Combining thorough research, personal insights and photo galleries of numerous internationally known celebrities, Di Cola...
Debunking the myth that some are just born “photogenic,” author and professional photographer Di Cola investigates the nature of beauty and the empowering concept of the “photo-image.”
With decades of experience photographing stars from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Mariska Hargitay, Di Cola has seen her fair share of good-looking mugs. She explains that the best way to photograph anyone isn’t about a particular angle or set of lights; rather, it’s about revealing the beauty within that person. However, she argues that no one can accurately see themselves unless they invest in understanding and procuring a “photo-image,” which is essentially Di Cola’s version of an unfiltered, honest portrait that is neither refracted nor altered. In daily life, when we look into mirrors, we are seeing a flipped image of ourselves. When we see ordinary photographs, we often feel that they are not accurate representations of us, and so we claim that we are not photogenic. However, with a series of neatly laid out chapters and elegant photo insertions, Di Cola makes the case that everyone is photogenic. The problem is not with the image but rather our perception of that image. By having a solid sense of who we are and what we look like, we allow our full beauty to become evident. Without name-dropping, Di Cola weaves anecdotes from her life as a photographer with her personal and professional insights. She supports her claims for the “photo-image” and our skewed perceptions of ourselves in mirrors with extensive research and physics footnotes. The book acts simultaneously as an endorsement of Di Cola’s services and as a meditative, reflective work. Why do we accede so easily to the perceptions of others? What does it take to give us a solid, genuine sense of self? Perhaps most intriguingly, the book serves to document the sheer power of imagery in our lives. The notion that our sense of self is heavily based on our outward appearances can initially be an overwhelming concept, especially because it’s so ingrained within our society. Di Cola helps us isolate and understand why we have such a difficult time accepting our individual beauty.
Combining thorough research, personal insights and photo galleries of numerous internationally known celebrities, Di Cola has created a thoughtful work on the perception of physical beauty.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1494921484
Page Count: 192
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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