Presents the author's view of contemporary photography in the United States from the 1950s with the work of Robert Frank to the present day. Frank looked beneath the surface of American life to reveal a people plagued by racism, ill-served by their politicians and rendered numb by a rapidly expanding culture of consumption. Yet Frank also found novel areas of beauty in simple, overlooked corners of American life. His subject matter--cars, jukeboxes and even "the road" itself-- redefined the icons of America.

From the author of the acclaimed James Brown biography The One comes the first in-depth biography of renowned photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank, best known for his landmark book The Americans. As well-known as Robert Frank the photographer is, few can say they really know Robert Frank the man. Born and raised in wartime Switzerland, Frank discovered the power and allure of photography at an early age and quickly learned that the art meant significantly more to him than the money, success, or fame. The art was all, and he intended to spend a lifetime pursuing it. American Witness is the first comprehensive look at the life of a man who's as mysterious and evasive as he is prolific and gifted. Leaving his rigid Switzerland for the more fluid United States in 1947, Frank found himself at the red-hot social center of bohemian New York in the '50s and '60s, becoming friends with everyone from Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Peter Orlovsky to photographer Walker Evans, actor Zero Mostel, painter Willem de Kooning, filmmaker Jonas Mekas, Bob Dylan, writer Rudy Wirlitzer, jazz musicians Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus, and more. Frank roamed the country with his young family, taking roughly 27,000 photographs and collecting 83 of them into what is still his most famous work: The Americans. His was an America nobody had seen before, and if it was harshly criticized upon publication for its portrait of a divided country, the collection gradually grew to be recognized as a transformative American vision. And then he turned his back on certain success, giving up photography to reinvent himself as a film and video maker. Frank helped found the American independent cinema of the 1960s and made a legendary film with the Rolling Stones. Today, the nonagenarian is an embodiment of restless creativity and a symbol of what it costs to remain original in America, his life defined by never repeating himself, never being satisfied. American Witness is a portrait of a singular artist and the country that he saw.

Edited and text by Sarah Greenough. Additional text by Anne Tucker, Stuart Alexander, Martin Gasser, Jeff Rosenheim, Michel Frizot, Luc Sante, Philip Brookman.

The definitive collection of Frank Hurley's amazing photos from Shackleton's Antarctic expedition is the first book to reproduce all the surviving expedition photos, some of which have never been published. Over 450 photos.

For the first time ever, world-famous photographer and fashion lighting instructor Frank Doorhof takes you behind the scenes to reveal every step of his model-photography workflow–the same workflow that has made him a hero to photographers around the world thanks to his practical, budget conscious, no-nonsense approach. In this groundbreaking book, Frank starts right at the beginning with how to find models, find great locations, work with backgrounds (you’ll be amazed at his tricks for creating stunning backgrounds for just a few bucks), and work by yourself or with a team (stylist, hair stylist, and makeup artist) to create an image that will get your photography noticed. Then, it’s on to an in-depth look at the lighting setups and looks that made Frank famous (complete with diagrams and detailed explanations). You’ll see how Frank lights his images (you’ll be shocked at how simple most of his lighting setups are and you’ll be able to create these same setups yourself), plus he covers the critical little stuff nobody else is talking about, including: how to calibrate your monitor (and why it’s so important); how to use a color target to nail your color every single time; and why (and how) to use a light meter to get consistent, reproducible lighting each and every shoot. Frank also shares his own retouching techniques through step-by-step tutorials, and he takes you from start to finish through a number of different looks so you can see exactly how it’s done, and recreate these same looks yourself. If you’ve ever wished there was one book that covers it all, the whole process of photographing models from start to finish, not leaving anything out, then this is the book for you.

These colored Polaroids are the photographs Robert Frank is making now. Frank is best known for his seminal book, The Americans, which features 83 photographs selected from more than 28,000 taken on his legendary road trip across the United States. His Polaroids, however, are the antithesis of this sort of cumbersome editing process: Here, what you see is what you get. The title of these three small books in a slipcase--Mabou--simply reflects their content. These are images of the artist's life at his home in Mabou, on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada, where Frank has lived since 1971--sunlight falling across tools placed on a table, stacks of chopped wood, bookshelves, laughing guests, self-portraits.