Fifty Houses: Images from the American Road
Editorial Reviews Review
"By any measure, Sandy Sorlien's Fifty Houses: Images From the American Road is a monumental project. But it's also somewhat quixotic. Can a photographer really express the essence of American vernacular architecture as one example from each state? That's what Sorlien does in her new book of that title... Such cataloging of diversity isn't what makes these images special. Sorlien photographed in black-and-white infrared film, which produces pronounced graininess and luminosity -- foliage comes out white, for instance. This stylistic mantle inflects the houses in her series with a fairy-tale aura of timelessness and even nobility. Many aren't especially distinguished, but Sorlien's technique imparts iconic radiance. She makes us believe that America's regional character is worth preserving."--Edward J. Sozanski, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Do you like good writing? Exceptional and creative photography? American architecture? Fifty Houses combines all three... Shot with black-and-white infrared film, each house portrait is a work of art and a tribute to America's wonderfully diverse housing styles."--Jill Sell, Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Traveling the country, Sorlien captures regional architectural heritage in an engaging non-fiction approach. Resonant images are paired with keen observations in vignettes that read like fiction. Sorlien is a true citizen spirit, dedicated to grace of place, and engaging her vision and voice to create an unusual artistic registry of Americana. Fifty Houses enters the road journey book category as a profound addition to the dialogue on the erosion of our regional identities and sense of place."--Mary Ann Lynch, Camera Arts
"[A]n engaging study of local architectural styles, a dying breed of distinctive dwellings eclipsed by mass-market house designs... The black and white photographs were taken with infrared film, a technique which imparts a soft, almost dreamlike quality. They capture the range of regional flavor from a simple Connecticut saltbox to a majestic antebellum manse in Kentucky."--Nancy Sheehan, Worcester Sunday Telegram
"Sandy Sorlien creates a moving, stunning document of America's rich and imperiled domestic architectural heritage. "--Katrine Ames, House and Garden
"Photographer Sandy Sorlien weds the themes of domestic refuge and journey by capturing with her lens a half-hundred houses in fifty different states, dwellings that provoked her artistic imagination and convey her concern for the rapidly changing national landscape."--Cathleen Norman, Vernacular Architecture Newsletter Review
"This is America with its clown costuming stripped away and its emotions exposed in all their rue and longing. The plangent photographic images of Fifty Houses glow with radiant authenticity. Sandy Sorlien has a fully-developed instinct for the essential."--James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere and Home from Nowhere Fifty Houses: Images from the American Road
Fifty Houses: Images from the American Road,William Least Heat-Moon,Sandy Sorlien,The Johns Hopkins University Press,0801870623,Architectural & Industrial,Architectural photography,Architecture,Dwellings,General,Individual Photographer,Photography,Pictorial works,States,Subjects & Themes - Travel - U.S./General,Travel photography,United States,Art / General
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