Dark Dreamers: Facing the Masters of Fear

Rating:
Summary: Poor Photography
Review: I certainly would have appreciated a portrait book of my favorite authors but this isn't it. Beahm's C.V. is as biographer of Michael Jordan. His "dues" consist in bleeding the genuine affection readers have for an author through amaturish, hackneyed Star Wars/Star Trek type marketing.

Rating:
Summary: Cold and Unappealing
Review: It's hard to guess who the audience of this book could be. Lumping divergent authors between the same "horror genre" covers assumes a depressing blandness in taste, until you find where most of these pictures first appeared, in gossipy fanzines like Locus. Only such an audience would know Ellen Datlow for example as anything other then a competent editor, or want her picture. Gwinn is no Jill Krementz whose photography she is obviously mimicking, the only author both photographers have taken is Stephen King whose warmth Krementz captures eloquently in The Writers Desk, by contrast Gwinn's is oddly cold. This is not a good book, avoid it.

Rating:
Summary: Picture Perfect: Beth Gwinn's Work
Review: Photography is a difficult craft to master. I've photo-illustrated my own books for years, studied photography on my own, and have accidentally taken a few good portraits, but I've never been able to take the time away from writing to spend in my own darkroom or in Photoshop (for digital photography) to bring my craft where I'd like it to be.

The curious reader may certainly find examples of my work in any of my published books, but the real point of this piece is not to talk about my work but to talk about Beth Gwinn's work.

Beth Gwinn has obviously put in a lot of time behind the camera to master the elusive art of photography, because this collection of photos is the work of a solid professional.

I wish Amazon.com had run a few of them to show the quality of the work, because these are portraits that do exactly what a photograph SHOULD do: Show us the subject in a new light.

I could point to page after page of personal favorites -- the shot of Clive Barker, positioned in front of one of his paintings captures him perfectly; and Christa Faust, the dark lady of the field, looks absolutely smashing in black.

But suffice to say that if you have any interest whatsoever in seeing a portrait of your favorite writer that goes beyond the sterile "deer in headlights" publicity shot most publishers use for dust jacket photo mterial, you'll find much to like in Beth Gwinn's work.

Stanley Wiater should need no introduction, if you know anything about this field. He's paid his dues and chronicled the field for years. He was obviously the set-up man for the photo shoots and arranged dozens of dark dreamers to sit (or stand) for these shots.

I also like the write-ups provided by the writers. They vary in length, but all provide a glimpse (or more) about the writer in question. A nice touch.

The publisher of this book, Cemetery Dance, probably does require an introduction to the Amazon.com community at large. Suffice it to say that Rich Chizmar knows how to put together a book: The book is oversized and beautifully bound in black cloth with silver stamping, the dust jacket is simple and elegant in its design, the binding is sturdy, and the paper stock is glossy, which enhances the reproduction.

If the market for this kind of book was bigger, Rich, I'm sure, would have sprung for some more shekels to print the photos using a duotone (or tri-tone) process, which involves running the pages through the press again to achieve a deeper, richer black, but let's face it, there's enough people to support such first class treatment for ANSEL ADAMS AT 100, but genre books like this are lucky to see the light of day, and for that we should thank Gwinn, Wiater and the publisher, Cemetery Dance.

I have in my book collection several similarly themed books. SOUTHERN WRITERS, THE WRITERS DESK, THE FACES OF FANTASY (Patti Perret), and dozens of photo books by the Big Name Photographers. Obviously, readers want to see the faces behind the words, and books like this that require a lot of traveling and coordination to put together are visual treasures -- real keepers.

Bottom line, then: Buy this book and leaf through the pages and marvel at the portraits, and thank your lucky stars that there are small presses out there that devote their limited resources to books of this nature.