What I Thought I Saw: New York - London [Paperback]

Neil Gaiman (Author), Kelli Bickman (Author, Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1996

Lives and limbs abound, contort and illuminate in this collection of over 50 black & white photographs created by New York artist/photographer Kelli Bickman. The distinction between fantasy and life blurs as she eavesdrops on the set of award-winning author Neil Gaiman's BBC II television series Neverwhere. With a cast of outrageous characters filched from the fray of New York and London spicing the mix, Bickman defies you to determine where Gaiman's world ends and hers begins and shows you what she though was real. Book was released in conjunction with a one woman gallery show of the photographs at Four Color Images in New York. Introduction by Neil Gaiman. Contains some nudity.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Overstreet's Fan describes her work as "uniquely hers" and "powerfully attractive without being heavy handed". Maggie Thompson in the Comic Buyers Guide maintains that the collection is "evocative and, sometimes, provocative". Gaiman, in his introduction, describes Bickmans work as "photographs that range from the gentle and tender through to the scabrous and the nightmarish, from high art to low documentary, and vice versa".

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Yatra Pubns/11:11 Studio; 1st edition (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188964403X
• ISBN-13: 978-1889644035
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 8.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,282,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An intriguing, personal photo journal, July 29, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: What I Thought I Saw: New York - London (Paperback)

This is an amazing collection of photographs taken by Ms. Bickman while on the set of 'Neverwhere' while being filmed in London last year as well as in an 'underground' New York. Deeply personal and candid, this book so accurately depicts the wide array of characters presented in this enigmatic tale of a post-techno metropolis of fantasy. One feels detached, like the photographer, yet simultaneously--even irresistably--drawn to this motley crew of folks. Bickman tells just enough, and leaves the rest to one's imagination. With a forward by Neil Gaiman himself, this publication is absolutely necessary to all fans' libraries

3.0 out of 5 stars For perhaps three photographs alone..., July 3, 2002

By 

Chelle "Chelle" - See all my reviews

This review is from: What I Thought I Saw: New York - London (Paperback)

I'm thinking that three stars might perhaps be too harsh, but, seeing as how there are no half stars available to us, it shall have to do.

Perhaps I should explain my motivations in wanting to get this book. I've recently become quite the Neil Gaiman fan, and having read *Neverwhere* a matter of months ago, I was very eager to see how the book might have been interpreted by a camera or, rather, a person with a camera. I was, um, surprised by the photographs in this collection.

Now, I haven't seen the filmed version of *Neverwhere* so I'm not sure if this in alters my reaction to the photography. But I found that the photos that I had the most affinity for(with the exception of one entitled "Penetration," which I've yet to determine its connection to the whole Neverwhere thing, if indeed there is one)are the ones that depict Neil Gaiman himself. There's a remarkably beautiful one of Gaiman holding one of his children when she was a baby. It's an image that adds a piece to the puzzle that most authors tend to be.

There are only ninty-five pages in *What I Thought I Saw,* a photograph on every other one. The introduction by Gaiman is, as always, charming. And the afterword by Bickman herself is infectious. So, I'd say it's a very nice book to flip through once, maybe twice, but not necessary to a collection.