Customer Reviews

Rare Birds

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Lots of celebs in this one. Looks like deCadenet has compiled photos from the 80's to today. Unique and very personal and intimate feeling.

De Cadenet proves with her book that she is filled with admiration for great contemporary photographers,like Paul Jasmin or Diane ARbus.
She's a very good student (composition,centring,subject)offering good imitations of her masters. I recommand to buy the original inspirations of De Cadenet :Paul Jasmin, Arbus, Goldin...

Rare Birds is basically a collection of photos that look like they should be taped up on the walls of a teenagers bedroom, if that teenager was the coolest girl at some hip downtown New York private school. This is a good thing. The book is a nice slice of popular culture in the early aughts (almost all the photos are of celebrities like Keanu Reeves, Drew Barrymore, Nick Valensi and the other Stroke boys) but the photos are also sweet and intimate. There is real affection between subject and photographer. It is a look into what Amanda De Cadanet's life might look like in its most idealized form. Its true that Rare Birds isn't the most brilliant or original book of photography out there, but clearly that wasn't De Cadenet's goal. It seems more like she wanted to show the photos and say "here I am. Share with me." And at that she does a beautiful job.

There is nothing redeeming about Ms. Cadenet's photography, except as a document of the people she slept with. and its an impressive litany of boy stars that she has serviced...unfortunately, the camera skills she utilizes are not as impressive as her personal offerings....by a long shot. taking the lead paved by Hiromix and Terry Richardson, the premise behind her attempts, are the 'snapshot' window into her volatile, star powered life. but most of these badly lit, movie star and rock star 'moments' feel staged, superficial and lacking the unseen touches and bold reality that carved out a niche for Hiromix and Terry.

I don't believe Amanda ever achieved a celebrity status indepedent of the boy stars she was servicing, and for the most part they all seem aware and weary of the photographer's presence. time to go home Amanda.

Amanda De Cadenet's Rare Birds offers glimpses into the lives of those faces we see so often in tabloids or on TV, with one major difference -- in this book, we see these celebrities through the eyes of someone who is close to them, and unenhanced by the media. Yet we also see something about the woman behind the camera, for many of the photographs seem light-hearted and silly, as if taken by a bored girl fiddling around with her camera one rainy day. Through her photographs, De Cadenet comes off as a simple girl who likes taking pictures of simple-girl things - friends, boyfriends, flowers, shoes, and of course, hot guys.

This book seems to be De Cadenet's attempt to put a personality to the celebrities that clutter its pages. Her efforts to do so can be seen by the book's arrangement (famous faces alongside unknown ones) as well as its index (naming all subjects on a first-name-only basis -- a familiar "Orlando" rather than "Orlando Bloom, People Magazine's Sexiest Bachelor 4 years in a row"). The book achieves its goal, partially at least. Yet even if you don't recognize all the celebrities in the book, you can still pretty much tell that they're famous -- even stripped down and "raw", they are still too glamorous to seem like simpletons.

As for the celebrities -- indie music scenesters will instantly be familiar with many faces - The Strokes make at least a dozen appearances (no doubt due to De Cadenet's status as the girlfriend of their lead guitarist), as well as The Vines, Adam Green, Matt Followill (Kings of Leon), Beck, and Sean Lennon -- just to name a few. Those unfamiliar with such names may still recognize other tabloid faces, including Drew Barrymore, Keanu Reeves (also a De Cadenet ex), Orlando Bloom, Tobey Maguire, and Amber Valetta.

You know, I was real exited about "Rare Birds" in the beginning, and only because I am deeply in love with and very passionate about Keanu Reeves. I knew there were going to be photos of him in this book, and I also expected to see a whole section on him, from what I've read about in other descriptions of the book. So imagine my surprise when I found the book in a local bookstore and flipped through the pages...

First of all, let me say that I only recognized 4 people (before reading the photo credits) in this book...Keanu Reeves, Tobey Maguire, Benicio del Toro, and Sean Lennon. And let me also say that the ONLY good photos in the whole book are of Keanu Reeves; in one, he is laying in bed, gazing into the camera with the sun shining on his hair. It is perfection...it is Heaven-sent, and he looks like an angel. In the other, he is holding his motorcycle helmet, shyly looking down. Both photos are clear and professional looking. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the book.

For the most part, the so-called "celebrities" (maybe in their minds, anyway) look like has-been Hollywood trash, with the exception of the aforementioned four people. Most of the pics look as if they had been taken with a cheapie disposable camera, and most of the subjects (except Keanu) look like something the cat drug in after a long night of partying. They all look like hell, and if it hadn't been for the incomplete photo credits in the back of the book (first names only,) I'd have never recognized Rose McGowan. Even Tobey and Benicio look like they just got out of bed, but I have to say that those shots are fairly decent. The rest, however, just plain suck. Even the photos of Ms. DeCadenet's daughter, Atlanta, could (and should) have been done with much more care. There's a photo of a pair of sneakers, some roses, and a marquee of a theatre where "The Matrix" was playing, and which has Keanu's name on top of the title; the non-human subjects were very amateurish.

Marc Jacobs and Sophie Dhal have nothing interesting to say in the book. It would have been so much nicer if there were captions under the photos saying who the subject was, and when and under what circumstances the photo was taken. I may have cared more about the subjects (and the book itself) had that been done. It is very obvious that Ms. DeCadenet still has a great deal of affection for Keanu, with whom she once had a long relationship; she thanks him twice in the acknowledgements, and there are more photos of him (4 in all) than there are of anyone else in the book, including her daughter. If she had put as much care and effort into the rest of the pics as she did with Keanu's, it would be a truly glorious book. I'm glad I got to see it before I ordered it (which I won't be doing, by the way,) because I would have wasted a LOT of money.