Distributed by International Publishers Marketing, this horizontal-format book showcases the black and white and color landscape photographs of Gary Freeburg, following in the footsteps of National Geographic explorer Robert F. Griggs. Selections from the photographs of Griggs' 1915-19 expedition to Alaska are shown in the first section, and throughout the essay sections of the book. The whole is finely produced by George F. Thompson publishing. Most of the book is filled with Freeburg's photographs. Each is given a full page with plenty of white space, and a facing page carrying small captions. The interspersed essays are by John Eichelberger and Jeanne M. Schaaf, and tell the story of the Griggs expedition, with meditations on the volcanic landscape. Griggs' original four-year exploration of this area was the result of the second-largest volcanic eruption in modern times, comparable only to the explosion of Kratatoa. It resulted in the formation of a new volcano, which drew the interest on the public and the National Geographic Society. The icy, steaming desert Griggs and his team documented in the first decade of the twentieth century, and Freeburg documents in the first decade of the twenty-first, is called the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. The Griggs expedition photos are remarkable. Freeburg has the skill to equal them without matching them. His palette of silver grays is similar, but his pictures look up rather than down on these rugged mountains. In the original photographs, steam appears white and human figures appear black, but both seem equally hazy and temporary. Freeburg offers a more monumental aesthetic. Contrasts between foreground and background, frozen in deep field, converse equally well in black and white or color, and all signs of life except the evidence of the photograph are absent. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)