Customer Reviews

Nudes

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

 

 

I bought this book on the weekend despite the fact that I'm broke. I walked away, leaving two copies on the shelf, and when I came back there was only one left! Obviously I was not the only person impressed with this gentleman's photography. It was worth every penny that I paid for it. It is absolutely breathtaking and exquiste! Andreas knows how to bring forth the human form in all of its glory without making it salacious and lubricious. Andreas knows truly knows what the true meaning of the word SEXY means. It is trully remarkable and I hope to see more of him down the road.

I was actually fairly disappointed by this book, though it does merit very high marks on the technical issues, i.e. the reproductions are of high quality, and the photographer knew his tools. It's just that I didn't care for the choice of images. Most of the images are very contrasty, moving quickly between almost oily highlights and deep shadows. The poses, while visually interesting, were very artificial and to me, unappealing. I guess the photographer was going for presenting the structure of the body and different kinds of lines you could generate with it. In that regard, he did a good job, but it was not a goal that appealed to me. And one final FYI, the book is black and white -- no value judgement on that, just information that I didn't see elsewhere on this page.

I was so lucky to finally find this book, as all the bookstores I asked had already sold out. Andreas H. Bitesnich must really be the undisputed master of black & white nude photography. This large-format book contains his work through the last decade, and is from start to finish an ode to the human form. Bitesnich avoids all use of props and styling to create mood. Instead he creates human sculputres, using the form itself, and his wonderful sense of lightning. His nudes are highly charged and sexual without borrowing any clichés. Even the most abstract retain this quality through the gorgeous textrues of skin, simultaneously soft and vulnerable, hard and unobtainable. It is precisely with these contrasts that Bitesnich comes into his own. Simply Beautiful!

Herb Ritts, in Men/Women, 1989, enthralled us with images of women against a stark white wall -- women whose skin Ritts rendered profoundly dark regardless of race. Dennis Manarchy did some amazing pictures in 1990-1991 of a wonderfully muscular black man dressed only in a coat of baby oil, also against a pure white backdrop. Albert Watson, ca. 1989, gave us murky, sexy images of white women rendered so dark as to be indistinguishable from the gloom that enveloped them. Andreas Bitesnich synthesizes these and other similar influences in "Nudes", a series of pictures from about 1993-1998 in a luxuriously produced volume from Edition Stemmle. The images are mostly dark, very simple nudes, male and female, all rendered with very dark skin oiled in varying amounts from just a drop to slathered. The poses are from graceful modern dance with plenty of bulging muscle and extension, and all aloof personae. They are spectacularly beautiful and about as inviting as a pit bull. The pleasure here, for the most part, is a nearly abstract indulgence in sculptured nude humans.

I've seen and admired the original edition of this book, which was very well-done and showcases an interesting artist. Unfortunately the new teNeues reissue does not live up to the original. It is frankly one of the worst-printed photography books I've ever seen. I've seen better print quality from color laser printers. Not worth the cost, unless you *really* need to have a book of Bitesnich's work.

This collection features many superb examples of the play of light and shadow on the human body. Most of the photos are indeed artistic & in good taste but a few fall short of the best taste in my opinion; a notable example of the latter is a quite explicit close-up of oral sex on one full page plate which falls more into the category of pornography than art in my view.Being an artist who considers the unclad human form the greatest aesthetic creation of God, I am not a prude but I buy books like this with that in mind. However I don't believe in throwing out the proverbial baby with the proverbial bathwater so I am keeping my copy of this book but I do give it a very qualified recommendation.You pays your money and you takes your chance (with the option of returning it to Amazon if it is totally unacceptable for whatever reason).

I loved the book. It is well made with thick pages. I also love Bitesnich's work, he does an supreme job forming the human body into a sculpture like forms. I do not like erotic distasteful art that shows nudity for the sake of lust and perverseness. There are very few photos that I dislike in the book, yet the ones that are good are done extremely well...I would suggest this book to anyone wanting to see the human body in such an artistic light!

this is an amazing book, if you love black and white photos. there'a a perfect light balance in every photo and a real dynamic erotic tension. wonderful!

Gorgeous all the way around. Simply, oneof the most beautiful books of it's type around. Andreas is magical with his camera.

The book could have been a major title in nude photography had it not been for the poor quality of prints: almost half of them are too dark, overcontrasted, with almost no discerning details seen. Now, the intention of the author was the black and white low key photography and there are some photographs that are simply excellent - very artistic with a wide spectrum of shades, showing the beauty of human body in exquisite detail, particularly in the first half of the book. But almost none of the images in the last third of the book are any good for the very reason of poor quality of print: close to black and white blobs.... Too bad. Hopefully another edition will be better, for Bitesnitch is worth paying close attention to.