Books show the power of images

ECHO OF THE SPIRIT: A PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNEY, Chester Higgins Jr., Doubleday, $29.95, hardback, 256 pp. with 70 black and white photographs

AUTHOR PHOTO: PORTRAITS, 1983-2002, Marion Ettinger, Simon & Shuster, $35, hardback, 175 pp. with 235 toned, black and white photographs

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ AMERICAN MUSIC, commentaries by Patty Smith, Rosanne Cash, Steve Earle, Mos Def, Ryan Adams and Beck, Random House, $75, hardback, 264 pp. with color and black and white photographs

These three books are about photography . . . and a little more. Each, with vastly different styles and approaches, illustrates the power of images to communicate and entertain.

In "Echo of the Spirit" photographer Chester Higgins Jr. documents the history and lives of African-Americans and Africans near and dear to him.

Higgins discovered his calling as a photographer during the civil-rights movement; he noticed that all news photographs showed only negative images of the era and Higgins wanted to chronicle the positive efforts of black Americans.

After learning the craft of photography from P.H. Polk — and being influenced by Arthur Rothstein of "Look" magazine, Cornell Capa of the International Center of Photography, and artist Romare Bearden — he began his career in photojournalism.

"Echo of the Spirit" links the past to the future in two sections — "Within the Blood" and "Water of Change" — encompassing 28 chapters, each consisting of one- to 10-page anecdotes. The documentary style of Higgins' photographs is actually less affecting than his prose, which is very good — as in the chapter on rural family life in the South during the 1950s where he was a child preacher.

Higgins takes the reader from his past into his future, recording in picture and verse the important people around him. And while the photography is certainly good, readers will become more infatuated with the stories of his life.

Marion Ettlinger's photography book "Author Photo" is a visually stunning collection of 235 writers taken from 1983-2002. Some posed theatrically, others positioned to manifest the author's frankness; each picture exhibits the photographer's skill in intimate collaboration with her subject, ranging from Pulitzer Prize-winning writers to obscure authors of obscure topics.

Some of the writers photographed are Raymond Carver, Francine Prose, Walter Mosley, Mary Karr, John Irving, Joyce Carol Oates, Truman Capote, Cormac McCarthy, Patricia Highsmith and Ken Kesey.