Synopsis
A vibrant collection of images by an award-winning photographer, whose striking portraits taken on travels throughout Asia compel us to look humanity straight in the eye.
Humanitas is the result of a five-year photographic adventure.
During this time, Fredric Roberts traveled extensively throughout Asia, from India to Cambodia, Bhutan to Thailand, Myanmar to China, some areas that were recently in the news after being ravaged by the tsunami. While this collection of images preceded the disaster and was only coincidentally released in its wake, it became a timely tribute to these people. Cicero coined the term humanitas (literally, "human nature") to describe the development of human virtue in all its forms, denoting fortitude, judgment, prudence, eloquence, and even love of honor―which contrasts with our contemporary connotation of humanity (understanding, benevolence, compassion, mercy). The Latin term is certainly a fitting title as we are struck not with pity for his subjects' poverty, but with respect and awe for their individual fortitude and eloquence: each photograph tells us a compelling story.
From a touching portrait of a mother and child to isolated monks at prayer, Roberts's fifty-five photographs introduce us to a wide array of fascinating individuals. With an introduction by Arthur Ollman, Director of the Museum of Photographic Arts, and an afterword by Dennis High, Executive Director/Curator, Center for Photographic Art, Humanitas captures the spirit and the beauty of each subject and will be a sheer delight to any lover of photography or travel.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Fredric Roberts is an award-winning photographer based in Los Angeles. His work has been exhibited in solo shows at the United Nations General Assembly, The Rubin Museum of Art, the Museum of Photographic Arts, the City of Ontario Museum of History and Art, Yale University, Stonybrook University, Lehigh University and the San Diego International Airport.
Fred is a member of the President’s Circle and Photographic Arts Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He is also a member of the Board of Advisors of the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops. He was previously a member of the Advisory Council of the Santa Fe Center for Photography, the Patron’s Circle of the Museum of Photographic Arts, the Board of Directors of the Center for Photographic Arts, and also served as the President of the Pitzer College President’s Council.
In 2000, Fred retired from a distinguished 30-year career in the finance industry. In 1980, he established F.M. Roberts & Company, a Los Angeles-based investment banking company. In 1993, he served as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), which then owned and operated the Nasdaq Stock Market. He later served as a member of the Nasdaq Board of Directors and its Executive Committee, Chairman of the NASD’s Corporate Financing and Strategic Planning Committees, the Nasdaq Marketing Committee, and the National Nominating, Rate Formulation and Listing Qualifications Committees. Recently, he was a Director, and former Chairman of the Board, of Cost Plus, Inc., a leading specialty retailer of casual home furnishings and entertaining products.
In January 2011, he established the first Fredric Roberts Photography Workshop in Udaipur, India, and recently embarked on a continuation of these workshops across the world. The first of these took place in Bhutan in January 2014, followed by a second workshop in Nicaragua in May 2014.Fred Roberts is a graduate of Yale University and The Hill School and is an active member of the business and cultural communities in Los Angeles. He is an Emeritus Member of the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Music Center. He is also Chairman Emeritus of the Music Center’s Leadership Council and Founding Chairman of the Spotlight Awards Scholarship Program. He has been a frequent lecturer for the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA and the Young Presidents’ Organization, and has written several articles on corporate finance for Chief Executive Magazine. He is the former Cellar Master of the Los Angeles chapter of the Commanderie de Bordeaux and past President of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
His work is in the collections and/or represented by the following institutions in the United States and around the world:
- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA)
- The Museum of Photographic Arts (San Diego, CA)
- The Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Bhutan to the United Nations (New York, NY)
- The Rubin Museum of Art (New York, NY)
- Yale University (New Haven, CT)
- Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA)
- Pitzer College (Claremont, CA)
- The Stephen Cohen Gallery (Los Angeles, California)
- The Hayworth Gallery (Los Angeles, California)
- The Bougainvillaea Gallery (Udaipur, India)
Fred has received widespread recognition for his work:
- "Best Foreign Photographer for India" award from the Government of India in March 2011
