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
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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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
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Possibly inspired by the letters Cleary has received as a children's author, this begins with second-grader Leigh Botts' misspelled fan letter to Mr. Henshaw, whose fictitious book itself derives from the old take-off title Forty Ways W. Amuse a Dog. Soon Leigh is in sixth grade and bombarding his still-favorite author with a list of questions to be answered and returned by "next Friday," the day his author report is due. Leigh is disgruntled when Mr. Henshaw's answer comes late, and accompanied by a set of questions for Leigh to answer. He threatens not to, but as "Mom keeps nagging me about your dumb old questions" he finally gets the job done—and through his answers Mr. Henshaw and readers learn that Leigh considers himself "the mediumest boy in school," that his parents have split up, and that he dreams of his truck-driver dad driving him to school "hauling a forty-foot reefer, which would make his outfit add up to eighteen wheels altogether. . . . I guess I wouldn't seem so medium then." Soon Mr. Henshaw recommends keeping a diary (at least partly to get Leigh off his own back) and so the real letters to Mr. Henshaw taper off, with "pretend," unmailed letters (the diary) taking over. . . until Leigh can write "I don't have to pretend to write to Mr. Henshaw anymore. I have learned to say what I think on a piece of paper." Meanwhile Mr. Henshaw offers writing tips, and Leigh, struggling with a story for a school contest, concludes "I think you're right. Maybe I am not ready to write a story." Instead he writes a "true story" about a truck haul with his father in Leigh's real past, and this wins praise from "a real live author" Leigh meets through the school program. Mr. Henshaw has also advised that "a character in a story should solve a problem or change in some way," a standard juvenile-fiction dictum which Cleary herself applies modestly by having Leigh solve his disappearing lunch problem with a burglar-alarmed lunch box—and, more seriously, come to recognize and accept that his father can't be counted on. All of this, in Leigh's simple words, is capably and unobtrusively structured as well as valid and realistic. From the writing tips to the divorced-kid blues, however, it tends to substitute prevailing wisdom for the little jolts of recognition that made the Ramona books so rewarding.
Pub Date: Aug. 22, 1983
ISBN: 143511096X
Page Count: 133
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1983
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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