Media Review: Grandmasters of Mineral Photography

The Grandmasters of Mineral Photography Mineralogical Almanac Special Issue.
Published by Ocean Pictures, Ltd., Moscow. Soft cover, color photos, 8-1/4" x 8-7/8", 136 pages, $45 (including postage in the USA). ISBN: 5-900395-54-5.
Orders may be sent to: Mineralogical Almanac, 5341 Thrasher Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio 45247.

Reviewed by John S. White

Most of this journal’s readers probably do not know that the Russian team of Michael B. Leybov and Ludmilla A. Chesko (Egorova) are responsible for producing an impressive array of English language books and journals covering a wide range of mineral and gem topics relating mostly, but not exclusively, with Russian deposits and their minerals. These include a subscription series, Mineralogical Almanac, with titles such as Mineral Collections of Russia, Parts I and II, Gold, Dalnegorsk, Murzinka, and Crystal Growth & Development. They also have published two important books, Minerals First Discovered on the Territory of the Former Soviet Union (by I. Pekov) and The Geology of Gems (by E. Y. Kievlenko), plus the video Russian Gem Treasures.

The most recent effort from this seemingly inexhaustible pair is a departure from earlier efforts as it is, in fact, a mineral art book, incorporating nine photographs from each of thirteen (one entry is actually a husband and wife team, making the total fourteen) of the world’s most accomplished mineral and gem photographers. These are contemporary artists whose work is quite familiar to serious collectors and mineralogists because it appears in a variety of scientific and popular journals and books.

Printed entirely in full color and 136 pages in length, this book is a visual delight and a wonderful compilation of expert photography providing the reader with the first ever opportunity to directly compare the techniques of Roberto Appiani (Italy), Nelly Bariand (France), Louis-Dominique Bayle (France), Rainer Bode (Germany), Michael A. Bogomolov (Russia), Hidemichi Hori (Japan), Terry E. Huizing (USA), Michael B. Leibov (Russia), Olaf Medenbach (Germany), Harold and Erica Van Pelt (USA), Jeffrey A. Scovil (USA), Stefan Weiss (Germany), and Wendell E. Wilson (USA). Each group of nine carefully selected photographs is preceded by a black and white photograph of the artist and a one page biography, a feature not heretofore available to those of us who know their work very well but lacked any information about the people behind the cameras.

This is a delightful book and fun just to leaf through because the forms and colors of these strikingly beautiful materials, beautifully captured on film and stunningly printed, simply leap out at you. For me, it is especially interesting to contrast the styles of the different artists. To quote from the Preface: “The success and popularity of their work is a result of the marriage of their photographic talent with their mineralogical knowledge. All of the photographers are active in this field and are well known far beyond their native borders.”

Orders may be sent to: Mineralogical Almanac, 5341 Thrasher Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio 45247.

John S. White has been an avid mineral collector all his life. His firm, Kustos, provides a variety of services to the gem and mineral community. He is a former Curator-in-Charge of Mineral Sciences at the Smithsonian, the founder of the Mineralogical Record magazine, and currently a regular contributor to Rocks & Minerals magazine.