Fall Colors Across North America

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: I had the opportunity of purchasing this book after viewing Mr. Cook's slide presentation. His compositions are fresh and inspiring, and he is a perfectionist when it comes to technical execution. I congratulate him on extracting the very most from the 35 mm Nikon / Velvia combo.

Rating:
Summary: Great Compositions + Technical Skills = Superb Imagery
Review: I had the opportunity of purchasing this book after viewing Mr. Cook's slide presentation. His compositions are fresh and inspiring, and he is a perfectionist when it comes to technical execution. I congratulate him on extracting the very most from the 35 mm Nikon / Velvia combo.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: I went to see the photographer at a show and his work is just gorgeous. He uses intersting angles and if you like nature you will love it!

Rating:
Summary: Enter All Parts of Nature's Fall-Decorated Cathedral!
Review: If you buy only one book of nature photography focused on the autumn season, this book would be a superb choice!

If you are like me, you've always wanted to take several months off and follow fall as it begins in the northern tundra and creeps gently downward to the southern coasts of the United States. Mr. Anthony E. Cook has lived that trip for us, not once, but more than four times as he traveled with fall through 28 states in the U.S. and 7 Canadian provinces.

When I opened this book, I expected mostly to see variations on the familiar scenes of New England (where I live now) and California (where I grew up). Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the ways that autumn touches the land, sky, and water covers an immense tapestry beyond my experience and imagination. The Louisiana bayous bring special perspectives that I had never considered. The stark rocks of the American southwest create fascinating interplays of light, shadow and rock.

Mr. Cook sometimes takes nature, and dresses her up. He has a talent for letting motion speak for itself, whether by taking a long exposure in a whirlpool or by doing the same with colorful aspens trembling in the wind. Some of the work becomes totally abstract in the process. Other work simply takes color and blurs it with motion to make the leaves, rocks, and water look like an early Monet painting of the shore.

With Zion, Mr. Cook becomes a surreal master, showing sides of nature that I would never have looked for in the fall season.

From another perspective, he also honors nature with formal portraiture. The book is filled with stunning panoramas that bespeak carefully planned compositions and being there for just the right moment. He climbed Mt. Jo ten times before he got what he was looking for. The patience of Ansel Adams comes to mind. The panoramas are double the usual width and require a necessary division by the binding, which seems to have been planned for in the composition so that little impact is lost.

Mr. Cook's talent for composition is best captured by his many simple still lifes with two or three contrasting elements. My favorite was a partially turned red maple leaf lying atop a variegated lily pad in the water.

A nice surprise for me, as well, was to find a number of dignified images of animals that I seldom see during the fall such as beaver, moose, and a coyote.

This work is also enhanced by a fine foreword by Mr. Art Wolfe, a wildlife photographer, who was trained as a painter, and by Ms. Ann Swinger who explains more about how the fall colors occur.

To view this book is to see beauty, to understand new aspects of nature (especially the way that summer and winter can tug on autumn in between), and to experience transcendence. The experience was so intense for me that I could smell, hear, and touch the scenes with my mind as I viewed many of the images.

After you have read this book several times, I suggest that you arrange to visit new places each year to enjoy the fall changes. You can get ideas from this book about places to go. For example, I had never thought about Denali in Alaska as an alternative but Fall Colors Across North America has captured my imagination in a way that no other photographs of that area have before.

Open your mind to all the possibilities!

Rating:
Summary: Best Image is the one on the Cover
Review: Purchased the book because could not get out to see folige this year. So I was very excited to receive the book, but after viewing the images, I feel a bit disappointed. His best image is cleary the cover image, which is spectacular. But inside the images are not biting sharp, probably due to the fact that he shot it in 35mm instead of say medium or/large format. There are too many images of animals. I want to see folige and color. He also include images of evergreens during fall season which are ...green, and rock formations in Zion National which are pretty but they are not folige. He also like to shoot water falls with a slow shutter and again...nice but I wanted more color.

In fairness to the authors and photographer, the title is "Fall Colors Across North America" and not "Fall FOLIGE Colors Across North America".

I will keep the book because I love fall folige and there are some very good images of that but I would have liked to see 1. A larger book in paper size. 2. Sharper images 3. More Folige and less animals and water falls.

I cannot comment on the essays as of yet as I have not read any, that may change my opinion. Hope this review is helpful.

Rating:
Summary: Best Image is the one on the Cover
Review: Purchased the book because could not get out to see folige this year. So I was very excited to receive the book, but after viewing the images, I feel a bit disappointed. His best image is cleary the cover image, which is spectacular. But inside the images are not biting sharp, probably due to the fact that he shot it in 35mm instead of say medium or/large format. There are too many images of animals. I want to see folige and color. He also include images of evergreens during fall season which are ...green, and rock formations in Zion National which are pretty but they are not folige. He also like to shoot water falls with a slow shutter and again...nice but I wanted more color.

In fairness to the authors and photographer, the title is "Fall Colors Across North America" and not "Fall FOLIGE Colors Across North America".

I will keep the book because I love fall folige and there are some very good images of that but I would have liked to see 1. A larger book in paper size. 2. Sharper images 3. More Folige and less animals and water falls.

I cannot comment on the essays as of yet as I have not read any, that may change my opinion. Hope this review is helpful.