Vintage Contemporary Photography

This collection of over 250 contemporary retro-style cheesecake, glamour, and hot rod pinup photographs by Northern California artist Marilee Caruso takes women from all backgrounds and transforms them into the classy yet stimulating bombshells of our parents' and grandparents' day. Inspired by icons such as Marilyn Monroe, Bettie Page, or Sophia Loren, each portrait provides a nostalgic glance into the mood, style, and sex appeal of the 1930s, '40s, '50s, and '60s era pin-up girl. From black and white Hollywood starlets to greasy hot rod honeys, this bevy of gorgeous gals has been revamped with vintage hair and makeup, wardrobe, and posing. Shot with high-quality digital technology of the 21st century, each image is reminiscent of the drawings of Gil Elvgrin and Alberto Vargas.

Glamour subverts convention. Models, images, and even landscapes can skew ordinary ways of seeing when viewed through the lens of photography, suggesting new worlds imbued with fantasy, mystery, sexuality, and tension. In Old Fields, John Stilgoe—one of the most original observers of his time—offers a poetic and controversial exploration of the generations-long effort to portray glamour. Fusing three forces in contemporary American culture—amateur photography after 1880; the rise of glamour and fantasy; and the often-mysterious quality of landscape photographs—Stilgoe provides a wide-ranging yet concentrated take on the cultural legacy of our photographic history. Through the medium of "shop theory"—the techniques, tools, and purpose-made equipment a maker uses to realize intent—Stilgoe looks at the role of Eastman Kodak in shaping the ways photographers purchased cameras and films, while also mapping the divisions that were created by European-made cameras. He then goes on to argue that with the proliferation of digital cameras, smart phones, and Instagram, young people’s lack of knowledge about photographic technique is in direct correlation to their lack of knowledge of the history of glamour photography. In his exploration of the rise of glamour and fantasy in contemporary American culture, Stilgoe offers a provocative and very personal look into his enduring fascination with, and the possibilities inherent in, creating one’s own images.

Excerpt from Modern Photography for Amateurs The success of "Modern Photography," which justifies the publishers in issuing this revised edition, makes the author feel proud that his unpretentious little work has found favour in the eyes of amateur Photographers; and he only hopes that this revised edition may prove as useful to beginners as the previous issue. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

And now, for the first time in book form, Photography's Antiquarian Avant-Garde charts this full-blown rebellion of contemporary photographers against the advent of digital technology and their reversion to photographic methods used in the nineteenth century.".