A guy at work had a t-shirt that says "Lead me not into temptation" and then is smaller print below it says "(especially bookstores)". I need that shirt. I was wandering the streets of Palo Alto after dinner Friday night when headed into the Borders to see if they might happen to have any ultra-cheap, beautiful photography coffee books on deep discount. :-) A boy can dream, right? Well imagine my surprise when I found Philippe Bourseiller's Call of the Desert for $12.95.
This is a really pretty, thick, large format coffee table book covering North Africa. It's really pretty to look at but there aren't many words in it. There are few stories about the pictures and the captions for the photos are all at the back of the book. There are no page numbers which makes it difficult to find things. Oh well - it's a pretty book.
For $12.95, I'll take it. What else have you got?
Next up was a book about Ansel Adams by Lauris Morgan-Griffiths called Ansel Adams - Landscapes of the American West for $19.95.
This is a REALLY BIG BOOK, measuring 17 inches high by 14 inches wide. There are a lot of double-truck images which work out to about 27" x 17". This is a difficult book to read if you don't have a good way to support it! The text is OK and there's enough background on each picture to give you a sense of why it's in the collection.
I've now spent a lot of time going through the various photography coffee table books I've got, gathering design ideas for the book on Yellowstone images I'd like to put together. I've got more than enough source material - I just have to put it all together.