Within the Stone

Rating:
Summary: Amazing and Powerful
Review: Nowhere I have I seen diverse elements join so naturally as in this book. Science-Art-Beauty-and-Truth all merge through walls I did not know I had. Then I find myself deep inside the colors and nuances of polished crystal, which thanks to Mr. Atkinson's paradigm shattering digital photography, all of us can see, really see, for the first time.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing and Powerful
Review: Nowhere I have I seen diverse elements join so naturally as in this book. Science-Art-Beauty-and-Truth all merge through walls I did not know I had. Then I find myself deep inside the colors and nuances of polished crystal, which thanks to Mr. Atkinson's paradigm shattering digital photography, all of us can see, really see, for the first time.

Rating:
Summary: Hypnotic
Review: These photographs look like abstract art at first, but as you study them you realize they have a flow, complexity, and range of colors that paintings can't duplicate.
I also recommend Mineral Masterpieces which shows the sculptural shapes as well as the infinite range of colors in the best crystals.

Rating:
Summary: Truly beautiful book
Review: This book is easily the most striking collection of natural color photographs I've seen. By photographing the stone surfaces as flat, full frame objects, the images take on a vivid abstract sense that is just breathtaking. Atkinson's meticulous attention to every detail of preparing the book really shines - you'll have to get out a magnifying glass to believe you're not looking at original prints.

Personally, I would have paired the scientific text describing the minerals at the back of the book with the full frame photos and left out the other "writing". Random poetry and essays seem irrelevant next to such dazzling imagery. But this is really a minor point - you're buying this book for the pictures!

Rating:
Summary: Truly beautiful book
Review: This book is easily the most striking collection of natural color photographs I've seen. By photographing the stone surfaces as flat, full frame objects, the images take on a vivid abstract sense that is just breathtaking. Atkinson's meticulous attention to every detail of preparing the book really shines - you'll have to get out a magnifying glass to believe you're not looking at original prints.

Personally, I would have paired the scientific text describing the minerals at the back of the book with the full frame photos and left out the other "writing". Random poetry and essays seem irrelevant next to such dazzling imagery. But this is really a minor point - you're buying this book for the pictures!

Rating:
Summary: A Groundbreaking and breathtaking book
Review: Within The Stone is a magical book - full of surprises, and delights - but not exactly a book one can sum up in a few words. Is this high art? An abstract, post-post-post-expressionist fanatasy? Or is this natural histroy at its best? A jouney deep behind the surface of the world we live in? Truth or ficiton? Poetry or prose? In fact, this book of intensely vivid color photographs is all that and more. Photographs don't usually, or easily, cross the line from docmentary description to ambiguously mysterious art. But these large photographs of exotic rocks and minerals from around the world do just that. They escape from their literal and mineral points of departure. They soar, and our imagination soars with them...

Bill Atkinson, the photographer-creator of Withn The Stone is responisble for more than just its stunning photography. In his previous life, Bill was instrumental in creating the original Macintosh computer, and the graphical user interface that the whole world now takes for granted. In recent years, Bill has focused his computer-science expertise on his other pasion, photography, sharing his discoveries with leading professional photographers across the country, and becoming, in a real sense, the "Ansel Adams" of digital photo printing. Having pushed the limits of photographic printing, Atkinson has now done the same thing for bookmaking. Four-color presses have never before been capable of reproducing colors as intense as those in these images. So Atkinson had to develop a whole new method of color printing for the Japanese firm that printed this exquisite book.

Thus, Within The Stone is not only a remarkable artistic achievement, it's a technical breakthrough as well, the new benchmark in color photo book making. But most importantly, it is a major aesthetic creation. These are fresh images, images that transcend their literal content, windows into a unexpected world. This is a book you will return to again and again, discovering something new each time you look Within The Stone.