- International Photography Award: 2003 (winner in two categories), 2004 (second place in the "Travel/Tourism" category)
- Foreward Magazine’s "Book Of The Year" Award: In 2005, Roberts’ first book, HUMANITAS Volume One, was a finalist in the Photography category
- The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of the Year: Roberts’ second book, HUMANITAS II, was featured in this list in 20072007 Lucie Awards: Honorable mentions in the "Fine Art" and "People" categories
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ONLY THIS AND ONLY ME
When all cameras were wooden boxes, with a window and a singular eye, it was easy to liken them to a mind with an eye and a consciousness. One might recognize that we see and comprehend our world, with periodic clarity, understanding in great detail, then, closing to darkness, only to open again later, in crystal light. The box opens at times to reveal a nature, a land, a face. Reality rushes in, a tide to a small pool, with its nourishment. Some of its richness accreting on the sensitives places inside. Much of the reality is never deposited, perhaps drifting out on the next tide. The “inhabitant” of this periodically open and aware mind, gleans what he can with this net. Like fishermen and sifting miners, we troll and rake the world, seeking those silvery shards of nourishment, glinting in the dark.
We each find our nourishment in different places. We have, after all, different hungers. Few of us hunger for what we already have in abundance. We hunger for fulfillment, often seeking what is missing in our own sense of ourselves, or what we feel will fill our emotional cupboard. We are often drawn to the mysterious calling of places we don’t know, people whose lives we cannot fathom, or a body unlike our own. Our hope is to learn from that mystery, to be nourished, filled and changed by it.
Some great teachers prod their students to look for these mysteries very close to home. Find them in the face of your child, the morning light in your bedroom, the soft hairs on the back of your own wrist. Certainly these can be as mysterious as the wildlife on the Zambezi River.
Some hunger for a different repast. Fred Roberts needs to travel. He needs to examine life that appears far different from his own. He hungers for understanding of the realities of people whose experiences he can barely imagine. Yet, as he encounters them, he creates a sense of intimacy with them. He makes a deep connection that seems to see far beneath their skin. How can this be?
Fred Roberts is a man of prodigious passion. He drove himself to great success in business. He moved quickly and decisively toward goals and learned to spot opportunities where others saw nothing. These are transferable skills. This book of images identifies how passionate and decisive he has been in his art. Long before he began seriously photographing, he was a “serious” traveler. Roberts has spent most of his adult life exploring very far from home. He is not a shy man and has had made it a point to get far beyond the brief contacts that mark casual travel. He has been in the homes, the classrooms, the religious ceremonies of people throughout the world. He has been hosted in the homes of villagers who have no possibility for material success. But their spiritual life makes them rich. For a man like Roberts, who has seen many wealthy people who seem spiritually bereft, this is an essential and life changing recognition. Wealth comes from the inside. But photography generally sees only surface. Roberts task, then, is to work for the intimacy that opens our view to a deeper, more essential vision of his subjects.
Roberts seeks a kind of equilibrium. He seeks something in his subjects that a musician might define as resonance. He has recognized much of himself in the people he photographs. He sees them as his equal or even as his teachers. It is common for traveling photographers to “shoot down the social ladder.” We have all seen the sad eyed children, the breastfeeding mother sitting in the dust of some underdeveloped, hopeless place. The photographer often feels he has in some way helped that individual by recognizing their plight. It is easier to see “the other” as victim than it is to see beyond the cliche. Roberts, however, uses the camera as a sort of scale. The subject, in the balance, is equal to the photographer and by extension to the viewer. What we see in the end is not something exotic as we might expect, but rather another version of someone not unlike ourselves. The old man in the saffron turban and long white beard, has a life substantially distinct from my own, but I recognize his expression. It is a dignified, penetrating gaze, as curious and hungry as the one I imagine to have been on the photographer’s face; and perhaps, if I had a mirror on hand now as I confront the image, I have on my own face. The postures, the occupations, the expressions seen in his images are consistently dignified. He is drawn to people who seem self-possessed and project a sense of wholeness. There has never been a more important time for us to look with dignity and respect on people in the places that Roberts visits.
