Customer Reviews

Pure Dance

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is photography? The photos are just plain aweful. The photos are uninspiring. It's mostly grainy documentary photos of the Stuttegart ballet. The studio shots are boring, usually taken with one light source from above, and the poses are very typical and unoriginal. The worst are the blown up cropped shots that looks like images that an amateur photography would do.

The book also has extremely poor layout, it seems it was trying to be creative with it. For example, you have many full page spread with just one word scaled up to fill the space. Then you have pages with one small photo that fills up about a fifth of the space.

I was hoping to find compelling and dynamic or just plain interesting photos, but found none. You might want to wait until this goes in to the bargain bin before purchasing. I know this is a harsh review, but I was very dissappointed with how some people could publish snapshots and call it photography.

I have returned this book to amazon.

In response to Mr. Ho's negative review, let me just say that he has very selective memory or perceptions. The book is full of big, beautiful pics. A few of the pics are small, but this is a minority of pics. The pics come in three basic types. About four fifths of the pics are either posed, of the dancers lounging around or just random pics of faces, arms and legs etc. The posed pics are very nice, but not dynamic. The pics of the dances just lounging are more for erotic purposes, I think. About a fifth of the pics are stop-action, and these are wonderful, and more than justify the price of the book. The poses tend to be drawn a bit more from modern dance than ballet, but as a ballet lover I still found them to be satisfying. Having three books of ballet photography with the dancers in costume, it was interesting to see them nude. Considering the price of photography from a gallery, the book is well worth the price.

The book is full of breathtaking photos of honed bodies of ballet dancers of one of the most famous dance group in Europe. It is poetry in motion. By its sheer aesthetic value the book will make a valuable addition to any home collection. Keep it on your coffee table at all times and keep it open. A great conversation piece that your guest will not want to put down.