Customer Reviews

Woman's Light

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

 

 

I ordered this book with several others, but this was the one I was REALLY looking forward to. When my package arrived, I opened it up to find this was not all I had hoped it would be.

The Bad:

The cover is actually the best part of the book, with many of the pictures inside being very grainy, and not very well-composed for a Black-and-White. In my opinion, a study of the female nude in outdoor (natural) settings in itself should be done in color IF your focus is going to be the SETTING more so than the NUDE. Take pages 16,20,24,33,35,37,48,52,53,64,67,68,95,96, and 99 (I'll try to post some of these so you can see them). Many of these don't even include a female in the shot (and of the ones that do, there are only 2 pictures where you can see the woman's face, which makes you focus on the landscape in most of them) - and the landscape really loses quite a bit of its flavor without color. For a travel marketing photographer, Manolis Tsantakis should have known this. You can see in some of these pictures that the landscape is beautiful, but it does not entice you all that much in b&w. Not to say it can't work - the shot on page 100 works perfectly in b&w, and actually sends a chill up my spine at how eerie a still lake can be.

The Good:

There are some great pictures that do work very well - most notably the ones on pages 9,11-13,19,29,39,43,49,56-59,60,69,71,72,76-79,81-85,88,89,93,100,101,104,105. Getting a book with 30 good pictures out of 58 ain't all bad.

This book features some of the best black and white nudes I have ever seen. It is rare to find a photographer who is able to incorporate the beauty of a woman with the beauty of nature. Each picture of this book is a poem and a pleasure for the eyes and it makes me feel the perfect harmony between a woman's body and the Mother Nature. The nudity of the models gives the touch of eroticism that makes these photos simply ... beautiful.
A must have for any exigent collector!
Looking forward to the next album of Manolis Tsantakis!

I love this book, because although the women have beautiful bodies and faces, they seem to flow into nature itself. They are a part of the environment, not a sexy nude figure imposed upon a beach, they are the shape within the beach for example. I enjoy the poetry that goes along with every image. They are another thought and window into the picture. I have seen Mr. Tsankatis work on line in both color and black and white. His work is expressive and passionate and deeply adoring of women._Carmen

MOST PRECIOUS PHOTOGRAPHIC ALBUM IN MY LIBRARY

I am not a photographer but I love good artistic photographs. I am attending exhibitions and I own more than seventy albums with the greater old and contemporary photographers. I found the album "Woman's Light" of Manolis Tsantakis searching the Amazon and I bought it having reservations as I didn't know the photographer. But I liked the cover a lot and I wanted very much to have albums with black & white photographs in my collection. When I first opened it and show the photos I felt a strange peacefulness as well as satisfaction and joy for discovering at last a photographer who offers us another dimension of nude, woman and of artistic photography in general. At last, woman plays the female role at the elements of the nature without being the focal point of image with silly / sexy poses that we're fed up seeing in every magazine we open. At last, woman's body is not used as an advertising trick to promote consumption. Staring at the photos of Manolis Tsantakis, with woman as a part of nature's frame, I was taking the model's role and my senses were floated with the nature's smell and the sea breeze. I was becoming a seagull flying over the rocks, a sea-maid playing with the whitecap; I was merging with the nature living my childhood's dreams, back at the times when we were unconcernedly dabbling at the sea and we believed at the fairy tails. Thank you Manolis Tsantakis for make me travel in faraway lands and times bygone. Even if it was for a little while.
"Woman's Light" is undoubtedly the most precious photographic album of my library.

I highly recommend this book of beautiful Tsantakis photographs. It sits on my coffee table and visitors always comment on the pictures.
If you love nudes it doesn't get better than these photos, on the amazing beaches of Greece!!!
You will love this, as I love Manolis Tsantakis!

If you like alot of pictures of women's backs along the shoreline, you will like this book. I think there are better, more imaginative choices out there.

This book from Greek photographer, Manolis Tsantakis, is one of those wonderful finds that deserves to capture the art world's attention. It is a fabulous book of nude photography (and poetry presented in both Greek and English).

The nudes here from Manolis Tsantakis are a powerful, artistic statment. All are shot outdoors in the majestic and breathtaking scenery that is Greece. The rugged splendor of the terrain stands in stark contrast to the soft and beautiful and utterly feminine subjects of this book. And it's this eerie juxtaposition that gives this work its power. The female subjects as well as the scenery are quite beautiful, but difficult it may be to believe, there is a feeling of isolation and despondency here. It's not a negative quality at all, but is instead a melodious sense of melancholy. It's enchanting ... and that's just what we have here - and magical collection of imagery from an artist operating at the height of his power. Hopefully the world will take notice.