Fred Roberts is also a sensualist. The way light kneads into the ripples of a draped sari, the manner that light stutters over the follicles of a newly shaved monk’s head, or how golden honeyed light pours into a classroom, causing the backs of the students to emerge from the dark. Dense wet wooly fog on boats, sunlight seeping through the smoke of village dung fires as women bear their headlands and cows browse, symphonic billows of cloud wrestle vainly to shroud the declining sun over the ocean. Roberts’ passions are triggered by these phenomena as surely as he is engaged by the people he encounters. He understands that the endless vocabulary of light can ignite the most mundane object, transforming it into a glowing sacred icon and as quickly extinguishing it to worthlessness. Readiness is all and Fred Roberts is ready.
Walker Evans said, in an interview with Leslie Katz in 1971, “It’s as though there’s a wonderful secret in a certain place and I can capture it. Only I can do it at this moment, only this and only me. That’s a hell of a thing to believe, but I believe it or I couldn’t act.”
It seems that Fred Roberts feels the same. As he trolls through the world seeking resonance, we are fortunate that he is now sharing his secrets with us.
—Arthur Ollman, Director, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California 2004
When all cameras were wooden boxes, with a window and a singular eye, it was easy to liken them to a mind with an eye and a consciousness. One might recognize that we see and comprehend our world, with periodic clarity, understanding in great detail, then, closing to darkness, only to open again later, in crystal light. The box opens at times to reveal a nature, a land, a face. Reality rushes in, a tide to a small pool, with its nourishment. Some of its richness accreting on the sensitives places inside. Much of the reality is never deposited, perhaps drifting out on the next tide. The “inhabitant” of this periodically open and aware mind, gleans what he can with this net. Like fishermen and sifting miners, we troll and rake the world, seeking those silvery shards of nourishment, glinting in the dark.
We each find our nourishment in different places. We have, after all, different hungers. Few of us hunger for what we already have in abundance. We hunger for fulfillment, often seeking what is missing in our own sense of ourselves, or what we feel will fill our emotional cupboard. We are often drawn to the mysterious calling of places we don’t know, people whose lives we cannot fathom, or a body unlike our own. Our hope is to learn from that mystery, to be nourished, filled and changed by it.
Some great teachers prod their students to look for these mysteries very close to home. Find them in the face of your child, the morning light in your bedroom, the soft hairs on the back of your own wrist. Certainly these can be as mysterious as the wildlife on the Zambezi River.
Some hunger for a different repast. Fred Roberts needs to travel. He needs to examine life that appears far different from his own. He hungers for understanding of the realities of people whose experiences he can barely imagine. Yet, as he encounters them, he creates a sense of intimacy with them. He makes a deep connection that seems to see far beneath their skin. How can this be?
Fred Roberts is a man of prodigious passion. He drove himself to great success in business. He moved quickly and decisively toward goals and learned to spot opportunities where others saw nothing. These are transferable skills. This book of images identifies how passionate and decisive he has been in his art. Long before he began seriously photographing, he was a “serious” traveler. Roberts has spent most of his adult life exploring very far from home. He is not a shy man and has had made it a point to get far beyond the brief contacts that mark casual travel. He has been in the homes, the classrooms, the religious ceremonies of people throughout the world. He has been hosted in the homes of villagers who have no possibility for material success. But their spiritual life makes them rich. For a man like Roberts, who has seen many wealthy people who seem spiritually bereft, this is an essential and life changing recognition. Wealth comes from the inside. But photography generally sees only surface. Roberts task, then, is to work for the intimacy that opens our view to a deeper, more essential vision of his subjects.
