De Woestijnen: portret van alle woestijnen en hun volkeren

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Born in Munich in 1963, photographer Michael Martin must surely have been a nomad in another life, as he's become the world's photographer of the African deserts. Over the years, he's published 15 books and taken at least 80 journeys throughout the world's deserts, in often dangerous conditions. This book, five years in the making, is sort of a culmination of his work to date, and it's lovely. Thankfully, Martin's as interested in the inhabitants of these far-flung and strangely shifting lands as he is in the stark beauty of the environments themselves. None of the commentary is hackneyed or written with postcolonial prejudices; on the contrary, it's quite clear the long-haired and adventurous Martin wishes he could be living in the desert himself. If you think this is going to be all a bunch of pictures of sand in various formations, you are sorely mistaken. Here are breathtaking images of mineral-encrusted salt lakes, strange craggy rocks, beautiful cacti, and people with weather-beaten faces who live in trailer homes, tents and medieval towns. --Mike McGonigal