Photography, Travel, South America

Page 1 of 36 | next

Kevin Kwan
I Was Cuba: Treasures from the Ramiro Fernandez Collection
by Chronicle Books (Hardcover)

While most think of Cuba as a mythical island of rum, rumba, and revolution, period photographs reveal a more complex place. I Was Cuba is an original look at Cuban history as seen through the Ramiro Fernandez Collection arguably the world's leading archive of Cuban photos and ephemera. I Was Cuba showcases rare, vernacular images from the nineteenth century through the revolutionary period, exploring the everyday and the eccentric. With texts from famed Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas (Before Night Falls), this captivating volume is an intimate view into a bygone era of glamour, political upheaval, and astounding visual culture.

Barry Brukoff, Pablo Neruda
Machu Picchu
by Bulfinch (Hardcover)

A truly unique and beautiful gift book on Machu Picchu, the famed Inca site in Peru high in the Andes, combining the work of the great poet Neruda and author Allende with splendid photos of this ancient, sacred site. The book is a bilingual edition: a sparkling new English translation of Nerudas poem by noted translator Stephen Kessler runs side by side with the original Spanish.

Hugh Thomson
The White Rock
by Overlook TP (Paperback)

With the backdrop of the ever-intriguing Andes mountains, The White Rock, Hugh Thomson’s intoxicating history of the Inca people and their heartland, is a thrilling mix of information and adventure. The author, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and explorer, expertly weaves accounts of his own discoveries and brushes with danger with the history of those who preceded him—including the explorer Hiram Bingham, who discovered Machu Picchu; the twentieth century South American photographer, Martín Chambi; the poet Pablo Neruda; and the Spanish conquistadores who destroyed the Inca civilization—and the eccentric characters he meets on his travels.

Michael Connors
Cuban Elegance
by Harry N. Abrams (Hardcover)

At a time when more and more travelers are discovering Cuba, which has been locked away from the outside world for more than 40 years, this lavishly illustrated, absorbing volume offers a completely different view of the island from the one seen by most visitors. This book presents not the picturesque Cuba of Castro's era with its derelict buildings and peeling paint, but the opulent world of the Spanish Creole aristocracy of the colonial period, which has continued to influence Cuban taste and cultural life on a more modest scale even to this day. Emphasizing the palatial homes and elegant furnishings of the island's enormously rich sugar, cotton, and tobacco barons, Cuban Elegance relates the social, cultural, architectural, and interior design history of Cuba, and of the Caribbean region in general. With an engaging text and gorgeous photographs taken especially for this sumptuous volume, Cuban Elegance offers a fresh, surprising perspective on an intriguing country.

Robert de Gast
The Doors of San Miguel De Allende
by Pomegranate Communications (Hardcover)

This unusual book celebrates the colorful, sunwashed doorways of San Miguel de Allende, one of the oldest towns in Mexico. Picturesque, intellectually stimulating and historically fascinating, this arts-and-crafts and cultural center is a popular destination for tourists, expatriates, and vacationers. When photographer-writer Robert de Gast first visited there in 1987 he was particularly captivated by its doors---of mansions, houses, stables, churches, banks, studios, and stores. He returned five years later to document them; eighty of his photographs from that trip have been selected for this entrancing book. De Gast lives part of every year in San Miguel, where he continues to photograph and write.

Elena Poniatowska
Las Soldaderas: Women of the Mexican Revolution
by Cinco Puntos Press (Paperback)

The photographs of Las Soldaderas and Elena Poniatowska's remarkable commentary rescue the women of the Mexican Revolution from the dust and oblivion of history. These are the Adelitas and Valentinas celebrated in famous corridos mexicanos, but whose destiny was much more profound and tragic than the idealistic words of ballads. The photographs remind Poniatowska of the trail of women warriors that begins with the Spanish conquest and continues to Mexico's violent revolution. These women are valiant, furious, loyal, maternal, and hardworking; they wear a mask that is part immaculate virgin, part mother and wife, and part savage warrior; and they are joined together in the cruel hymn of blood and death from which they built their own history of the Revolution. The photographs are culled from the vast Casasola Collection in the Fototeca Nacional of the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico.

Russell A. Mittermeier, Monica Barcellos Harris, Christina G. Mittermeier, Jose Maria Cardosa Da Silva, ...
Pantanal: South America's Wetland Jewel
by Firefly Books (Hardcover)

A spectacular tour of the world's largest wetland. The Pantanal covers 81,000 square miles in the middle of South America, extending over parts of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. About half the size of California and 20 times the size of the Everglades, the Pantanal flood plain is the largest wetland network on Earth. Pantanal reveals the abundant wildlife and beauty of this remarkable eco-system, home to some of the most spectacular concentrations of flora and fauna on the planet. The text explains the Pantanal's ecology, its people, plants and animals, presented in five chapters: The Pantaneiro: People of the Pantanal Wetlands Grasslands Forests of the Pantanal Caiman: the comeback crocodile. The book also examines the impact of deforestation, overfishing and overhunting in the Pantanal and the efforts by conservationists to protect this magnificent region for future generations. Pantanal is a superbly photographed tour of one of the most memorable ...

Matthew Jaffe
Oaxaca: The Spirit of Mexico
by Artisan (Hardcover)

"A riot of color and commotion, Oaxaca is Mexico at its most authentic and spontaneous." —Travel & Leisure Each year, a quarter million Americans visit the Mexican state of Oaxaca, an ancient land where indigenous, pre-Columbian, and colonial worlds exist side by side. Photographer Judith Haden offers a pictorial love letter to Oaxaca, illuminating its everyday life in supersaturated blues, dazzling yellows, and pinks so hot they vibrate on the page. Compelling portraits of market vendors, folk art and artists, fiestas, and historic sites are matched by insightful prose. More than a dozen essays explore the street markets, religious festivals, artes populares, music, architecture, gastronomy, history, and language, tracing the palpable features of the faces of Oaxaca. With more than two hundred breathtaking color photographs, this volume captures the spirit and traditions of a valley whose dynamic culture, hospitable people, and rugged beauty have bewitched travelers ...

Krista Thompson, Krista Thompson
An Eye for the Tropics: Tourism, Photography, and Framing the Caribbean Picturesque (Objects/Histories)
by Duke University Press (Paperback)

Images of Jamaica and the Bahamas as tropical paradises full of palm trees, white sandy beaches, and inviting warm water seem timeless. Surprisingly, the origins of those images can be traced back to the roots of the islands’ tourism industry in the 1880s. As Krista A. Thompson explains, in the late nineteenth century, tourism promoters, backed by British colonial administrators, began to market Jamaica and the Bahamas as picturesque “tropical” paradises. They hired photographers and artists to create carefully crafted representations, which then circulated internationally via postcards and illustrated guides and lectures.Illustrated with more than one hundred images, including many in color, An Eye for the Tropics is a nuanced evaluation of the aesthetics of the “tropicalizing images” and their effects on Jamaica and the Bahamas. Thompson describes how representations created to project an image to the outside world altered everyday life on the ...

Kevin Adams
North Carolina Waterfalls: Where to Find Them, How to Photograph Them
by John F. Blair Publisher (Paperback)

Page 1 of 36 | next