1000 On 42nd Street

Rating:
Summary: One in a thousand! - A father's day story
Review: After buying this book, turn to picture 863- Carl Schlesinger. There you will see my father's picture. This fascinating book contains 1000 pictures of people and animals who happened to walk down 42nd St. in New York on a few selected days. We serendipitously found it this past Sunday on the way to a tap dance review co-produced by my father. My 16 year old glanced at the cover in a museum gift shop, picked it up and it opened automatically to my father's picture. What an amazing coincidence...or was it? Even more amazing is that my father does remember having his picture taken, did not know what for and hadn't seen the book. Each photo has a caption stating the name,town of residence and purpose for being on 42nd St. that day. My father lives in New Jersey and was in the City because he was doing final preparations for his tap show in 1998. Out of all the days we could have been in NY and out of all the museum gift shops we could have visited, out of all the books my daughter could have chosen and out of all of the 1000 photos she could have opened to, she chose this book and that photo. Buy this book. You may find someone you know. It's great fun and will create good conversation.

Rating:
Summary: what were the previous reviewers smoking?
Review: After reading 3 ravings reviews on this book on Amazon, I special ordered it at local [store] before making the purchase, luckily I flipped through the book before making a big mistake. Yes I can understand the significance of the 42nd street project in NY. Like alot of people, I love to sit somewhere on a weekend and people watch, guessing and pondering what each person is up to and doing at that moment. This book does NOT deliver any of that.

Besides 1 page in the beginning of the book and 3 or 4 at the end, the rest of the pages are filled with face only portraits on white backdrop, so no real street scene were included. Personally I just couldn't see the purpose on that. Yes, the pictures were later enlarged and posted as posters on the wall along the street, however, as content for a book? it lacks everything that would provide a detail time, place, date, emotional state of that person at the moment the pictures were taken. I would have thought the author, as a professional photographer, could have either used selective focus or even necessary later use photoshop to add the white drop. As for the information on each individual on that day, each picture usually has less than 7 words subtext description.

I am not trying to talk trash about the author or previous reviewers who seems to enjoy the book (one persons father was in the book, so the book has personal siginificance). But if you are looking to learn photography techniques, composition, or even light coffee book reading, forget it, none of that is in this book.

Rating:
Summary: what were the previous reviewers smoking?
Review: After reading 3 ravings reviews on this book on Amazon, I special ordered it at local [store] before making the purchase, luckily I flipped through the book before making a big mistake. Yes I can understand the significance of the 42nd street project in NY. Like alot of people, I love to sit somewhere on a weekend and people watch, guessing and pondering what each person is up to and doing at that moment. This book does NOT deliver any of that.

Besides 1 page in the beginning of the book and 3 or 4 at the end, the rest of the pages are filled with face only portraits on white backdrop, so no real street scene were included. Personally I just couldn't see the purpose on that. Yes, the pictures were later enlarged and posted as posters on the wall along the street, however, as content for a book? it lacks everything that would provide a detail time, place, date, emotional state of that person at the moment the pictures were taken. I would have thought the author, as a professional photographer, could have either used selective focus or even necessary later use photoshop to add the white drop. As for the information on each individual on that day, each picture usually has less than 7 words subtext description.

I am not trying to talk trash about the author or previous reviewers who seems to enjoy the book (one persons father was in the book, so the book has personal siginificance). But if you are looking to learn photography techniques, composition, or even light coffee book reading, forget it, none of that is in this book.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book.
Review: This book is perfect. i cannot think of any improvements that cd have been made. the design is perfect. the photographs are perfect. Selkirk is a marvelous portrait photographer. I loved the book. I actually came upon the project at 42nd st. by accident and thought, WHAT IS THIS? The book is wonderful to have and wonderful to give. It is a very optimistic book.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book.
Review: This book is perfect. i cannot think of any improvements that cd have been made. the design is perfect. the photographs are perfect. Selkirk is a marvelous portrait photographer. I loved the book. I actually came upon the project at 42nd st. by accident and thought, WHAT IS THIS? The book is wonderful to have and wonderful to give. It is a very optimistic book.

Rating:
Summary: Great for people who love people :-)
Review: This book, that was photographed by Neil Selkirk and concieved by Tibor Kalman, lives up to the philosophy that a picture is worth a thousand words...especially when you have a 1000 faces to work with. Ha, ha...no seriously. This book is for people who love to observe and watch people. It's for those of us who are curious and enchanted about the way people live and what they do from day to day...especially in a jumping and jamming place like 42nd Street. In fact, all 1000 faces were part of an art project to help revitalize New York's infamous 42nd Street. Tibor had a method of not just looking at photos...but observing them. Studying them. If you do this with these photos you begin to realize that these are not just faces - interesting lives actually exist behind these faces. And as you turn each page and see black faces, white faces, fat faces, skinny faces, funny faces and serious faces (The "chillin'" Guy) then you begin to appreciate how diverse and wonderfully populated our lives are with unique people - especially if you take the time to meet them. Well..I guess I'm going on a tangent. If you love people and the ideas of Tibor...then this is a book for you.