Mei Mei: Portraits from a Chinese Orphanage, book by Richard Bowen

Mei Mei, Little Sister: Portraits from a Chinese Orphanage 

by Richard Bowen

Introduction by Amy Tan

(144 pages, published by Chronicle Books in 2005)

ABOUT THE BOOK: The Chinese believe an unseen red thread joins those in this life who are destined to connect. For photographer Richard Bowen, that thread led him to China’s state-run welfare institutions, where there are thousands of children, primarily girls, growing up without families to take care of them. Mei Mei presents a poignant glimpse of just a few of these remarkable children. Composed against neutral backgrounds, these portraits capture the girls inner lives, away from their often bleak surroundings. The images show an almost endless range of expressions: small faces filled with longing and hope, joy and sadness, humor and mischief, defiance and despair. Through the camera’s eye, these young children are no longer orphans, but individuals whose personalities are as vital, distinct, and beautiful as any mother’s child. When that unique human being comes into focus, the connection is made and the red thread becomes visible. And once seen, the bond can never be broken. Find Mei Mei: Portraits from a Chinese Orphanage at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR/ PHOTOGRAPHER: Richard Bowen, with his wife and other adoptive parents, founded Half the Sky Foundation, which seeks to enrich the lives of children living in Chinese orphanages. A director, producer, and director of photography in film and television, his credits include Cinderella Moon, In Quiet Night, The Little Rascals, The Wizard of Loneliness, Head Above Water, Article 99, Belizaire the Cajun, Flags of Our Fathers, The Kite Runner, Wyatt Earp, Havana, and Deep Rising. He lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Jenny and two daughters, Maya and Anya.

Daylight Noir, photographs by Catherine Corman

THE BIG SLEEP (Excerpt)
by Raymond Chandler

We drove away from Las Olindas through a series of little dank beach towns with shack-like houses built down on the sand close to the rumble of the surf and larger houses built back on the slopes behind. A yellow window shone here and there, but most of the houses were dark. A smell of kelp came in off the water and lay on the fog. The tires sang on the moist concrete of the boulevard. The world was a wet emptiness.

We were close to Del Rey before she spoke to me for the first time since we left the drugstore. Her voice had a muffled sound, as if something was throbbing deep under it.

“Drive down by the Del Rey beach club. I want to look at the water.”

****

The above photo and passage from Raymond Chandler‘s novel The Big Sleepappear in the superb photo collectionDaylight Noir byCatherine Corman, with a preface by Jonathan Lethem. A series of photos from the book — including the photo of the Del Ray Beach Club above — were featured in a review by Rollo Romig in The New Yorker (October 7, 2010).

Photo: Del Ray Beach Club by Catherine Corman, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Find Daylight Noir by Catherine Corman at Amazon.com.

Style, poem by Charles Bukowski, photo by Hans Silvester

STYLE (excerpt)
by Charles Bukowski

Style is the answer to everything
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous
thing
To do a dull thing with style is preferable
to doing a dangerous thing without it
To do a dangerous thing with style is what
I call art…

Photo: Hans Silvester, from his book Natural Fashion (see description from on the book’s Amazon page).

Writing is flying, quote by Neil Gaiman, photo by Stefano Unterthiner

“Writing is flying in dreams. When you remember. When you can. When it works. It’s that easy.” NEIL GAIMAN

Photo: “Whooper Swans, Japan” by Stefano Unterthiner (National Geographic). The photo appears in the White Gallery on the National Geographic website devoted to Life in Color, a 504-page book of 245 photos, divided into 11 color-based chapters. Find the book at Amazon.com.

Venice Blues, National Geographic photograph by Jodi Cobb, quote by Truman Capote

A costumed tourist poses before a view of San Marco Basin in Venice, Italy. Photograph by Jodi Cobb, National Geographic

This and other “blue” images appear in LIFE IN COLOR, a 504-page book of 245 photographs, essays, and inspirational quotes.The book is available at Amazon.com. To see more images, visit the National Geographic Life in Color Blue Gallery.

“Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.”  TRUMAN CAPOTE

Daylight Noir, photographs by Catherine Corman

THE BIG SLEEP (Excerpt)
by Raymond Chandler

We drove away from Las Olindas through a series of little dank beach towns with shack-like houses built down on the sand close to the rumble of the surf and larger houses built back on the slopes behind. A yellow window shone here and there, but most of the houses were dark. A smell of kelp came in off the water and lay on the fog. The tires sang on the moist concrete of the boulevard. The world was a wet emptiness.

We were close to Del Rey before she spoke to me for the first time since we left the drugstore. Her voice had a muffled sound, as if something was throbbing deep under it.

“Drive down by the Del Rey beach club. I want to look at the water.”

****

The above photo and passage from Raymond Chandler‘s novel The Big Sleep appear in the superb photo collection Daylight Noir by Catherine Corman, with a preface by Jonathan Lethem. A series of photos from the book — including the photo of the Del Ray Beach Club above — were featured in a review by Rollo Romig in The New Yorker (October 7, 2010).

