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Overview
Indianapolis shines like never before in this one-of-a-kind book filled with stunning images. Photographer Lee Mandrell showcases a Circle City of unique architecture and natural areas, outstanding museums, and historic landmarks. Readers will be drawn into the rich culture, history, and art of Indianapolis as well as all things modern.
Stroll along the famous Canal Walk. Explore the largest children’s museum in the world. Wander through the city’s parks and enjoy beautiful seasonal displays. Marvel at the campuses of Butler University and IUPUI—and see the two hundred eighty-four-foot-tall Soldiers and Sailors Monument covered in lights and the world’s largest Christmas tree.
“This book will inspire with joy and reverence a greater love of Indianapolis.” —Senator Dick Lugar
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780253021694 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Publication date: | 12/22/2021 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 154 |
| File size: | 13 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
For Lee Mandrell, photography started out as a hobby that quickly ignited into a fiery passion and then into a lifelong career. He started out at age 14 with a secondhand Minolta Hi Matic E range finder. Mandrell worked as a custom darkroom technician in a pro lab for years, and was eventually promoted to production manager. An early adopter of both digital technology and Photoshop, he is still actively involved in all current photography techniques and practices.
Matthew Tully is a political columnist for The Indianapolis Star. His columns on public schools have helped drive debate over education reform in Indiana. He is the author of Searching for Hope: Life at a Failing School in the Heart of America (IUP, 2012).
Read an Excerpt
Indianapolis
The Circle City
By Lee Mandrell
Indiana University Press
Copyright © 2016 Lee MandrellAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-02169-4
FOREWORD
by Matthew Tully
For me as a writer it is always humbling to work with great photographers, and I've been fortunate enough over the years to work with many of them. No matter what I've written, no matter how good I might think a piece of work is, time and again I've found that a photographer with a sharp eye and a passion for the job can help an ink-stained newspaper columnist like me reach people in a way that words alone rarely can.
And a great photo, a great series of photos, can help you understand an issue, a person, or even a city better than you thought possible.
Some of the best photos capture moments so fleeting that most of us would have missed them. Others take us into worlds we didn't know existed. And some photographs — and this might actually be the most challenging task of all — tackle subjects that we have seen hundreds or thousands of times before. They show us subjects so familiar to us, so much a part of our lives, yet they offer a perspective or a slice of beauty and color that we have never seen.
In this stunning book of photography, Lee Mandrell offers scores of beautiful and vibrant photos of Indianapolis, the city I've lived in and around most of my adult life. He has captured public buildings, museums, parks, and monuments that hold deep and important memories for me and so many other Hoosiers. This book showcases the Statehouse, the downtown canal, Monument Circle, the zoo, and so many other locations that feel almost like second homes.
But here's the amazing part: Lee so often does this while allowing us to see these places and our hometown in entirely new ways. The triumph of this book is that Lee has created fresh images of the places and buildings we know so well.
Perhaps Lee's photos of the Indiana Statehouse struck me most. This building means the world to me. An early assignment there, an assignment granted to a green and unpolished reporter who'd only recently broken into the newspaper business, provided me with a path to a wonderful career in writing and reporting. And, on a much more important note, I care about the building because it's where I met my wife twenty years ago. I've spent countless hours in the statehouse, not always loving the politics unfolding inside it but always appreciating the craft and architecture that went into creating it so long ago. I've studied and photographed it many times, struck by its beauty and history.
Still, as well as I know the building, I found myself staring for minutes at Lee's photos of it, noticing for the first time the way the lights nearby on Market Street and in the offices below complemented the capitol dome. Lee was able to make the world around the building — the cars and the streetlights — pop in a way that only a great photographer can.
I am not a photography expert, and I cannot intelligently discuss the techniques used by those who make their living making pictures. As much as I love great photography, I often find it hard to explain why a picture sticks with me, why it resonates with me. I agree with what Ansel Adams once said: "There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs." And this book is filled with good photographs. Well, actually, it is filled with great photographs.
Anyone who has worked in newspapers or any similar field will tell you that hard work is the difference between good writing and bad writing, or between good writing and great writing. The editing and rewriting process is not fun — working over the same words time and again, going back for more information, ripping up some of what you've written in hopes of finding a sentence or a paragraph that makes the piece sing a little more. But that's what writers must do.
I think many people don't understand that great photographers do the same type of thing. A great eye and a lot of talent are critical. But so is old-fashioned hard work. Lee, for instance, told me that for some of his photos he went back to the scene time after time, hoping to catch a better ray of light or a different angle, desperate to see the subjects in new and different ways. "The shots are there," he said. "You just have to go find them."
Photos of the monuments and buildings that we know so well particularly require that approach. In this book, Lee has captured Indy's familiar places in unfamiliar, vibrant ways, and that's what impressed me most.
At the zoo, his photos from underneath the dolphin pool glimmer with light. In the wonderful Fountain Square neighborhood, a blue-green fountain in the foreground helps the main subject of the work, a colorful marquee, look even more interesting than it has the hundreds of times I've passed by.
I can only imagine how many photography books have been published about cities such as New York and Chicago — cities known globally for their architecture and style. Those cities deserve those books. But it is also important to appreciate the life, vibrancy, and beauty that exist in cities such as Indiana's beloved capital. That can be easy to overlook in the bustle of our busy lives. Fortunately, Lee Mandrell's book forces us to remember.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Indianapolis by Lee Mandrell. Copyright © 2016 Lee Mandrell. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Matthew Tully
Acknowledgments
Gallery
Photography Talk
Index
What People are Saying About This
"For anyone who loves Indianapolis, this is truly a book to treasure! All of your favorite Indianapolis landmarks are here including The Children's Museum, the State Fair, and the City Market. Mandrell's photos make even familiar scenes feel unique and interesting due to creative perspectives and the use of different seasons and lighting conditions. Indianapolis shines like never before in this book!"
This book will inspire with joy and reverence a greater love of Indianapolis.
For anyone who loves Indianapolis, this is truly a book to treasure! All of your favorite Indianapolis landmarks are here including The Children's Museum, the State Fair, and the City Market. Mandrell's photos make even familiar scenes feel unique and interesting due to creative perspectives and the use of different seasons and lighting conditions. Indianapolis shines like never before in this book!