I got an amazing deal on them--just under $10 in a bin somewhere. I did buy the original when it came out, and it remains one of my favorite books of photography and space.

Michael Light has wisely decided to let these extraordinary photographs speak for themselves. (Commentary and details on the photos are discretely tucked away at the back of the book but they are almost redundant). Now I think I can understand what Buzz Aldrin meant when he talked about "magnificent desolation". Brian Eno's haunting CD "Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks" (also available on Amazon) makes the perfect backdrop to an out of this world experience.

A beautiful and artful collection of some very amazing photographs from the Apollo missions. I was amazed by a lot of them...and before I closed the book, I felt the urge to call my Senator and demand our return to the moon.

This book is a work of art. If you'll refer to the first critique in this section, you'll see why ("Oh, if they'd only consulted me," he says....Indeed, Sir. Those that can, do. Those that can't, critique.) "Full Moon" isn't you run of the mill, "oh I've seen that shot a thousand times" rehash but a real effort to communicate the awesome mystery and solitude of the place. The photos are presented without captions and numbers so as not to interrupt the visual experience. They are reproduced to such a high quality that they seem almost three dimensional. Some image choices are not obvious and communicate a feeling instead of fact. This is moon surface photography as poetry. Just as Gene Cernan's brilliant book lends new emotion to the experience, "Full Moon" offers new eyes. Worth three times the price.

If you are looking for a book with all the same press shots you've seen a thousand times then this book isn't for you. The panoramic composits are excellent and the choice of photos is very intelligent. See what Apollo was really about in this book. The quality in terms of photo reproduction and book design is impeccable.