Photo: Del Ray Beach Club by Catherine Corman, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Find Daylight Noir by Catherine Corman at Amazon.com.

Chicago’s Nelson Algren, Photos and Text by Art Shay, Foreword by David Mamet

CHICAGO’S NELSON ALGREN

Photographs and Text by Art Shay

Foreword by David Mamet (below)

I hear the Chicago accent, and I am a gone goose. Decades of living away, acting school, speech lessons, and the desire to make myself understood in a wider world are gone, and I am saying dese, dem and dose, and am back on the corner, tapping the other fellow on the forearm to make my point, and happy. Art Shay’s writing, and his photos, have the Chicago accent, which may be to say he’s telling you the truth as he knows it, as what right-thinking person would consider doing anything else?

I remember Algren’s Chicago. I remember Algren, sitting alone, in the back at Second City, regularly. I remember the pawnshops on West Madison street—I used to shop there; Sundays at Maxwell Street, and the ventors pulling on your arm and talking in Yiddish; police headquarters at 11^th and State, and getting dragged down there on this or that bogus roust when I drove a cab. Art’s photographs are so real that I reflect that I, like them, must have all occurred in black and white.

I think it takes a realist to see the humor in things. I know it takes a realist to see the depth of tragedy. Art’s work feels like the guy tapping me on the forearm.

***

In the book’s preface, photographer Art Shay quotes Ernest Hemingway’s assessment of Nelson Algren, after reading The Man with the Golden Arm, “…He has been around a long time but only the pros know him…This is a man writing and you should not read it if you can’t take a punch. I doubt if any of you can. Mr. Algren can hit with both hands and move around and he will kill you if you are not awfully careful…Boy, Mr. Algren, you are good.” 

***

Chicago’s Nelson Algren is photographer Art Shay‘s account of visits during the 1950s to Chicago’s “lower depths” with novelist Nelson Algren — at the time, a resident of the city’s Near Northwest Side.

Here’s an excerpt from book’s description from the Amazon.com page:  Algren gave Shay’s camera entrance into the back-alley world of Division Street, and Shay captured Algren’s poetry on film. They were masters chronicling the same patch of ground with different tools. Chicago’s Nelson Algren... [is] a deeply moving homage to the writer and his city.

Whooper Swans, Photo by Stefano Unterthiner

Whooper Swans, Japan

Photograph by Stefano Unterthiner, National Geographic

The above photo is found in the White Gallery on the National Geographic website devoted to Life in Color, a 504-page book of 245 photos, divided into 11 color-based chapters. Find the book at Amazon.com.

Talking Pictures, book by Ransom Riggs

I wrote several posts last week that featured found snapshots (an avid interest of mine), so was fascinated to read an L.A. Times review of Talking Pictures by Ransom Riggs — a book made up entirely of found snapshots and their captions.

Here’s the book’s description from Amazon.com: 

Ransom Riggs‘s Talking Pictures is a haunting collection of antique found photographs—with evocative inscriptions that bring these lost personal moments to life—from the author of the New York Times bestselling illustrated novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Each image in Talking Pictures reveals a singular, frozen moment in a person’s life, be it joyful, quiet, or steeped in sorrow. Yet the book’s unique depth comes from the writing accompanying each photo: as with the caption revealing how one seemingly random snapshot of a dancing couple captured the first dance of their 40-year marriage, each successive inscription shines like a flashbulb illuminating a photograph’s particular context and lighting up our connection to the past.

***

I tried to get Talking Pictures from the L.A. Library, but the cash-strapped institution has not yet ordered a copy. Instead, I reserved Ransom Riggs’ previous book — which also features found photographs (though I just learned this today) — Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

Riggs has been collecting found snapshots since age 13, when he started to accompany his grandmother to flea markets in Florida. As he describes in the introduction to Talking Pictures (which I accessed via Amazon’s Look Inside feature): “What fascinated me about them — even more than the images themselves, at first — was that they were available for sale at all. I wondered how people could give away pictures of their families, even those of distant relatives they might not know or remember. Why would they give these photographs up — why, for that matter, would complete strangers want them?”

I am really, really looking forward to reading this book! Congratulations to Ransom Riggs on a beautiful execution of a great idea! 

Life in Color, Blue Gallery, Photo by Tino Soriano

“Jumping Dog”

Photograph by Tino Soriano

A dog jumps into Lake Banyoles in northern Spain. The lake is the country’s second largest.

This and other blue images appear in LIFE IN COLOR, a 504-page book of 245 photographs divided into color chapters. The book is available at Amazon.com. To view a range of blue images, visit the National Geographic Blue Gallery.

A person can learn a lot from a dog…Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things — a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty.” JOHN GROGAN, author of Marley and Me