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Summary: Beautifully arranged view into a photographer's world
Review: If you've ever admired D'Orazio's work, you must have this book. After I read this, I felt as though I'd travelled into D'Orazio's glamorous world of fashion photography. His photographs have a sense of mood, each page has a "feel", I got lost for a couple of hours with it. A work of art, each photograph is like a painting. BUY THIS.
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Summary: Photographing the stars - with style!
Review: New York celebrity photographer Sante D'Orazio was named one of the 100 most important people in Photography by American Photo earlier this year, and this hard-backed 300 page book is a testament to his life and work.His photography has appeared in Vogue, Allure, Elle, GQ, Playboy, Interview and many other publications and his clients include L'Oreal and Victoria's Secret. A Private View, edited by David Fahey of the Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles (which represents his work), takes the reader through a scrapbook style journey into and behind the scenes of some major league shoots. Sharon Stone, Juila Roberts, Sean Penn, Keanu Reeves, Elle Macpherson, Cameron Diaz, Mick Jagger, Drew Barrymore, Cindy Crawford... the list goes on and on. These are celebrity shoots which show both the influence and interpersonal skills of this incredible photographer. All shoots are accompanied by diary entries and comments, making this photographic essay the ultimate coffee table addition. We see Kate Moss transformed from one shot relaxing in pyjamas with a cup of tea, to a sultry tempress in the next, and Kim Basinger proving that she's just as good at fashion modelling as she is at acting on the big screen. A smattering of contact sheets are shown for good measure, which will give photographers who wish to follow in D'Orazio's footsteps an idea of how he works around his images. There's no doubting this photographers technical prowess, but what shines through most is his ability to communicate with his subjects. A Private View contains a mixture of compelling colour and monochrome images, with plenty of fresh ideas for fashion and portrait photographers.
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Summary: The perfect book for up-n-coming fashion shooters!
Review: Not only does this book have some of Sante's greatest work in it...it also has some technical notes about how the images were created. Go behind-the-scenes and read Sante's notes about the shots...who did makeup...who did hair...who assisted him that day...what "type" of film he shot....and how many rolls. This book is a fantastic combination of images and personal thoughts. If your a fan of fashion photography...you would be doing yourself a great disservice by not checking out this book.
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Summary: One of the Best Books of this type
Review: Outstanding! Sante has an incredible eye and the images are gorgeous. Not only are there the high glamour but some wonderful warm potraits of celebrities. The nudes have beatuful flow to them and you don't want to put the book down. You want to turn the page to see the next incredible image. This is the first photo essay book I've ever given 5 stars to and I have no relations with anyone involved with this book. Buy it, it is a real treat! I only wish it was hard covered.
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Summary: Sante D'Orazio began his photo diary 17 years ago...
Review: Sante D'Orazio began his photo diary to keep track of his photo shoots - the models, the assistants, make-up artists, the number of rolls shot, the clients, and so forth, so that later when he went to do his billing he had a record of what he had done, his expenses, etc. After about a year he had an agent who took care of the billing for him, but he had gotten into the habit of keeping the diary - filled with polaroids and outtakes and random notes - so he kept it up and has continued it for seventeen years. And in that time he has become one of the most famous and sought after photographers in fashion - a master of the intimate play between artist and model. Presented in the intimate context of a diary, Sante's images of beauties such as Kate Moss, Christy Turlington, Stephanie Seymour, and Helena Christensen, as well as actors from Robert De Niro to Cameron Diaz, and rock stars from the Stones to Jon Bon Jovi, as well as athletes and other celebrities, have an immediacy that transcends that found in the usual fashion photography monograph or gallery of celebrities.
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Summary: Not Just Images
Review: Sante D'Orazio can scape the human form like Adams, document the drama of humanity like Evans, and his work helps to propagate photography to a higher level like Steiglitz. Is this too generous of me? Look around at what photography is now and then look at this book. You'll see what I mean.
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Summary: This is really sensitive look at the end of the century
Review: Sante D'Orazio created the portraits that we can never forget. A new - time sensuality and sexuality becomes more visual in his work than in work of someone else
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Summary: Simply Remarkable ( He Influenced Me)
Review: Sante works of art show grace, love and fun. His work also show that he has an eye of beauty. He sees each person has a master peice and he catches their most inner beauty and spirit. He is a photographer that has worked so well in the world of photography, that he has influenced me. He himself is an work of art. I love this man and he book. He has eyes that catches all beauty.
