California from the Air

Fülszöveg

I" t is one of the world's most awe-inspiring coastlines. Hundreds upon thousands of years of geologic upheaval have pushed rugged "young" __mountains to a dramatic confrontation with the Pacific Ocean. And mans relationship with the California coast has been no less dramatic. When the American frontier had finally gone as far as it could go, the pioneers found themselves at a place where crashing surf and towering coastal cliffs met. It was, if not the end of the earth, at least the furthermost edge of the continent, defining the limits of America. The scale of this 1,264-mile coastline is so imposing that much of it is difficult to comprehend close up. For this remarkable series of photographs, Báron Wolman literally rose above it. His aerial views include, but are not confined to, the vast expanses where mans touch has been minimai; this volume alsó casts an unblinking eye on the impact of civilization, often with unexpected results. There is a certain stark humor, for instance,... Tovább

Fülszöveg

I" t is one of the world's most awe-inspiring coastlines. Hundreds upon thousands of years of geologic upheaval have pushed rugged "young" __mountains to a dramatic confrontation with the Pacific Ocean. And mans relationship with the California coast has been no less dramatic. When the American frontier had finally gone as far as it could go, the pioneers found themselves at a place where crashing surf and towering coastal cliffs met. It was, if not the end of the earth, at least the furthermost edge of the continent, defining the limits of America. The scale of this 1,264-mile coastline is so imposing that much of it is difficult to comprehend close up. For this remarkable series of photographs, Báron Wolman literally rose above it. His aerial views include, but are not confined to, the vast expanses where mans touch has been minimai; this volume alsó casts an unblinking eye on the impact of civilization, often with unexpected results. There is a certain stark humor, for instance, in the image of the oil island off of Long Beach, wearing its thin disguise of palm trees much like a burlesque comic in falsé whiskers. Histórián Richárd Reinhardt puts the coast in perspective in a chapter ("In The Beginning . . .") starting with formation of the land itself, then tracing mans growing imprint, from the first native American inhabitants to the explorers, the Forty-Niners, and the get-richquick developers, up to the contemporary (and pivotal) creation of the Coastal Commission. Interwoven with the photos are several conversations with men and women who have grown up with the coast, studied it, shaped it, photographed it, created its architecture, from Ansel Adams to Ernest Callenbach to Melvin Lane to Joseph Esherick. A tribal spiritual leader telis how his people lived before the white man came. We learn how the founders of Esalen cleared their land of intruders with Doberman pinschers and shotguns before they could get down to the business of pioneering the humán potential movement. An oceanologist explains where waves come from, and an undersea biologist details the incredible Continued on back flap Vissza