Alan Hess

From the minimalist steel-and-glass boxes of Richard Neutra to the earthy organic approach of John Lautner, and everything in between, the solutions of architects and designers including notably E. Stewart Williams, Albert Frey, and Donald Wexler, among many others were diverse and are ever more relevant in the face of contemporary challenges. Their answers addressed questions that hold still much urgency: How to design sustainably in harsh climates? How to use technology efficiently and creatively to meet those challenges? How to build affordable and high-quality mass-produced housing? How to foster a diverse and inventive architecture that is both popular and excellent? How to reflect a region s culture, economy, and distinctive atmosphere? Committed modernists, designers here responded to nature s climatological demands and Palm Springs became a center for innovations that were rooted in practice more than theory. So successful were these architects that forty years after their heyday their designs sparked a vibrant preservation movement that continues to shape the community. Designers benefited from the architectural freedoms offered by the remoteness of the California desert, largely out of sight of the profession s critics, and explored new approaches that we can now identify as central to the Palm Springs School, shown here in rich archival and contemporary photography taken by greats of the time, such as Julius Shulman, and more recent masters, including Tim Street-Porter. In addition to its main text, the book offers essays by five noted professionals from across the United States highlighting the broader significance of the Palm Springs School. With original research and fresh analysis, this book is an important resource for students, scholars, and design professionals, as well as a visually engaging story for architectural enthusiasts.

The inimitable, haunting films of Alfred Hitchcock took place in settings, both exterior and interior, that deeply impacted our experiences of his most unforgettable works. From the enclosed spaces of Rope and Rear Window to the wide-open expanses of North by Northwest, the physical worlds inhabited by desperate characters are a crucial element in our perception of the Hitchcockian universe. As Christine Madrid French reveals in this original and indispensable book, Hitchcock’s relation to the built world was informed by an intense engagement with location and architectural form—in an era marked by modernism’s advance—fueled by some of the most creative midcentury designers in film. Hitchcock saw elements of the built world not just as scenic devices but as interactive areas to frame narrative exchanges. In his films, building forms also serve a sentient purpose—to capture and convey feelings, sensations, and moments that generate an emotive response from the viewer. Visualizing the contemporary built landscape allowed the director to illuminate Americans’ everyday experiences as well as their own uncertain relationship with their environment and with each other. French shares several untold stories, such as the real-life suicide outside the Hotel Empire in Vertigo (which foreshadowed uncannily that film’s tragic finale), and takes us to the actual buildings that served as the inspiration for Psycho’s infamous Bates Motel. Her analysis of North by Northwest uncovers the Frank Lloyd Wright underpinnings for Robert Boyle’s design of the modernist house from the film’s celebrated Mount Rushmore sequence and ingeniously establishes the Vandamm House as the prototype of the cinematic trope of the villain’s lair. She also shows how the widespread unemployment of the 1930s resulted in a surge of gifted architects transplanting their careers into the film industry. These practitioners created sets that drew from contemporary design schools of thought and referenced real structures, both modern and historic. The Architecture of Suspense is the first book to document how these great architectural minds found expression in Hitchcock’s films and how the director used their talents and his own unique vision to create an enduring and evocative cinematic world.

Learning the basics of photography can seem like a daunting task. Unless luck strikes, the resulting images are usually not very good. But it doesn't have to be this way. Enter Make Great Photos: A Friendly Guide and Journal for Improving Your Photographs. In this book, photographer and author Alan Hess teaches you the basics of photography by breaking down the topic into its fundamental parts. In the first section of the book, Alan explains what makes a great photo in the first place, examining a selection of images and working through why each one is successful. In the second, Alan addresses specific shooting situations - categorized into travel, action, events, and people - discussing the challenges that each scenario poses and how to conquer them. Finally, you'll learn the top five basic edits you need to know to make your images pop when you share them online.

This book looks at the intersection of celebrity and design, through the case of twenty-five houses designed by great architects for their informed, trend-setting, and extremely famous clients, in Southern California. Included are gorgeous photos of the houses as well as little seen informal portraits of the stars and wonderfully detailed texts that tell the story of these members of the glitterati, touching on film, fashion, architecture, and the everyday lives of legends. Hollywood Modern spans the modern era, from moderne homes of the 1930s, through mid-century modern designs, to the present day. Hollywood Modern touches on the many moods of modernism. From Ed Niles Johnny Carson House in Malibu, which creates a ficus tree forest that extends from the garden directly into the house, to the machine-age austerity of Richard Neutra's Von Sternberg House, (later owned by The Fountainhead author Ayn Rand), to A. Quincy Jones' crisply, elegantly ultramodern Gary Cooper House in Holmby Hills, these houses edit, rearrange and direct our point of view much like the carefully composed version of reality we see in motion pictures. These different styles co-exist as modernism and stand in distinct contrast to the Mediterranean villas and Spanish Colonial manses of early Hollywood.

