The Last Sideshow is a wonderful chronicle of an American community of traveling circus performers. As a contributor to Vogue, GQ and Elle, Hanspeter Schneider's professional life has focused on the artifice of beauty. In his new book he challenges popular assumptions and captures beauty with charm and understanding, in perhaps the most unusual of places. The portraits have humor, dignity and vivacity but above all they are a fascinating account of a disappearing community.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From The New Yorker
Gibsonton is a small town on the Gulf Coast of Florida that serves as the off-season refuge—and, increasingly, retirement home—for a community of circus performers and carnival sideshow freaks. Here sympathetic zoning regulations don't penalize you for keeping a roller coaster parked in front of your house or an elephant in the back yard. Schneider's high-contrast black-and-white portraits of Gibsonton residents present the aging members (some now deceased) of a rapidly diminishing tribe: Jeanie Tomaini, the Half Lady, who is the proprietor of the local bait shop; the Welde family, with their tutu-clad dancing bear; and the nonagenarian Human Blockhead hammering giant nails into his right nostril. Tomaini's daughter remarks, "When your father is an eight-foot, four-inch giant and your mother is two feet six inches with no legs, some outsiders think you must have a really weird home life," but these photographs achieve a winning sense of the everyday.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker
About the Author
Hanspeter Schneider has worked as Art Director for advertising agencies in Switzerland, Germany, England and France. As a photographer, he regularly contributes to fashion magazines such as Vogue, GQ, Details, Marie Claire and Elle and lifestyle magazines including Conde Nast Traveller and Sport Illustrated. His photographs have been exhibited worldwide including: Festival de le Mode, Barcelona; The Art of Photography, London; Parco Gallery, Tokyo.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
AS SEEN BY THE CZAR,
By
This review is from: The Last Sideshow (Paperback)
ALTHOUGH I WAS PHOTOGRAPHED BY SCHNEIDER SOME YEARS BACK, I'D NEVER SEEN THE BOOK UNTIL THIS WEEK WHEN I SIGNED A COPY AT THE FLORIDA STATE FAIR. I'M NOT BUYING BECAUSE I'M IN IT, I'M BUYING IT BECAUSE IT'S IN A CLASS OF ITS OWN---ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICANT ! CERTAINLY COMPARABLE TO RANDALLEVINSON'S "IN SEARCH OF THE MONKEY GIRL" AND THE NUMEROUS STUDIES DONE ON SIDESHOW PERFORMERS BY DIANE ARBUS. EACH PAGE EVOKES A VARIETY OF EMOTIONS THAT WILL ENGRAVE THEMSELVES IN YOUR MIND ! JOHNNY MEAH "THE CZAR OF BIZARRE"
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
