Bobcats - Hardcover

Sobieszek, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1576871428 ISBN 13: 9781576871423

Publisher: powerHouse Books, 2002

Synopsis

“Eric Payson has created a thoroughly terrific book—an eye view of a young girl’s softball team that is at once intimate and revealing about the twenty-five girls and at the same time evokes the grace, beauty, frustration, and elation of any athletic endeavor. It is a striking achievement to be treasured by anyone who appreciates brilliant photography and anyone who loves sports.”
—Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of Wait Till Next Year

Bobcats, Eric Payson’s first monograph, is a touching and timeless ode to the game of softball as it is lived and played by the Bobcats, a team of teenage girls based in Tucson, Arizona. With extensive access to their daily routines both on and off the field, Payson has created an intimate portrait of the physical and emotional dramas the girls experience as athletes on the team. His photographs explore the dynamics of the group and the isolation of the individual. Whether the girls are being instructed by their coach, playing around during breaks, idling along the sidelines, or flexing their muscles, Bobcats illustrates how the sport unites the girls in triumph—and in failure.

“We may never know whether the young girl is holding her head in her hands out of fatigue or dismay. We may never discover who the mustachioed man in sunglasses and wearing a cowboy hat is. Nor will we ever find out if the batter, over whose shoulder Payson took two shots, ever hit the softball hurling toward her. But then, it doesn’t matter. What matters are the ordered arrangements of fact that Payson assembles so well.”
—Robert A. Sobieszek

About this title

About the Author

Eric Payson was born in Brooklyn and received a BA in Political Science from Tulane University, New Orleans. His photographs have been exhibited in New York, and are in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Judy McGrath Collection, New York; and the Mark and Jane Nathenson Collection, Los Angeles. Payson has also created three films, Gulf War (1991), Up the Hudson (1993), and Just Two Days (1994), a Vatican Memorial for the Holocaust. Robert Sobieszek is a curator of Photography at the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art. For over 30 years, he has lectured and published widely on the art and history of photography, and has organized over 50 exhibitions.

From Library Journal

Photographer Payson's first book is a collection of 59 full-page photographs (50 in color) of a girls' softball team, the Bobcats, that plays in Tucson. There are no captions; the only text is a two-page essay by Robert Sobieszek, curator of photography at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A few images depict game action, but most picture the teenage girls and their coaches off-field practicing, on the bench, and horsing around. Night games under the lights have an eerie glow; a player smiles proudly while getting her scraped elbow mended; another player wipes her mouth with her T-shirt. Players high-five each other or playfully flex their biceps; pitchers unleash their fastballs. In the end, these crisp, matte photos suggest what belonging to a team is all about. A good choice for comprehensive sports or contemporary photography collections.
Kathy Ruffle, Coll. of New Caledonia Lib., Prince George, B.C.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: powerHouse Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1576871428
• ISBN 13: 9781576871423
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 88
• Editor: Holborn Mark