Roberts seeks a kind of equilibrium. He seeks something in his subjects that a musician might define as resonance. He has recognized much of himself in the people he photographs. He sees them as his equal or even as his teachers. It is common for traveling photographers to “shoot down the social ladder.” We have all seen the sad eyed children, the breastfeeding mother sitting in the dust of some underdeveloped, hopeless place. The photographer often feels he has in some way helped that individual by recognizing their plight. It is easier to see “the other” as victim than it is to see beyond the cliche. Roberts, however, uses the camera as a sort of scale. The subject, in the balance, is equal to the photographer and by extension to the viewer. What we see in the end is not something exotic as we might expect, but rather another version of someone not unlike ourselves. The old man in the saffron turban and long white beard, has a life substantially distinct from my own, but I recognize his expression. It is a dignified, penetrating gaze, as curious and hungry as the one I imagine to have been on the photographer’s face; and perhaps, if I had a mirror on hand now as I confront the image, I have on my own face. The postures, the occupations, the expressions seen in his images are consistently dignified. He is drawn to people who seem self-possessed and project a sense of wholeness. There has never been a more important time for us to look with dignity and respect on people in the places that Roberts visits.
Fred Roberts is also a sensualist. The way light kneads into the ripples of a draped sari, the manner that light stutters over the follicles of a newly shaved monk’s head, or how golden honeyed light pours into a classroom, causing the backs of the students to emerge from the dark. Dense wet wooly fog on boats, sunlight seeping through the smoke of village dung fires as women bear their headlands and cows browse, symphonic billows of cloud wrestle vainly to shroud the declining sun over the ocean. Roberts’ passions are triggered by these phenomena as surely as he is engaged by the people he encounters. He understands that the endless vocabulary of light can ignite the most mundane object, transforming it into a glowing sacred icon and as quickly extinguishing it to worthlessness. Readiness is all and Fred Roberts is ready.
Walker Evans said, in an interview with Leslie Katz in 1971, “It’s as though there’s a wonderful secret in a certain place and I can capture it. Only I can do it at this moment, only this and only me. That’s a hell of a thing to believe, but I believe it or I couldn’t act.”
It seems that Fred Roberts feels the same. As he trolls through the world seeking resonance, we are fortunate that he is now sharing his secrets with us.
—Arthur Ollman, Director, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California 2004
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Other Popular Editions of the Same Title
Search results for Humanitas
Seller Image
Humanitas
Seller: Gate City Books, GREENSBORO, NC, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: good. USED book in GOOD condition. Great binding, pages and cover show normal signs of wear from use. Seller Inventory # GCM.1ETT
Stock Image
Humanitas
Seller: Recycle Bookstore, San Jose, CA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. This book has a very slight overall bow, minor rubbing to both covers, and the front cover paste-down image is tearing away at the bottom left corner creating a crease approx 1 3/4 inch long, otherwise the book is in very good condition with crisp, unmarked pages, a tight binding, and glossy, attractive photos. Seller Inventory # 988406
Stock Image
Humanitas Format: Hardcover
Seller: INDOO, Avenel, NJ, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: New. Brand New. Seller Inventory # 9780789209481
Seller Image
Humanitas
Seller: Argosy Book Store, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
hardcover. Condition: fine. First. Preface by Dennis High. More than 50 full-page plates. Thin 4to, black cloth with mounted color photograph front cover. New York: Abbeville Press, (2004). First edition. A fine copy. Seller Inventory # 326682
Seller Image
Humanitas
Seller: GreatBookPrices, Columbia, MD, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: As New. Unread book in perfect condition. Seller Inventory # 5235596
Seller Image
Humanitas
Seller: GreatBookPrices, Columbia, MD, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 5235596-n
Seller Image
Humanitas
Published by
Abbeville Press Inc.,U.S., US, 2007
ISBN 10: 0789209489
ISBN 13: 9780789209481
New
Hardcover
Seller: Rarewaves.com USA, London, LONDO, United Kingdom
