2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Masterful Sysnthesis of Human and Natural Beauty, September 22, 2008
This review is from: Humanlandscapes: Interpreting the Human Form (Hardcover)
Patrons may need a new, larger coffee table for this colossal enterprise - it's a whopping 14.3 x 11.7 inches. And it's as beautiful and flawlessly produced as it's dimensions are big. Humanlandscapes is the collaboration of photographer, Dr. P. Miller and American poet, Peter Crane. Each of Miller's photographs is accompanied by Crane's flowing, poetic insights and together they orchestrate a beautiful symphony of flesh, form, and insight into the human condition.
Miller's nudes are photographic studies of the naked, human form, shot in both color and black & white. Many of his photos are figure studies, with the female subject remaining anonymous. This leaves us to dwell on the incredible juxtaposition of line, texture, shape, and shadow created when Miller poses his models amidst the rugged terrain of the American West, where most of this work was created. Places like Escalante (UT), Crestone (CO), Taos (NM), Big Sur (CA), and Page (AZ) make their presence known throughout this work. The gorgeous scenery contributes as much to the enchantment as does the human element.
Humanlandscapes is a beautiful production packed full of gorgeous nudes shot in the natural splendor of America's most sacred places. It's obvious that an almost unimaginable amount of time and effort went into producing this magnificent work. Hopefully, Dr. Miller is satisfied that it was all worth it ... as this is undoubtedly one of the finest book of nudes published in recent years.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
P Miller's wonderful photographic essay of the female body, November 6, 2007
This review is from: Humanlandscapes: Interpreting the Human Form (Hardcover)
P Miller's collection of beautifully arranged photographs highten and highlight our senses and experiences of the human body, particularly the female form. The images are accompanied by insightful and thought-provoking prose. The black and white photographs especially have excellent balance of light and dark. The photographs and text flow effortlessly together and to each other.
This book stands out from the usual photography coffee table books in its exquisite presentation of the relations between the female body and nature.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Warps Made of Words and Wefts Made of Images, July 4, 2011
This review is from: Humanlandscapes: Interpreting the Human Form (Hardcover)
Humanlandscapes:Interpreting the Human Form is an original book on many different levels. One level of interest focuses on the fact that it was visually and verbally constructed by two artists who have presented this work of art from a woman-s point-of-view. As a gynecologist and an obstetrician, P. Miller is a doctor whose patients are all women. As a physician whose role as a medical practitioner has been a dominant one, the women who are advised and treated have been placed in a subordinate role, and yet, the author has deliberately selected women to play the leading parts and has made a decision to have the poetic narratives that accompany them written in the first person so that the readers of this book can apply the images they see and the words they read directly to themselves.
Dr. Miller gives the reader images of nude women whose identities are masked or muted in a way that allows the readers to step into their skins and feel the world they inhabit. Accompanying each photograph--where heads, arms, and even legs are sometimes cropped--is a poem by Peter Crane who spins verbal threads into golden webs that embrace tapestries and triangles which are visual metaphors for the unique part of the female body that contains eggs from which new lives are spawned.
In part one, The Body as Masterpiece, the photograph titled Elements shows the partial figure of a nude woman looking back over her shoulder at layers of color-striped rocks that--while framing her--complement the curves of her hips, her breasts, her elbows, and her pulled-back hair. "Combed striations of silken thread, left by the river, ran fast along the sculpted stone / and held me breathless, spinning into its endless cocoon."
In each part of the book, there is a quote taken from the world of the author's father-in-law, Meyer Elkin. In part two, In the Realm of the Senses, he says-- "it is easier to appreciate the full beauty of a flower when it is plucked from the bush or tree and viewed by itself. the same applies to humans."
In part three, The Body as Spirit, P. Miller raises questions that cannot be answered. "Where does my spirit live? Is it coded in my DNA or in a chemical reaction? . . . Do my children have a piece of it? When did it enter my body?" And indeed, there are more unanswerable questions that could have been added to that list. Why does the body weigh less when the last breath has been drawn? Does the soul weigh 21 grams? And if it does, where does it go after it leaves the body?
One of the images in that part of the book gives testimony to the acknowledgement of the metaphorical "web of mystery" that surrounds us. In Angel 3, a woman is seen whose body is partially revealed in light to the reader's left and partially concealed by darkness to the reader's right. Her face is masked with a white-colored drape that hides her features, and the words she speaks support the mystery that cannot be penetrated by reason and logic. "I weave a glistening web of mystery," she says. "I am a trembling tuning fork, casting vibrations into space. I am the sound you cannot see, the aura you cannot hear."
After reading those lines, you find yourself asking questions like--How can you see a sound? and How can you hear an aura? In reality, you cannot do either of those things, but reason is not the key that can be used to unlock those kinds of elements that the intuitive acceptance of mystery is privy to.
In a doctor's world, there is knowledge about how to diagnose a disease and how to treat any number of infirmities. There is knowledge about electron microscopes and DNA probes. But is there knowledge about the human spirit and the human soul? Is there a concern for the essence of the spiritual being whose soul cannot be monitored with a stethoscope and whose pulse cannot be recorded on physically determined pressure points?
In Dr. Miller's world, there is a partial answer to those questions. In part four of his book, Fusion, he talks about what makes every human being inimitable and extraordinary when he says, "I have a unique gene structure on my DNA, unique brain circuitry, and unique enzyme metabolites to carry messages to my cells. I have a unique spirit . . . . I alone carry my own special looks, personality, loves, and emotions."
In the Afterword, the author shares his final thoughts with his readers. "Life," he says, "is lived on many levels with physical, psychological and spiritual threads woven together to form a unique tapestry of experiences for each of us."
It is an accurate reflection of what he has given us in this art book that is like no other compilation of images and words I have seen. His love of nature, his love of photography, and his mutual respect for the world of medicine and the world of art have been woven together with warps made of words and wefts made of images that--once seen--are impossible to forget.
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