The Sea: A Celebration in Photographs

An album of classic and contemporary prints devoted to the sea, as seen through the lens of the world’s finest photographers. Canvas sails strain against the wind and propel a boat along its course, translucent green waves break over jagged rocks, ports bustle with the to-ing and fro-ing of cruise ships and commercial vessels, a steel-gray horizon cuts a boundless stripe across the shoreline—such images captivate the imagination and manifest the ever-changing character of the sea. Pierre Borhan has taken this enduring and alluring subject and mapped out a unique photographic journey through images that reflect the majesty of this powerful force of nature. Bringing together 300 historical, documentary, and art photographs, the sea is chronicled from photography’s earliest hour to the present day. The Sea: A Celebration in Photographs brings to life the fury of crashing waves, the infinite calm of a windless day, the desolate beauty of a frozen landscape, the stoic and solitary beacon of a lighthouse, and portraits of the men and women who navigate their lives around the ebb and flow of the ocean’s current. The sea serves as a magnificent backdrop to masterpieces from some of the world’s finest photographers, including Alfred Stieglitz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, Walker Evans, Joel Meyerowitz, Robert Frank, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Jacques Henri-Lartigue, André Kertez, Elliott Erwitt, Sebastiao Salgado, David Parker, Michael Kenna, Josef Koudelka, and more. This exquisite volume, winner of the Motovun Best Illustrated Book of the Year 2009 and the Prix du Salon Nautique, is a source of inspiration and a delight to anyone who has stood on a shoreline and succumbed to the infinite beauty before them.