Look Again in Baltimore

A marriage of photography and criticism, this elegant volume celebrates details of Baltimore's fine architectural heritage and explores both familiar and unnoticed places. Photographer James DuSel and art critic John Dorsey have created a book that leads from images to thoughts, and they invite readers to follow the same path.

DuSel's mesmerizing black-and-white photographs focus sharply on details of larger images: the bottom of a doorway, the corner of a portico, the wall of a shoe repair shop, the substructure of a bridge. Dorsey ruminates on these images, and he draws striking connections between Baltimore's visual vocabulary and the tapestry of civilization. He carries us from a window in Roland Park to the triumphal arch of Constantine in Rome, from a stairway at the Maryland Institute to the Doge's Palace in Venice, from a vine at the Baltimore Museum of Art to Shakespeare.

DuSel and Dorsey, through a studious appreciation of detail, encourage us to look at our built environment afresh and discover a new and more meaningful relationship with our surroundings. Shaking off what DuSel calls "the anesthesia of daily life," Look Again in Baltimore offers arresting insights into the richness of the everyday world.