Touch Me [Hardcover]

Richard Murrian (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2009

With this, his fourth book, American photographer Richard Murrian smashes through the boundries of fantasy, and together with a new band of celestial beauties, takes us on an electrifyingly erotic visual journey into passion and desire.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Originally from the United States, Richard has lived now for several years in Europe with his wife Nancy, and they divide their time between the legendary artist-heaven of Montmartre in Paris, and a second home in Prague. He has photographed girls in more than a dozen countries around the world, currently working primarily in Eastern Europe. Earlier collections of his work inlude Reanna’s Diaries and SeeMeFeelMe.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Edition Skylight (June 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3037665955
• ISBN-13: 978-3037665954
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 9.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,365,205 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars DISAPPOINTED, February 4, 2010

By 

Ranger 302 (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Touch Me (Hardcover)

I realize that we are talking about a subjective field (photography), but I found this book didn't warrant the high marks it got from other users. After reading the other reviews, (the first one looks like it was written by an editor), I took a chance and bought it. Wow, what a let down. Some of the shots have real merit and achieve the goals made clear by Murrian in the foreword, but only a few pages in, I got to series with a model playfully looking at the lens through an empty picture frame and it reminded me of every college photography assignment I've ever seen. Not even close to "Smashing The Box" as the title of the foreword implies.

Further in, there was a series of studio portraits where the model had hand prints of paint randomly placed on her torso, and the lighting would have been cutting edge in 1986. Again, I feel like I've seen it too many times before and without some context, it just feels like art school.

To Murrian's credit, the models are not typical or processed looking, but they are all very young, and in a lot of cases, do not produce compelling images. I think a few of the pictures work, but most of the book just feels lost.

It's my fault, but I will never again buy a book based on Amazon reviews.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More youthful beauty, September 6, 2010

By 

wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Touch Me (Hardcover)

Murrian's new collection reiterates his passion for young women's beauty - with strong emphasis on the "young" part. These are undoubtedly gorgeous models, though, and presented in an interesting range of settings and poses.

A number appear with some kind of body paint, if only a hand-print - this series didn't do much for me. Natures's own markings, like Michaela's and Tatiana's, enhance the lady's charm far more than splotches of garish color ever could. Other photos bedeck the model with heavy, colorful jewelry. I found this more successful, but an approach that needs work. Matching of jewelry to model and the model's way of wearing it offer endless potential, and I hope Murrian make more of it in the future. Then there's the bondage series. Colorful, soft bindings come from the light and playful side of eroticism, almost more of a giftwrap than a restraint. Still, even when it's so far from the dark side, it's a fetish that doesn't move me.

Really, it's about the models. In some of his previuos work, the models seemed largely to be props in a scene from some fantasy of Murrian's. This time, the woman herself remains the focus, as she should be. This isn't the most demanding or enchanting collection around, but its tasteful sensuality earns it a place in any collection of figure photography.

-- wiredweird

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars art with edge, amazingly beautiful women, November 28, 2009

By 

Omar Siddique (Ellicott City, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Touch Me (Hardcover)

This is a very good larger-format photo collection of sexy, beautiful young models, with edgy themes, interestingly composed and posed.

Most photo collections of nudes cluster at the opposite ends of the spectrum. On one side are tawdry attempts to be openly sexual, little better than hardbound versions of hardcore magazines, which in the internet age has little shock value and plenty of tedium. On the other end are art-school attempts to abstract the body: filled with out-of-focus, barely lit subjects and shots of isolated limbs/features. Those have artistic merit, but do little to capture the inherent warmth and sensuality of the female body, and grow dull rapidly unless you are studying photography.

Murrian's work fills the much-neglected middle of that spectrum. Gorgeously sexy girls, posed provocatively but not luridly, photographed brilliantly, with each series of shots telling a story that seems to fit its subject.

As an amateur photog and a life-long connoisseur of the female form, I especially appreciate the quality of the composition, the lighting, the post-processing that enhances the woman's beauty, rather than masking it as is too often the case. I'd go as far as to say this collection represents the best such work I've seen in the genre.

Indeed, Murrian seems the unusual photographer gifted in both the art and the technical side of photography, while also somehow selecting phenomenally attractive young women as his models, and conveying their raw sensuality. Props and sets are unobtrusive, rather than the focus, and he uses modern techniques like small amounts of bodypaint (handprints!), makeup, and so forth selectively and to good effect.

This volume is physically of a size and print quality (heavy, glossy stock) to do justice to the work; I liked his previous book, Babydoll, just as much (that one is a single subject study of his lovely muse-turned-wife), but I felt it was too small a format to fully show off this caliber of photography. And if you can't get enough, several of the models appear further on Murrian's website. (yes, I went looking)

Highly recommended.