America

Rating:
Summary: Looking down on America
Review: I first came across Jim Wark's work in 'A field guide to sprawl' by Dolores Hayden (ISBN 0393731251) where fifty-one of his aerial photos were used to decode the American man-made landscape. This latest work is a glorious celebration of the Nation, man-made and natural, in a thick chunky book and for the price this has to be a bargain.

The nine chapters cover it all, cities, rock formations, rivers, mountains, deserts (hot and cold) farming, coastlines, the land in color and finally, admittedly an unusual choice, mining. This last chapter though provides some amazing color images, it's hard to believe the abstract looking color of the potash evaporation ponds near Moab, Utah or the red of the water created by iron ore in Marquette County, Michigan. I particularly liked the sixty-nines pages devoted to agriculture, plenty of examples of contour farming (more abstract art shapes) and those amazing circular fields that use pivot watering systems, you just can't appreciate these when seen at ground level. Twenty-two cities are covered over 140 pages and even here there is something fresh to see, for instance, an amazing shot of the Chrysler Building (actually worthy of a poster) or the Westin in Atlanta.

If I have a criticism it is that many of the photos could have been bigger. This occurs on many spreads where there is a whole page photo and on the opposite page the captions and a single photo surrounded by just too much white or black space. Apart from that I think this a stunning book of over five hundred aerial photographs by Jim Wark, he clearly has an eye for the floor of the sky.






Rating:
Summary: Aerial photography at its best
Review: If you want to see gorgeous, unusual, aerial views of all parts of our beautiful America, this book is a must have! Jim Wark has an uncanny ability to find those soul stirring views and capture them perfectly on film which he has been doing for many, many years. The book is huge with 640 pages and over 500 of his finest fantastic aerial photos displayed in full color.

Rating:
Summary: America- Flying High
Review: This photos in this book are a thing of beauty. Jim Wark, who flies an Aviat/Christen Husky and took all his photos from it solo, is a gifted pilot and photographer. As a Husky pilot myself, I have many opportunities to enjoy America from the front seat of this great airplane but I don't have the eye to see the things he does.

The only two wishes I had for the book was that the photos were larger and the binding more sturdy. Neither detracts from the wonderful quality of the photos.

I bought a number of these books to give as Christmas gifts to my aircraft customers and look forward spending more time with it myself over the Christmas holidays.