Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

~ (Author, Photographer), Dr. Stephen W. Nicholas (Afterword), Edward Barnes (Contributor), Danny J. (Contributor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Richards's searing photo-essay on inner-city communities devastated by the cocaine-crack epidemic brings into sharp focus the colossal failure of the "war on drugs." His unsparing black-and-white photographs--spliced with interviews with dealers, drug users and frustrated police officers--cover only three locales: North Philadelphia and the Brooklyn, New York, neighborhoods of East New York and Red Hook. Yet the havoc drugs wreak on lives, families and neighborhoods--as cocaine and heroine addiction intersect with poverty, AIDS, homelessness, joblessness and the availability of guns--affects every American city. Richards, who has won many photojournalism awards, neither condemns nor sensationalizes his subjects in his forceful documentary. This volume complements a traveling exhibit opening at Manhattan's International Center for Photography.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Eugene Richards's wrenching photographic study of the culture of cocaine in three inner-city neighborhoods gives faces to some of the victims of addiction. It provides a shocking and heartrending picture of the damage inflicted by the drug." --Charles Hagen, The New York Times

Eugene Richards's seventh book, Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue reaffirms his position as the premier chronicler of the dark side of American life. In it, he examines the ravages of drug addiction in three poor East Coast neighborhoods with the kind of precision and empathy that have netted him a long string of prizes. More than any other photojournalist working, he is the true heir to the mantle of the legendary W. Eugene Smith." --American Photo
-- Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Aperture; 1 edition (January 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0893815438
• ISBN-13: 978-0893815431
• Product Dimensions: 12.4 x 9.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,143,905 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars His best, January 3, 2001

By	Adam Rust "a_rust" (Durham, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue (Paperback)

Cocaine true, Cocaine Blue represents the best of Eugene Richards. If Robert Capa's maxim about your pictures being close to be good is true, then Richards work is hands down about as close as anyone is getting.

This book focuses on the impact of crack cocaine in three eastern cities -- North Philadelphia, Harlem, and Red Hook, New Jersey.

Richards seems to have none of the fear that would stop most people, because his pictures bring a viewer over the comfort line to become shocking. The scenes exceed imagination. In fact, one of his pictures in this book was challenged for its authenticity because it seemed almost too perfect... In it, a women pauses to look at her John, her hands on his zipper, with her young child watching her. On a wall behind her, a picture of Martin Luther King, Jr. is displayed. Some black political leaders saw this picture and insisted that Richards must have set it up. He could only assert that he was truthful in his portrayal.

Truth is always stranger than fiction. This might be photojournalism's answer to magical realism: there is a wickedness and abandon to this world. The cover picture is another example -- the photograph shows an addict holding a syringe in his mouth. His eyes gleam in a way that suggests the insanity in the spirit of this individual.

Richards is for the most part a photographer who works inside America. Some domestic photographers lament that all of the best photographs are made in wars, and that the situations in our home communities preclude us from being able to make great pictures. Eugene Richards shows how this is false. He takes horrifying pictures in Long Island, in Philadelphia, in West Virginia, in Kansas City.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A documentary must have!, August 20, 2001

By	Tamara Ralston (Mckinney, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue (Paperback)

Eugene Richards, one of the worlds best photojournalist, has a gift to not only photograph well but also write about his subjects equally as well! He shows the world a part of this world many do not see nor wish to see. This is one of those photo books that a good photographer must have to essentially help to chisel a path in the photography world for themselves! Taking this style to learn and grow from! One can learn much by the raw and realness of Richard's Cocaine life pictorial!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome! , February 3, 2007

By	Liese A. Ricketts "picky reader" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue (Paperback)

Mr. Richards is America's greatest living photojournalist. The depth of his social commitment to his subjects is equaled only by his amazing ability to compose the picture perfectly.