Female Form:A Private View

Rating:
Summary: A BOOK WORTH A PEEK
Review: **The Female Form - a private view**

The book I have in my library is published by Carlton Books Limited, 1999 and represent externally the more economic hardcover formats. It contains a total of 96 pages with both color and duotone photographs. The selling price is usually economic so it is well worth a peek. What you get is an expanded view of what any photographic magazine would provide in any female nude theme, and all in hard covers for a good shelf life.

There is an emphasis on 1990's work by several popular photographers, some work from the 80's and a few early last century.
Several of the photographs chosen for this book have a fetish undertone, if not outright so. Perhaps it was typical of the 90's photography or are preferences of the author of compiling this book, Mr. Tony Mitchell. The book contains work by Jan Saudek, Lichfield, Karo, Craig Morey, Trevor Watson, Monika Robl to mention only a few.
The book has only two pages of introductory text, and one page showing the contents and naming the work.

This book stays in my library because of some stunning photographs within, views such as; Paolo Curto's "Untitled" on page 26, Karo's "Pflaster" on page 33, Trevor Watson's "Untitled" on page 49 and Monika Robl's "Sappho" on page 53.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Presentation of the Female Body
Review: I really enjoyed this book and have recommended it to others. It displays both texture and depth in a way that is not shown enough. At times the photos appeared like landscape and others revealing expression which invite the viewer to define.

Rating:
Summary: not what it pretends to be, but an ok value for money
Review: i've seen a few of those books who claim to portray a topic throught the years by showing exsamples from many filds and areas, this is one of those books, and really - not the best i've seen.

the quality and size of the photographs are pretty good, and the ocver's nice and all, but the choice of artists seem random at best, you can't make a 100 pages book to explain the whole history of nude and erotic photography, and even if you could - that's hardly the bast way to do it. there are several photos by every artist which means the book shows less then 20 photographes in general, and not the most famouse, inovating or interesting in this fild, some of the choices looked very odd to me. there's a feel that the book was just a collection of some of the photos the publisher had a right to publish and that's why they go in.

don't get me wrong, it's a nice book with quite a few interesting phtographs which i enjoy fliping through, it's just doesn't even begin to do what it's promising to do which is to review nude and erotic phtography through out the century.

note - very good value for money, which makes it a very nice gift option for somone artistic who doesn't own a lot of photography books.

Rating:
Summary: Don't buy it unseen
Review: It was okay but I found the book on the Michelin tire calendars to be more intriquing. Many well done pictures but also many just plain weird ones also. I know "art" and parts of this book were not "art". Nothing was overly pornographic, except perhaps in context but just too many goofy pictures. At least there were none which would fit right in with the current Penthouse magazine's new declaration of tastelessness for bad photography of silicone endowed women.

Rating:
Summary: Not Just Sexy, But Great Value As Well
Review: The only problem I had with this book was its title. "Well-photographed, slightly kinky pictures of naked young women" would have been a good alternative. Apart from that, Tony Mitchell does a very good job of showcasing the work of fourteen talented photographers. Moreover, with 96 pages of agreeably lubricious images, it represents remarkably good value. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Don't buy it unseen
Review: This book was very disappointing. It's not at all what I expected -- though other reviewers did warn that many of the pictures are just plain goofy, and this is true. There are maybe a handful of sexy images but as a whole the book is just an eyesore. I flipped through it once and immediately packed it back up for a refund.

The moral I draw from this is: don't buy a book like this online. Go to a bookstore where you can flip through it before buying. If I had done that, I would have saved myself the cost of the return shipping, and perhaps found a better book.