I've head that at one point this was the best-selling photo book ever (for the time). True? It has a curious character, the opening sections feel like laying the groundwork for later books like Salgado's Genesis" but the "Seasons" section feels obvious and the "creatures" section... the nod toward Haas's reputation around motion-blurred color. The creatures feel like props. On balance, I rather like his un-blurred work, even though some of his blurred photos are forever memorable, such as bullfighters and rodeo riders.
Just couldn't get past the low technical quality of the images, both blurry and grainy. It's a color photography book published in 1971, so it's possible that its the images themselves or the printing, but they just didn't clear the bar.
In this photo book, Haas gives his photographic interpretation of God's creation of the earth. Many of the photos are surreal, including earth landscapes, atmosphere, oceans, animals, plants, and finally two obscure pictures of "man." This book does not include any photos of human civilization, such as buildings or products.
I looked into Haas' books because he is the photographer who took one of the iconic pictures of Albuquerque, looking east along Central Avenue toward the Sandia Mountains, in 1964.
This is an over sized book loaded with the most beautifull photosgraphs. I would have framed 90% of them. I will confess I did not take any real time with the text. The pictures kept me so in awe, I just kept slowly turning the pages.
Splendid work. Not only for some of the amazing images (take into account that the most recent picture in this work dates from 1981) but for the idea of tracing Creation itself and trying to illustrate it through images. Kind of the predecessor, if not a big inspiration, to Frans Lanting's Life.
as a photographer I was intrigued with the beauty and scope of this amazing artist... I found this book at local SPCA shop so even more thrilling..thank you Ernst xxx