If you're a passionate photographer and you're ready to take your work to the next level, The Enthusiast's Guide book series was created just for you. Whether you're diving head first into a new topic or exploring a classic theme, Enthusiast's Guides are designed to help you quickly learn more about a topic or subject so that you can improve your photography. The Enthusiast's Guide to Night and Low-Light Photography: 50 Photographic Principles You Need to Know teaches you how to shoot compelling images at night and in low-light situations. Chapters are broken down into a series of numbered lessons, with each lesson providing what you need to improve your photography. In this book, which is divided into five chapters that include 50 photographic principles to help you create great images, photographer and author Alan Hess covers all the necessary gear and camera settings, as well as topics such as light painting, photographing the night sky, shooting great cityscapes, and post-processing techniques that will bring out the best in your photographs. Example lessons include:Using Manual exposure mode is the best way to goFocusing in low lightMounts, clamps, and other ways to keep the camera stableHow high can you push the ISOCreating low-light portraitsHow to get those starburst street lightsCorrecting the tones in your imageWritten in a friendly and approachable manner and illustrated with examples that drive home each lesson, The Enthusiast's Guide to Night and Low-Light Photography is designed to be effective and efficient, friendly and fun. Read an entire chapter at once, or read just one topic at a time. With either approach, you'll quickly learn a lot so you can head out with your camera to capture great shots.

If you're a passionate photographer and you're ready to take your work to the next level, The Enthusiast's Guide book series was created just for you. Whether you're diving head first into a new topic or exploring a classic theme, Enthusiast's Guides are designed to help you quickly learn more about a topic or subject so that you can improve your photography. These handy books don't waste your time covering all the photography basics you already know. Instead, they build on that knowledge so you can quickly advance your photography skills. The Enthusiast's Guide to Multi-Shot Techniques: 49 Photographic Principles You Need to Know addresses what you need to know in order to shoot compelling images that require multiple exposures. Chapters are broken down into a series of numbered lessons, with each lesson providing all you need to improve your photography. In this book, which is divided into five chapters that include 49 photographic principles to help you create great images, photographer and author Alan Hess covers double exposures, high dynamic range (HDR) images, panoramas, time lapse images, focus stacking, and image stacking. Example lessons include: 4. Using a Flash to Create Double Exposures6. Double Exposure Portraits13. Tripod, Release, and Mirror Lockup17. What Is Tone-Mapping?23. The Need to Overlap Your Panoramas25. Handholding for Panoramas33. Software Settings for Image Stacking37. Focus Stacking in Landscape Photography42. Exposure Settings for Time Lapse43. Doing the Math for Time Lapse Sequences Written in a friendly and approachable manner and illustrated with examples that drive home each lesson, The Enthusiast's Guide to Multi-Shot Techniques is designed to be effective and efficient, friendly and fun. Read an entire chapter at once, or read just one topic at a time. With either approach, you'll quickly learn a lot so you can head out with your camera to capture great shots.

Over the course of a career that lasted more than fifty years, Andrew Geller—architect, artist, and designer—quietly produced a large and culturally significant body of work, leaving an invaluable mark in his field. Geller's impact was first felt in the heady post-World War II years he spent at the Raymond Loewy design firm, where one highlight amongst many was his improvisational and free-handed influence on the Lord & Taylor brand. He is undoubtedly most well-known, though, for his architecture, and his stunning modernist beach houses in particular, houses that still grace our shores and which, not unlike Andrew Geller himself, were innovative, unconventional, and saturated with a delight for beauty and form. In Andrew Geller: Deconstructed, Jake Gorst celebrates the life and work of his grandfather, bringing together two-decades worth of interviews, both formal and informal, as well as many artifacts and treasures culled from Geller's vast personal collection of drawings and photographs. Included within are stories and images not only of his now famous beach houses, but also of the many lesser-known buildings and early artworks, making this the definitive volume on this architectural icon. Gorst's intent in writing this volume - to share this wealth of information and provide an intimate glimpse into the inner workings of an artist—is here fully actualized, rendering a vivid portrait of a man whose main drive in life was to create beauty whatever he did.

The Sony Alpha DSLR–A700 Digital Field Guide is filled with everything you need to know in order to take amazing photographs using your Sony Alpha A700 digital SLR camera. This full–color portable guide walks you through the essential controls, features, and functions of the A700 using step–by–step instructions and full–color images of each menu screen. This robust guide not only shows you how to adjust white balance, autofocus, exposure, and choose lenses, it also teaches you when and why you should adjust each of these key settings. The Sony Alpha DSLR–A700 Digital Field Guide goes beyond camera settings to offer you a refresher guide to the principles of digital photography, covering the essentials of lighting, composition, and exposure. Filled with amazing examples, this book also presents a variety of tips and tricks to capturing portraits, candids, sports, travel, macro photography, and much more.