A Maritime Album: 100 Photographs and Their Stories

The camera's subject might have been the sea, but the book is about so much more. Szarkowski, the former director of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art, has selected each of these photos as much for what they say about humanity's relationship to the sea as for the artistry of the pictures themselves. Richard Benson's commentary, meanwhile, speaks of technology, the futility of war, and the effects of mass production, as well as a wealth of information about maritime life. More than just a coffee-table book, A Maritime Album offers plenty of food for thought about the sea and the place it occupies in our lives and dreams.

Product Description
This fascinating book culled from the archives of The Mariners Museum features 100 historical photographs depicting the complex, often deeply passionate relationships of mariners with their vessels and the sea. Selected and introduced by the preeminent photographic critic of our time, each photograph chronicles a fragment of the mariner`s experience over the past 200 years-shipbuilding, the making of a wooden skiff, commercial fishing and whaling, amateur sailing, deep-sea diving, naval encounters, and much more.

However, the text, as indicated by fellow reviewers, can be considered a bit obscure if you are looking for cut-and-dry captions. It should be noted that one of the most appealing aspects of the book is that it does not simply apply a caption to an associated photo but rather tells the story behind it, providing details you simply would not be privy to from viewing the picture alone.

This wonderful book has been given as a holiday gift time and again in our family and has provided many a pleasurable moment flipping through the pages.

"Tight Lines!"
~..~..~.. ><((((*>


Bizarre text ruins photographs   January 2, 2001
 3 out of 5 found this review helpful

The great photographs cannot salvage the horrible text which rambles off into areas completely removed from the subject matter. Benson's commentary is... well... odd. At times you wonder exactly what it is he's talking about. And the few warship photographs exhibit a great deal of bias against all things military. This is particularly odd since the Mariner's Museum, which has attached its name to this drek, earned its reputation primarily on the preservation and salvage of warship artificats from the USS Monitor. Just plain weird, this book should be avoided at all costs expecially if you've ever been a sailor in uniform.


Photographs are wonderful, the text disappointing.   February 13, 1999
 5 out of 8 found this review helpful

I bought this book with great anticipation expecting a wonderful book on maritime photography. I am a fan of John Szarkowski and love his earlier work. While the choice of images is superb and the reproduction is wonderful, I was extremely disappointed by the text. Written by Richard Benson, it can only be characterized as bizarre, irrelavent and self indulgent. Opportunities to place the work in an historical or artistic context were often lost to flights of fantasy.


Great coffee table book...   January 27, 1998
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I own a signed copy of this book, and it sits proudly on my coffee table. I have read it twice already, and each time I learn something more about a specific photograph which I had not realized before. A great collection of images, from the Civil War to imported VWs on the dock in Baltimore, MD.