Embarrassment of Riches, An: Photographs
by: Buckmaster, Adrian/Susanne Bartsch

Hardcover. US, Glitterati, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Hardcover, 272 pages. In his debut book of photography, with a foreword by one of the luminaries of NYC culture and entertainment, Adrian Buckmaster's monograph presents a staggeringly beautiful collection of portraits - a cross-section of humanity in all of its glorious diversity, from the ordinary to the extraordinary and everything in-between. Having spent his early years shooting commercial beauty and fashion, Buckmaster soon shifted focus to more personal projects, challenging conventional notions of beauty and celebrating the eccentricities of those whom society might classify as "misfits." Echoes of Buckmaster's early career remain, in the form of exquisite costuming, make-up, and scenic design. Despite an element of performance, there is an undeniable rawness to these portraits, in which subjects are both aware of the camera's gaze and sympathetically self-conscious, robing and disrobing, revealing and concealing. Buckmaster's photographic genius is encapsulated in his uncanny ability to fastidiously art direct while simultaneously stripping away layers of formality and convention. Arranged in three movements: Imposing, Revealing, and Inventing, this collection progresses from traditional portraiture to increasingly intimate portrayals, as subjects expose, create, and invent themselves. Included in this endlessly varied spectrum of characters are Burlesque performers, families, brides, lovers, and all manner of tattoos and body piercings. There are classical reclining nudes, reminiscent of Edouard Manet's Olympia or Titian's Sleeping Venus, dancers with incredible physical strength and dexterity, women costumed as peacocks and geishas, a contortionist inside a trunk, even a green-skinned man, bejewelled like an Indian deity.