California offers an incredible diversity of world-class landscapes to explore. Within its 163,700 square miles lie the lowest and highest points in the continental United States, the hottest place on earth, and the oldest life on the planet: Bristlecone pines up to 4,600 years old. Whether your camera is a smartphone or the latest DSLR, this book can help you find the most interesting places. Capturing memorable images just got a lot easier! Whether your interest is mountains or seashores, slot canyons or salt flats, waterfalls, rock formations, sand dunes, lighthouses or historic mining camps, the book will direct you to the best landmarks, at the time when the light is best. The author has done the hard work for you, revealing the best photo hot-spots and saving you the frustration of searching for them yourself.

Spot landed in Hermosa Beach, CA in the mid-1970s. A serious musician, he helped build Media Art Recording Studio and stumbled into photojournalism via Easy Reader, the local news weekly. Hermosa proved to be a crossroads abounding with oddball roller skaters who were mostly overshadowed by Venice disco rollers and the Dogtown-inspired leaps into professional skateboarding (never mind that the first skateboard competition ever was in Hermosa in 1963). Then, in the late 70s, a cultural shift hit, fueled largely by music. This time the South Bay was in the vanguard. Spot became the in-house producer and engineer at SST Records--the label founded in 1978 by Greg Ginn as a vehicle for Black Flag, the band that defined LA hardcore. Between 1979 and 1985, he recorded, mixed, produced or co-produced most of SST's pivotal acts, working on all of Black Flag's greatest releases, and on classic albums by the Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Saint Vitus, Descendents, Big Boys, Hüsker Dü, The Dicks, Subhumans and Misfits. Throughout this period, Spot remained a master photographer who documented various Los Angeles subcultures in intelligently composed black-and-white photographs. As this volume reveals, there was no distinction between the musical and the visual--he heard what he saw; saw what he heard--hence, the title of this collection. Spanning the late 1960s through the early 1980s, Sounds of Two Eyes Opening offers an amazing portrait of Southern California beach life, set against the dark clubs and rehearsal spaces of the burgeoning punk scene.

A photographic and professional archaeologic survey of the La Rumorosa rock art style. Nearly all of the half, full page and double page photographs have never been published previously. The text is contributed by regional archaeologists who add context to the images.

In this groundbreaking work, Ariella Azoulay thoroughly revises our understanding of the ethical status of photography. It must, she insists, be understood in its inseparability from the many catastrophes of recent history. She argues that photography is a particular set of relations between individuals and the powers that govern them and, at the same time, a form of relations among equals that constrains that power. Anyone, even a stateless person, who addresses others through photographs or occupies the position of a photograph’s addressee, is or can become a member of the citizenry of photography. The crucial arguments of the book concern two groups that have been rendered invisible by their state of exception: the Palestinian noncitizens of Israel and women in Western societies. Azoulay’s leading question is: Under what legal, political, or cultural conditions does it become possible to see and show disaster that befalls those with flawed citizenship in a state of exception? The Civil Contract of Photography is an essential work for anyone seeking to understand the disasters of recent history and the consequences of how they and their victims are represented.

Many abodes can fall under the label of surf shack: New York City apartments, cabins nestled next to national parks, or tiny Hawaiian huts. Surfing communities are overflowing with creativity, innovation, and rich personas. Surf Shacks takes a deeper look at surfers' homes and artistic habits. Glimpses of record collections, strolls through backyard gardens, or a peek into a painter's studio provide insight into surfers' lives both on and off shore. From the remote Hawaiian nook of filmmaker Jess Bianchi to the woodsy Japanese paradise that the former CEO of Surfrider Foundation in Japan, Hiromi Masubara, calls home to the converted bus that Ryan Lovelace claims as his domicile and his transport, every space has a unique tale. The moments that these vibrant personalities spend away from the swell and the froth are both captivating and nuanced.