The Boston Raphael: A Mysterious Painting an Embattled Mueseum in an Era of Change and a Daughter's Search for the Truth

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In this fascinating book about a watershed moment in the culture of America's art museums, Rathbone ("Walker Evans" considers her father Perry Rathbone's directorship at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). A connoisseur and showman who believed that "art is for everyone, " Rathbone's influence as director was felt distinctly in the MFA from 1955 until 1972, when he was forced by the museum's board of trustees to resign. That decision was triggered by the controversy surrounding a tiny oil painting of a small girl, believed to be an unknown Raphael. For the occasion of MFA's centennial in 1970, Rathbone covertly purchased the painting for $600,000 from a shady dealer in Genoa. Eluding Italy's artistic patrimony law, the painting was smuggled into the U.S. Set against the backdrop of this intrigue are Rathbone's descriptions of life at MFA in the postwar years. She chronicles the celebration of its centennial, from the exhibitions that were installed to the infighting among staff and the attempts to woo collectors. Her father represents the old breed of museum directors, arbiters who behaved as "public servants" rather than "CEOs of a considerable corporate enterprise." Her book sheds light on museology of the present as well as of the past. Publishers Weekly (09/15/2014):

Photography as Meditation: Tap Into the Source of Your Creativity

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For many people, photography serves as a form of meditation; a way to separate themselves from their stressful lives. In this book, Torsten Andreas Hoffmann explores an approach to artistic photography based on Japanese Zen-Philosophy. Meditation and photography have much in common: both are based in the present moment, both require complete focus, and both are most successful when the mind is free from distracting thoughts. Hoffman shows how meditation can lead to the source of inspiration.Hoffman's impressive images of landscapes, cities, people, and nature, as well as his smart image analysis and suggestions about the artistic process, will help you understand this approach to photography without abandoning the principles of design necessary to achieve great images. Photographing busy scenes, especially, requires an inner calm that enables you to have intuition for the right moment and compose a well-balanced image amidst the chaos.The goal of this book is to develop your photographic expression. It provides enrichment for photographers who believe that only technical mastery produces great images and shows how important it is to engage with your own awareness to act creatively.

Pet Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots

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This new entry in the 'From Snapshots to Great Shots' series will teach readers everything they need to know about photographing their pets. Like all books in the series, the book will offer instruction on basic photographic technique, discussing exposure settings, lighting, equipment, etc. Then the book will dive into working with various types of animals, posing them, capturing action shots, and working with multiple subjects.

Travel and Street Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots

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Whether you're heading to Paris or San Francisco, Patagonia or Yosemite, you need a book that goes beyond the camera manual to teach you how to take great shots. This guide by pro photographer John Batdorff will help you conquer the fundamentals of travel and street photography and capture stunning pictures.
Batdorff starts with the basics-composition, light, and exposure-and how to plan and pack the right equipment for different types of shooting conditions. He also covers all the key camera features that affect your image. Once you've captured those shots, John takes you step-by-step through an effective workflow in Lightroom to organize your images and develop your own personal style.
This guide is for beginning-to-intermediate digital photographers to understand the basics and bring their own unique artistic expression to any situation whether you're taking landscapes, cityscapes, portraits, or food and drink shots.
Beautifully illustrated with large, compelling photos, this book teaches you how to take control of your photography to get the image you want every time you pack up your camera and take it on the road.

Photographic Composition: Principles of Image Design

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.Albrecht Rissler believes that a firm understanding of image design is as important as having an observant eye or having the technical knowledge to operate a camera. "Photographic Composition" presents the most important concepts of image design and offers 250 beautiful photographs to illustrate these concepts. By applying these concepts to your own work, you will greatly improve your photographic eye and your ability to compose an ideal image.This book's impressive images are in black-and-white, intentionally removing the distraction of color and making it easy to focus on compositional elements and form. With this book, photographers as well as all visual artists will learn how to infuse their own images with excitement, develop and hone their visual language, and express their personal artistic aesthetic.

This Is Gauguin

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Paul Gauguin created some of the most advanced art in a brilliant generation of artists all of whom struggled against the stifling conformity of the late 19th century's artistic mainstream. From his childhood in Peru to his experiences in Tahiti, the story of Gauguin's life is recounted in authoritative text by an expert on the Post-Impressionists and powerful imagery by an award-winning illustrator.

This Is Bacon

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Francis Bacon was one of the giants dominating the artistic landscape of the mid-twentieth century, and served as the inspiration and launching point for much of the figural and abstract art that came after him. This highly illustrated book features not only 20 of the artists major works, but in stunning original colour illustrations portrays the events of his life and the circle of friends and associates with whom he formed a louche, brazen gang that cut open the belly of the old propriety.

Tony Northrup's Dslr Book: How to Create Stunning Digital Photography

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 This book gives you four innovations no other book offers:
1) Free video training. Watch over three hours of fast-paced, hands-on video tutorials integrated into the book to support and reinforce the lessons. View the videos using any web browser or by scanning QR codes with your smartphone.
2) Hands-on practices. Complete the practices at the end of every chapter to get the real world experience you need.
3) Classroom support. Join an author led private community of supportive, helpful people who also want to improve their photography.
4) Free ebook with updates. When you buy the book and join the private Stunning Digital Photography readers group.

Beautiful Beach Portraits: Lighting, Posing, and Composition for Outstanding Photography

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Family and children portraits against the dunes or with a crashing wave in the background are beautiful, but they are also one of the more difficult genres of photography because of wind, shifting sand, unpredictable sun mixing with clouds and sudden storms. Mary Fisk-Taylor and Jamie Hayes explain how they created the beautiful images in this book despite the adversities they encountered.

Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography

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"This book had its start when I began to wonder why nobody dressed up any more, even for evenings out, " writes Secrest. Although she never answers her question, this consummate biographer ("Leonard Bernstein: A Life" does take readers on a breathless, madcap ride across the early 20th century. The book follows Schiaparelli from her meteoric rise to couture queen of 1930s Paris to her fizzling postwar descent into bankruptcy. It begins with the image of the child Schiaparelli running through the Italian palazzo where she grew up, and ends, no less evocatively, by musing on what passed through the designer's mind as she sat on the terrace of her Tunisian getaway in her later years. In between, Secrest draws on the interviews and writings of Schiaparelli's friends, family, and colleagues; biographers and historians of the period; public records from ship manifests and visas to FBI documents; Schiaparelli's 1954 memoir, "Shocking Life" and Secrest's own speculative imagination. The result paints an alternately exhilarating, sympathetic, slyly humorous, and poignant portrait, not only of the surrealism-influenced, innovative fashion designer who invented wraparound dresses, built-in bras, falsies, and shocking pink, but also of the creative cauldron of Paris in its golden age between the two world wars. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit. Publishers Weekly (08/25/2014):