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardback. Condition: New. A vibrant collection of images by an award-winning photographer, whose striking portraits taken on travels throughout Asia compel us to look humanity straight in the eye.Humanitas is the result of a five-year photographic adventure.During this time, Fredric Roberts traveled extensively throughout Asia, from India to Cambodia, Bhutan to Thailand, Myanmar to China, some areas that were recently in the news after being ravaged by the tsunami. While this collection of images preceded the disaster and was only coincidentally released in its wake, it became a timely tribute to these people. Cicero coined the term humanitas (literally, "human nature") to describe the development of human virtue in all its forms, denoting fortitude, judgment, prudence, eloquence, and even love of honour-which contrasts with our contemporary connotation of humanity (understanding, benevolence, compassion, mercy). The Latin term is certainly a fitting title as we are struck not with pity for his subjects' poverty, but with respect and awe for their individual fortitude and eloquence: each photograph tells us a compelling story.From a touching portrait of a mother and child to isolated monks at prayer, Roberts's fifty-five photographs introduce us to a wide array of fascinating individuals. With an introduction by Arthur Ollman, Director of the Museum of Photographic Arts, and an afterword by Dennis High, Executive Director/Curator, Center for Photographic Art, Humanitas captures the spirit and the beauty of each subject and will be a sheer delight to any lover of photography or travel. Seller Inventory # LU-9780789209481
Buy New
US$ 38.76
Free Shipping
Ships from United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Ships from United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Quantity: 12 available
Stock Image
Humanitas
Published by
Abbeville Press Inc.,U.S., 2007
ISBN 10: 0789209489
ISBN 13: 9780789209481
New
Hardcover
Seller: PBShop.store UK, Fairford, GLOS, United Kingdom
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
HRD. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # CW-9780789209481
Buy New
US$ 31.57
US$ 7.90 shipping
Ships from United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Ships from United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Quantity: 15 available
Stock Image
Humanitas (Hardcover)
Published by
Abbeville Press Inc.,U.S., New York, 2007
ISBN 10: 0789209489
ISBN 13: 9780789209481
New
Hardcover
Seller: Grand Eagle Retail, Bensenville, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. KEYNOTE: A vibrant collection of images by an award-winning photographer, whose striking portraits taken on travels throughout Asia compel us to look humanity straight in the eye. Humanitas is the result of a five-year photographic adventure. During this time, Fredric Roberts traveled extensively throughout Asia, from India to Cambodia, Bhutan to Thailand, Myanmar to China, some areas that were recently in the news after being ravaged by the tsunami. While this collection of images preceded the disaster and was only coincidentally released in its wake, it became a timely tribute to these people. Cicero coined the term humanitas (literally, "human nature") to describe the development of human virtue in all its forms, denoting fortitude, judgment, prudence, eloquence, and even love of honor--which contrasts with our contemporary connotation of humanity (understanding, benevolence, compassion, mercy). The Latin term is certainly a fitting title as we are struck not with pity for his subjects' poverty, but with respect and awe for their individual fortitude and eloquence: each photograph tells us a compelling story. From a touching portrait of a mother and child to isolated monks at prayer, Roberts's fifty-five photographs introduce us to a wide array of fascinating individuals. With an introduction by Arthur Ollman, Director of the Museum of Photographic Arts, and an afterword by Dennis High, Executive Director/Curator, Center for Photographic Art, Humanitas captures the spirit and the beauty of each subject and will be a sheer delight to any lover of photography or travel. AUTHOR: Frederic Roberts is a photographer who resides in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. In December 2003, he was a winner in two categories of the International Photography Awards. In 2004, he won another prize. His pgotographs are in the collections of Stanford University and the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. << 143 illustrations A vibrant collection of images by an award-winning photographer, whose striking portraits taken on travels throughout Asia compel us to look humanity straight in the eye. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780789209481
Seller Image
Humanitas
Seller: GreatBookPricesUK, Woodford Green, United Kingdom
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 5235596-n
Buy New
US$ 31.56
US$ 20.18 shipping
Ships from United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Ships from United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Quantity: Over 20 available