Tuscany: Wandering the Back Roads
A Two-Volume Set of Photographs by Michael A. Smith and Paula Chamlee

The land of Tuscany has nurtured and inspired artists for centuries. In Tuscany: Wandering the Back Roads, Volume I, by Paula Chamlee, and Volume II, by Michael A. Smith, the glorious tradition not only continues, but is enhanced in their deeply personal and beautiful photographs of one of the most alluring and romantic places in the world.

In the spring of 1999 and 2000, and in the fall of 2001, the photographers Michael A. Smith and Paula Chamlee shipped their old Land Rover to Europe, configured to accommodate their large-format camera equipment and camping gear. They then drove to Italy, where they traveled together, yet worked separately while exploring the landscape and the small towns and villages of Tuscany - each recording their own visual responses to a land they had come to love.

Tuscany: Wandering the Back Roads. Vol I

Tuscany: Wandering the Back Roads. Vol II

During their travels and adventures, Chamlee and Smith photographed from the quarries in the Carrara region in the north to the old Etruscan towns in the south, and from the Val di Chiana and Cortona in the east to the Island of Elba off the coast to the west.

Their photographs, full of warmth and life, yet demanding in their complex visual elements, are the culmination of those three extensive trips. Selections from each of the photographers are here collected in this extraordinary two-volume set of books.

Chamlee's 8 x 10, 5 x 7, and 4 x 5-inch contact prints are presented in Volume I, along with an Essay by the noted Curator of Photography Robert Sobieszek, a Foreword by the well-known writer, Ferenc Maté, and a Preface by the photographers. Volume II is a long-format book and contains Smith's 8 x 20-inch photographs.

To insure the exacting standards that are a hallmark of Lodima Press, every detail in the production of these exquisite books was supervised by the photographers. The reproductions of the photographs, in 600-line screen quadtone and printed by Salto2 in Belgium, achieve unmatched fidelity to the original prints. Sturdy and elegant French-fold dust jackets protect and complement these fine books.

The two hardcover volumes are available individually or as a set.

The Hardcover Edition
Volume I is limited to 2,750 copies	ORDER VOLUME I NOW	$75
Volume II is limited to 2,750 copies	ORDER VOLUME II NOW	$95

The Special Limited Editions for collectors are signed, numbered, custom-bound, and slipcased. Each Special Limited Edition book comes with your choice of any photograph in the book, unlike other publishers special editions where your choices are limited to, at most, a small number of photographs. All photographs are original silver gelatin chloride contact prints, printed by the photographers, signed and numbered, archivally processed, mounted and overmatted. Since Paula Chamlee's photographs sell for $1,000 and Michael A. Smith's photographs sell for $2,000, the Special Limited Edition pre-publication price represents an exceptional value.

The two Special Limited Edition volumes are available individually or as a set.

Michael A. Smith and Paula Chamlee, husband and wife, are internationally acclaimed photographers whose photographs are collected in over 120 museums worldwide including The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Houston Museum of Fine Arts, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. Between them, they have had over 250 exhibitions and have received numerous grants and awards. Smith's publications include the award-winning Landscapes 1975-1979, Michael A. Smith: A Visual Journey, published on the occasion of his twenty-five year retrospective exhibition at the George Eastman House, and The Students of Deep Springs College. Chamlee's publications include, Natural Connections, High Plains Farm, San Francisco: Twenty Corner Markets and One in the Middle of the Block, Madonnina, and A Field in Tuscany. They live in the country in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Robert A. Sobieszek is Curator of Photography and Deputy Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Before joining LACMA in 1990, he served in various curatorial positions and as Director of Photographic Collections at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. He has graduate degrees in art history from Stanford and Columbia Universities. He has published more than ten books and more than fifty essays on the history and art of photography. His most recent book was Ghost in the Shell: Photography and the Human Soul.

Ferenc Maté is the author of The Hills of Tuscany as well as 22 other titles. He lives in New York and Tuscany with his wife, Candace.

Robert Sobieszek, from the essay, "Matters of Choice and Discovery"

"Look carefully at their photographs. Surprising things occur, amazing relationships reveal hidden associations, modest epiphanies announce themselves gracefully. . . . . Technically masterful and visually sophisticated, their photographs are, simply, exquisite."

"Chamlee sets up poetic resonances . . . visual sonnets of felt sensations comprised of shapes and their repetitions, textures and their echoes, and all artfully considered and balanced. . . . each image is a doorway, a portal through which one enters a very personally seen set of relationships. It is not about entering the Tuscan landscape; it is about entering Chamlee's images."

"What Smith captures so majestically throughout his book is a symphony made up of subtle, nuanced tones, textures, flows, and rhythms carefully framed within the scenic panoramas. [His] vast horizontal views suggest many narratives, journeys through the subjective terrains depicted, meanderings and wanderings of mind and eye. His scenes are like musical scores - arrangements of pictorial notes across the view."

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