Celestial Nights: Visions of an Ancient Land - Hardcover

9780789209542: Celestial Nights: Visions of an Ancient Land

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0789209543 ISBN 13: 9780789209542

Publisher: Abbeville Press, 2008

In Celestial Nights, photographer Neil Folberg skillfully captures a spectacular worldof nocturnal landscapes where the horizon isnG��t always definitive. The earth and heavensare mingled in this collection of arresting photographs, which to Folberg representa blurred division between present and eternity, substance and spirit, and knowledgeand imagination. As Folberg writes, GǣNo one can draw that line with precision, forwe exist in all of these worlds at once.GǥCelestial Nights marks Folberg's return to black-and-white photography, atechnique he honed as a student and colleague of the late Ansel Adams. The volumepresents a set of photographs that capture not only the skies but also their earthly foreground,creating a striking juxtaposition of the vast arid wilderness with the infiniteand starry heavens. These stunning nighttime scenes feature the same historically andreligiously resonant region of the Middle East that Folberg captured in daytime colorin his first book, AbbevilleG��s In a Desert Land.The landscapes in Celestial Nights carry an aura that is both earthly and divine.FolbergG��s photographs describe places where the spiritual is at once near, imprinted inthe arid landscapes, and far away, in the dark, starlit recesses of space. This extraordinaryphotographic collection is sure to fascinate anyone with an interest in photography,astronomy, or the Middle East.

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About the Author:

Neil Folberg is widely known for his color photographs of the landscape and architecture of the Middle East and the Mediterranean. Galleries have exhibited Folberg's work worldwide; his photographs are in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Biblioth�que Nationale, and the Smithsonian Institution. Born in San Francisco and raised in the Midwest, Folberg has lived in Jerusalem with his wife and three sons since 1976.

Review:

"The deserts of Israel, Egypt, and Jordan seem never to have sat for a lens quite as magical as Neil Folberg's. Since 1979, Folberg has been focusing on the arid lands of these Mideast countries, capturing not only their dramatic contours but the dazzling light shows produced at night by the skies above them. . . Spectacular is not too effusive a word . . ." --Grace Glueck, "The New York Times"
." . . a photographer who recreates the visceral sensation of walking around the countryside at night: conveying that moment when your body becomes extra sensitive to the soft sounds and movements." --"The New York Times," November 3, 2002
"With his latest series of images, Folberg's superbly conceived and executed photographs capture the wondrous beauty, mystery and ecstatic grace of the nighttime desert bound under the celestial canopy of the heavens." --"Black & White Magazine," October 2002
"But what makes Folberg's night skies so dazzling is the same thing that gives deep-sky astrophotographs their scientific worth: long exposures that record hundreds if not thousands of stars that are invisible to the naked eye." --"American Photo," November/December 2001
"The genius of these images is not in the revelation of any new truth, but in the expression of unsolvable equations. We are shown both realms of the visible universe, Earth and sky." --"Astronomy," June 2002
"Like his teacher, Ansel Adams, the American photographer Neil Folberg is an evangelist of nature." --"Conde Nast Traveler," October 2001

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