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Summary: Amusing?
Review: The book gives a nice seleciton of some of sante D'Orazio's photos, but with an amusing and fun narrative by the photographer. The book works really well set out in the dairy format, which adds a great deal to the entertainment value of the book. I can see that some people, with a primary interest in the photos, could be disappointed at first, but its definately worth a look. When I first got the book I wasnt sure if I liked it or not, but when it comes down to it, there are some great photo's in the book and it has certainly grown on me. I find the perfect book to sit back on my balcony with on a sunny morning with a strong cup of coffee.
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Summary: A LATE REVIEW
Review: The difference between a photographer like D'Orazio and a photographer who is truly an artist is that the former only "captures the moment" while the latter creates it. D'Orazio's work looks and feels a lot more like celebrity photojournalism rather than fashion photography. Plainly put, it is way too spontaneous and lacking in any creativity and imagination to be considered glamorous or artistic, making it difficult for me to tell whether the man has either a keen eye for spotting that one instant in time that will evidently look good on film or if he just simply carries his camera around where ever he goes and at day's end selects the few lucky shots he managed to take out of a million. Although not exactly my style of photography, I admit that when I first got the book I found many of the images as being not too bad, but on closer inspection it didn't take very long to notice that most of them only look that way because they are plastered together into categories of different subjects, such as the group of pictures of The Rolling Stones, for example. However, if you should separate any one picture of Mick Jagger from the rest of the other Stones photos and let it stand alone, then you'd see that it would look like nothing more than a poorly-taken, paparazzi-style snapshot by a famous-but-not-so-fabulous photographer. Another minus in this volume of D'Orazio's work is the fact that way too many pages are needlessly wasted on the photographer's artist-friend Francesco Clemente, who seems to wear the same dull expression on his face in just about every picture he appears in.
D'Orazio likes to boast in interviews that his "talent" lies in the way he supposedly gets his subjects to open up to him. If that's the case then maybe he should've chosen another profession that's more suitable for this kind of talent, such as child psychology. A talented fashion photographer (of which there are very few going around these days) is an illusionist. With the possible exception of how the weather might turn out for an outdoors shoot, he does not need to depend on the "right circumstances" to get a great shot. He invents the image, first in his head and then with the necessary materials, in very much the same way any other artist creates his or her masterpiece. D'Orazio does not possess this talent. The man has no imagination whatsoever. This probably explains why his best shots of Keanu Reeves consist of the actor hopping around in front of the camera. Any kid with a Polaroid can do the same. Also, I would hardly consider it a creative talent for any photographer to sweet-talk his way into getting a high-profile celebrity like Drew Barrymore to pose topless for him. In fact, his pictures of her sitting on a tricycle, wearing panties and smoking a cigarette were already sexy enough as they had originally been printed in Esquire magazine, and they did not require in any way the unnecessary use of nudity we see in this particular publication. In the end he only made Miss Barrymore look sleazy rather than seductive, and all thanks in large part to one of his few but unartistic "talents", which is the way he's able to dupe his female models into thinking that they are actually posing for quality photographs. But none of this surprises me much since D'Orazio proved himself long ago to be a man who doesn't know where and when to stop, and this, perhaps more than anything else, is what really hinders him from becoming the artist his clients think he is. The majority of his pictures are over-crowded with too much imagery and filled with too much movement, and some of his other nudes here, particularly those involving the car shots he took of model Rachel Williams, are vulgar-looking and lacking in any real style, class and taste. Should Mr. D'Orazio ever read this review, I would like to imagine that a hotshot like him could be humble enough to take this small piece of friendly advice from someone who also knows a thing or two about this crazy business we're both in: sometimes less is more, and nudity isn't always sexy. A woman doesn't need to take her clothes off to look beautiful or glamorous. Nor is nudity always artistic. Sometimes it can be plain crude or even pornographic. For anyone else here who might also care to know what the opinion of this true fashion photographer's loyal assistant is, let me end this review by saying that I think D'Orazio's genuine talent lies in the fact that no matter what one might think of his work, it can never truly be called boring. Entertaining? Absolutely. High art? Not a chance.
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