PhotoBooks Bhutan

Tucked away in the eastern Himalaya, between the riverine plains of India and the cold, arid Tibetan plateau, Bhutan is the country of dreams, dragons, legends and staggering landscapes. This title aims to bring alive all aspects of this country through colour photography and informative text.

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A photography book of portraits done over a 10 year period on trips through China, Tibet, Bhutan and Ladakh. There is an introduction to the book by Sylvia Wolf, the Sandra Gilman Curator of Photography at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

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According to Guinness World Records, at over five by seven feet (and 133 pounds), this staggeringly beautiful photographic book is the largest published book in the world--about one of the world's smallest countries.

Bhutan is the last intact Himalayan kingdom. Roughly the size of Switzerland but with a population of about 700,000 people, Bhutan may be diminutive, yet it is home to one of the most astonishingly diverse natural and cultural ecologies on earth. It is often called "the last Shangri-la," and with good reason. The pristine environment and incomparably kindhearted people make this a truly extraordinary place.

The book Bhutan is a visual odyssey across the kingdom. Teams from MIT and Friendly Planet took over 40,000 photographs on four extensive expeditions across the country. They flew by helicopter, rode mountain ponies, trekked with packhorses and yaks, and journeyed by caravan on far-flung roads and foot trails across the Bhutanese Himalaya. Local students, like Choki Lhamo (a 14-year-old girl from Trongsa who aspires to become a doctor) and Gyelsey Loday (the son of the head lama in the village of Phongmey), joined these ambitious trips and helped with the photography in order to share a corner of their world. The stunning imagery in the book loosely follows these journeys. Portraits of people are life-size (or bigger). Panoramas convey some of the staggering sweep of the mountains and the awesome ancient architecture.

Bhutan begins appropriately with something very special. Renowned artist and author David Macaulay created an atlas of the country expressly for this book. Masterfully drawn, the map is surrounded by sketches of some of Bhutan's most salient features: massive dzongs, Himalayan peaks, stupas, and other impressions decorate the map, almost as if they were pages torn from the journal of a traveling artist.

Bhutan is a technological tour de force, visually breathtaking, socially meaningful, and a powerful reminder that there are places and people whose beauty and grace are endlessly worth cherishing. This is the ultimate photographic book.

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*Check prices and availability in:
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