| View Larger Image | Food Chain: Encounters Between Mates, Predators and Prey | Hardcoverby Michael L. Sand (Editor), Catherine Chalmers (Editor), Gordon Grice (Editor)
| List Price: | $29.95 | |
| | Binding: | Hardcover | | Publisher: | Aperture | | Edition: | 1stst Edition | | Page Count: | 136 Pages | | Publication Date: | April 26, 2000 | | Sales Rank: | 1,059,307st |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
A fresh look at the laws of nature, in startling, beautiful, and at times unsettling detail.Working with a menagerie of insects and animals she raises in her New York City studio, Catherine Chalmers makes images that ask us to examine the lives we ordinarily overlook. What we find is by turns surprising, humorous, and thought provoking.In the series of photographs that gives the book its title, Chalmers vividly sketches the links between predator and prey, eater and eaten, from plant to insect to amphibian. Against a stark white background, caterpillars eat a tomato, a praying mantis eats a caterpillar, and a frog and a tarantula each eat a praying mantis. Another section, focused on "pinkies" (the pet-trade name for baby mice), shows with chilling clarity that the laws of nature apply equally to mammals as to the so-called "lower" life-forms. A series of photographs of praying mantises mating-during and after which the female devours the male-captures the metaphorical power and strange beauty of this infamous habit. The book includes an essay by the critically acclaimed nature writer Gordon Grice and a provocative interview with Chalmers by Aperture executive editor Michael L. Sand. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 5 reviews)
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Excellent & Odd by C. Lambert (Austin, TX)  5 Stars
October 13, 2006
This book is truly odd, but weirdly invigorating. Anyone who ever had a pet give birth, be it a hamster or a dog, will find the section on pinkies unsettling. I think this is a great book.
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it's like a car accident by bowery boy (seattle)  4 Stars
April 23, 2002
I must say this is a pretty cool book although not for the squeamish. Graphic full color photographs that read like crime scene photographs or stills from a horror movie.There's the sexy display between two praying mantis before the male becomes a post-coitus snack. Another praying mantis dances merrily on the head of a fat shiny toad before meeting its inevitable end. Caterpillars greedily gorge themselves on tomatoes only to be sucked dry by more ever present praying mantis.The most graphic scenes though are the ones with the pinkies. Pinkies being born amongst a white blood smeared backdrop only to be gobbled up by another fat toad.It's sick to look at and even a bit morbid at times, but it's Mother Nature and a testament to the circle of life and the survival of the fittest.
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cool photographs by Mark K Nahabedian (Cambridge, MA USA) 5 Stars
September 08, 2001
Truly fascinating but not for those with weak stomachs.The book consists of excellent photographs of various critters (bugs, frogs, spiders, mice, snakes, etc.) eating or being eaten by others. Not for the squeamish.The more prudish reader might also be disgusted by the scenes of hot, steamy preying mantis sex.For those with the stomach for it, the material presented in this work provides a fascinating and detailed view of a small part of the world we live in.
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Fantastic. Brilliant. Phenomena and Occasionally Revolting. by Allan M. Gathercoal (Norcross, GA) 5 Stars
February 28, 2001
Fantastic. Brilliant. Phenomena and Occasionally Revolting. I want more. "Life is Hard and Then You Die," I saw this bumper sticker on the rear of a car about the same time I got "FoodChain." I felt that this would be a great subtitle for this provocative book. The photography is stunning and Aperture, one of the leading publishers of fine art photography, has done a dazzling job in portraying the moments between life and death. Catherine Chalmers has given the layperson insight into the world that we live in but seldom see. Her progressive plates vividly take you from birth to death and then back again to birth. Caterpillar eats tomato, praying mantis eats caterpillar, tarantula and a frog eat praying mantis, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. If you thought sex was fatal because of the roulette of disease in our world today, consider the bazaar appreciation that a male praying mantis gets from his lover. Chalmers captures the strange "thank you" the female gives by devouring the male-head first. This book is a collectible and should be in your hands and library. Highly Recommended
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Shocking, yet beautiful 5 Stars
May 15, 2000
This book contains stunning, yet extremely graphic photography which portrays animals, such as frogs, praying mantises, and tarantulas in mating dances, meeting their prey, and devouring fruit. While you can't say that "no animals were harmed in the making of this book" it is a book that brings you face-to-face with animals in their natural behavior. It is a wonderful book and is worth checking out.
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