Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #179711 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 112 pages

Synopsis
The best of John Davies' landscape photographs of Britain, made between 1979 and 2005, are presented in the order in which they were taken and on a spectacular scale. The series begins with Davies' dramatic photographs of the Scottish mountains and the Lake District, before moving on to examine urban and semi-urban Britain. Most of the pictures are made from a position of elevation, many of the edges of towns, revealing layers of social history from the Industrial Revolution onwards, and allowing viewers to read the landscape in the manner of a history picture. Stunningly beautiful and loaded with information about how the landscape has been moulded over the last 200 years, the book is introduced with a reflection on the British landscape by popular journalist, Jonathan Glancey, with extended captions and accompanied at the back with an interview with the photographer.

Customer Reviews

The B-I-G picture

If you buy this stunning book you'll have to consider (only for a few seconds though) where you'll keep it because the photos are 14.5 inches wide by 10 deep which is an impressive size for an admittedly large subject and printed in 200dpi helps.

The editorial format is quite interesting with the first five landscapes, as you would expect, looking down on the Scottish and English countryside but by photo six John Davies concentrates on man-made Britain and in particular the industrial Midlands and North. Fortunately nearly all the photos are taken from a higher vantage point, which gives plenty of scope to show masses of detail layered off to the horizon.

These photos are definitely not the conventional landscape Britain but the gritty city, energy producing and manufacturing part of the Nation. The front cover shot of the Salford power station cooling towers sum up Davies' style because as well as the four huge structures there is a football match in progress in the foreground. Nicely many of the photos show people in the landscape, working, walking, talking or just kids playing.

This book is a remarkable landscape view of contemporary Britain made all the more powerful because of the large image size. Another reason I like the book is because all the photos have detailed captions with plenty of historical detail. So many photobooks these days seem reluctant to give the viewer any information other than a picture on a page.

Learning to see
The British Landscape

The images in this book make one see the apparently familiar in a completely new light. Davies leads one to a new vision, perhaps one that one may have glimpsed before, but not with such clarity and integrity. Pigeonholed, he is a landscape photographer. But these images of land, city and industrial 'scapes are not only beautiful but cumulatively and, then now with a new eye, going back individually they are revelatory.

The finest book of urban landscape photography?
This is a subtle and superb collection of urban landscapes. The very large format of the book, and perfect printing really allows the space and quality that these images deserve. You can really look into the photographs and enjoy them. A wonderful book.