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Synopsis
Ranch is a cinematic photo-novel that looks at one of the last remaining traditional California ranches. As much about myth as the particular details of a specific place, the photographs examine a primal American dream: the persistent idea of endless land and the right to possess it. Depictions of the West as a vast garden of romantic innocence and male possibility abound, but the claustrophobic violence annd domination required to turn the dream into reality are perhaps less familiar.
Umbrella Magazine
Ranch: Photographs by Michael Light is a romantic black and white meditation on the soft and gentle ranch country in California, where these photographs illustrate how gorgeous sheet-fed gravure can be. The blacks are saturated, matte and velvet to the touch, the close-ups of buckets or tools or those beautiful native oaks are "to die for"-this book, printed in Japan, goes beyond anyone's "cowboy" reminiscences-it is great country, beautifully presented, and a treasure in the hand. Rebecca Solnit's text brings all the photos into focus.