Customer Reviews

Some Women

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3 star:		(1)
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Though controversial and best known for his erotic photography of male nudes, Some Women shows the depth and resounding mastery of Mapplethorpe's creativity and artistic talent. This is a compilation of B&W photographs of women of all ages: children through seniors. Some are fashion models, nude torsos, others unknown friends, some famous actresses (including: Sigourney Weaver, Susan Sarandon, Melanie Griffith, Dianne Weist, Grace Jones and Kathleen Turner to name a few.) Each photographic plate is resoundly crafted and displayed highlighting the complex and compelling beauty of women.

Not just the women themselves, but the renderings of them. This collection offers many view of what a woman is: young, in her prime, or aging; clothed or nude; even carrying new life within her. These hard-edged black and white images carry the soft curves of well- and un-known women beautifully.

My only reservation comes from some of the pictures of children. Jock Sturges's photos of naturist families show people of every age, happy and at ease in their undress. Mapplethorpe's unclad children distinctly lack that sense of ease - even small children know what they are comfortable with and, in at least a few cases, their comfort seems not to have been taken into account.

Except for that one troubling note, I find this one of the most captivating collections of figure and portrait photography I've seen.

- wiredwierd

I was disappointed by the 86 images of nudes, fashion shots, and portraits in this book. Although they are technically wonderful, well-lit, and beautiful, they lack a good grasp of the inner reality of the subjects. The contrast between this book and his remarkable work in Lady: Lisa Lyon and Flowers could not have been greater.

This book contains modest nudity of the sort that would require an R rating for a motion picture. None of the challenging images that made Mr. Mapplethorpe famous are present here.

In the annotation by Joan Dideon, Mr. Mapplethorpe is quoted as saying "You don't know why it's happening, but it's happening." Too little was happening in most of these images. The exceptions were the girls, who clearly expressed their personalities in an unguarded way. Most of the models are "well known, figures of considerable celebrity or fashion or achievement." As such, "they are professional women, performers before the camera." I think that as such, they were able to show just what they wished to reveal about themselves. So you get a mask, rather than a person. Mr. Mapplethorpe says about himself that his work is "very symmetrical." I agree, and while that works well with his flower portraits (in Flowers) that symmetry just seems a little dull here to me. Ms. Dideon also points out that "the idealization here is never of the present." Certainly, you will see that he is inspired by classical Greek and Roman ideas of female beauty.

Here are my favorites: Lydia Cheng, 1985; Sonia Resika, 1988 (p. 18); Brit Hammer, 1988; Lara Harris, 1987 (p. 27); Isabella Rossellini, 1988 (p. 33); Caroline Herrera, 1988; Alexandra Ellis, 1988; Blake Finkelson, 1988; Eva Amurri, 1988 (p. 58); Susan Sarandon and Eva Amurri, 1988; Brooke Shields, 1988 (p. 73); Stella Goodall, 1984; Diandre Douglas, 1988; and Dolphine Neil-Jones, 1987.

As you can see the timing of these images is very similar, so you get a compressed sense of female beauty reflecting a moment in history. In a way, it's like a candid snapshot of beauty, rather than a cultural panorama.

After you finish this book, think about another thing Mr. Mapplethorpe said, "I'm looking for the unexpected." Where can you find and use the unexpected to expand your vision?

Stretch to the limits of imagination, rather than being bound by the vanity of the ego.

For those who don't still know too much about Mapplethorpe this miniature edition is perfect. And if you like it, then you can buy a normal size book. Regarding the content, the photos are portraits of women in black and white, very sober and elegant. Definitely worth having.

Here in SOME WOMEN published in 1989 is a collection of Robert Mapplethorpe's images of women. There are a few nudes, some photographs of children; but most of these 86 pictures are portraits of women, many of them famous. A couple of males crash this harem, however: (Thomas, p. 89, David Brisbane, p. 91, and Paul Wadina, pp. 92 and 93). The highly stylized shot of Wadina and Melody on page 92 is one of my favorite photographs in this collection.

Other favorites are portraits of Yoko Ono (p. 79), Susan Sarandon (p. 61) photographed holding a child, on p. 72 the exquisite profile of Brooke Shields (the most beautiful photograph I've ever seen of her), Isabella Rossellini (pp. 33 and 35), and Grace Jones (p. 69).

The nude photographs certainly have the quality of marble, as do most of the portraits for that matter. Like alabaster, they are beautiful though cold. They are usually lit the same way with studio strobe lighting with no facial shadows and shot before a dark or black background. Some of the faces (the cover shot, for example) seem to be floating on a sea of blackness. Certainly at the time of his death Mapplethorpe had long since perfected a style that made his work recognizable immediately. All photographers, by the very nature of what they do, have to be to some degree control freaks-- for lack of a better term. Mapplethorpe was certainly no exception. In her insightful essay included in this book, Joan Didion describes his photographs as "the perilous imposition of order on chaos, of classical form on unthinkable images." (Not so unthinkable here as in some of his male images) Finally she says that Mapplethorpe himself said that he always wanted his work to be symmetrical. These photographs indicate that he was successful.