Heavenly Beauties (Hardcover)

by Pascal Baetens (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
• Beautiful coffee-table book—at an affordable price

• Author is well known in fine art photography circles, with exhibits planned in the US

Pascal Baeten’s sublime black-and-white fine art nudes are praised around the globe, and here, in his fourth book, his work reaches a crescendo of style and purity. Baetens’ photos "remind us of those precious moments of discovery when all was well with the world and nature was in perfect harmony with the beauty of the female form," says Andrew Rawlins. Everyone who appreciates the beauty and the art of female nudes needs this beautiful book by a rising star.

About the Author
Pascal Baetens, author of Amphoto’s The Art of Nude Photography(081733155), works in the fields of portrait, fashion, travel, and nude photography. His work has been featured in several exhibitions, as well as three of his own books and many compilations of modern photography. He lives in Belgium

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Amphoto Books (October 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0817439838
• ISBN-13: 978-0817439835
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #93,972 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Black & White Nudes from a Riveting Talent, October 21, 2005

By	Jack Gilbert "Editor of Michelle7.com" (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is one of those overlooked gems that collectors really need to take a second look at. It has not received the proper attention from the press, at least in America, and there has been some confusion due to the change in title from Heavenly Girls to Heavenly Beauties. But don't let that distract you - this is an amazing publication from one of the most exciting art photographers in all of modern Europe. It's a perfectly produced photography book with dimensions of 8.5x10.5 inches (21x27cm) and features approximately 250 black & white photographs, with all but two or three being full nudes.

Belgian photographer Baetens is a riveting talent. His nudes are absolutely stunning and his original composition and style put him amongst the elite photographers in the genre. He is also well known in Europe as a fashion and travel photographer. But his nudes are ultra-extraordinary. His beautiful subjects radiate in the wide variety of settings that Baetens shoots in; such as gargantuan industrial sites, quaint bedroom chambers, agriculture fields, dilapidated buildings, and lush woodlands. Baeten's spectacular vision is what unifies this work, ties it together into one big, spine-tingling show. It is truly a glimpse of what heaven must be like.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice But Not Remarkable, September 6, 2006

By	Daniel Raphael - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

What I look for in female nudes is beauty. I like to see the form of the female body, the features of the face, the texture of the hair. Sometimes a natural setting will enhance and complement feminine beauty; sometimes a plain studio setting is best.

In all cases, I like to see nudes as large as the page/photograph allows, and I don't care for "arty" techniques that obscure or distort natural features. I'm not one who thinks the photographic artist must always be searching for an effect or a pose that no one else has tried before.

The reason I'm telling you these things is so that you understand why I'm not more enthusiastic about this collection. I look at a lot of books of nudes, and am pretty discriminating. It's my habit now to cut out a few of the best pages and discard the rest of the book; only a few volumes have sufficient pages good enough to warrant retaining the book intact.

This book may stay on the shelf, but it's a close call. There are many photographs where the models are a small portion of the picture, and any number in which effects predominate. There are, I'm pleased to say, several photographs that are both beautiful and original. The models are nice enough to look at and they don't all look the same, though all are Caucasian.

In short, I think this book has been greatly overrated by some other reviewers, but it's worth considering that aesthetic sense is a very subjective matter. What appeals to one will not to another, or less so. I give this book a very middling four stars.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very beautiful images, February 5, 2006

By	William D. Tompkins (New York, New York USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book contains very beautiful women posed very nicely. The images of the women in the empty room are great. I think the photographer replicates himself a little bit in the book, displaying images that are so close to eachother that they are not diiferentiated from eachother well enough. if they were suppoed to show a series, then it doesnt come off well enough.

There are some amazing images where I found myself staring at the beauty of the image.