Baldeck, Andrea. Presence Passing by Andrea Baldeck. With two extras.

University of Pennsylvania, 2007. First edition, fine large hardcover monograph in gray cloth with very good protected dust jacket that has some minor dents, hardly noticeable with the protector.  Edition of only 3,000 copies. 209 pages. Very well printed in monochrome. Newspaper clipping (a review from the Philadelphia Inquirer), and exhibition list, Berman Museum of Art, Ursinus College, 2007, laid in.   Black-and-white photographs by Baldeck taken over fifteen years of abandoned buildings, gardens, and empty spaces that evoke a sense of time passing.  Baldeck’s tenth book.  Note: Reflections in photos of covers with this listing caused by dust jacket protector. Summary:

Presence Passing (2011) by Andrea Baldeck, a former internist-turned-fine-art-photographer, is a profound visual meditation on the intersection of memory, history, and the physical world. The book serves as a poetic retrospective of Baldeck’s travels across Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, focusing on the "lingering presence" left behind in landscapes and architecture after the subjects themselves have moved on.

Core Themes and Narrative

• The "Ghost" in the Frame: As the title suggests, the work captures the moment where a person or an era has just passed, leaving an emotional or physical "residue." Whether it is a vacant monastic cell in Southeast Asia or a weathered plantation house, the images explore the presence of the absent.

• Cultural Resilience: Baldeck utilizes her background in medicine to observe the world with a "diagnostic" yet deeply empathetic eye. She documents how traditional cultures maintain their dignity and "presence" even as they are buffeted by the forces of modern "passing."

• The Stillness of Time: The book is a rejection of the high-speed "snapshot." Instead, it favors a slow, contemplative gaze that allows the history of a site—its "chronological weight"—to settle into the viewer’s consciousness.

Visual and Technical Note

• Silver-Gelatin Tonalism: Baldeck is a master of the traditional black-and-white darkroom. Her style is characterized by a luminous, silvery tonal range that lends her subjects a timeless quality. The shadows are deep but never opaque, suggesting a world with "breath" in it.

• Andrea Baldeck is an American fine-art photographer, former physician, and author noted for her contemplative black-and-white studies spanning portraiture, botanical landscapes, still lifes, and documentary essays. Born in rural western New York, Baldeck developed an early passion for music, medicine, and photography, earning her BA from Vassar College before graduating from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She practiced as an internist and anesthesiologist—frequently taking her camera along on medical trips to Haiti and Grenada—until the early 1990s, when she left the operating room to devote herself entirely to fine-art photography. Working primarily in gelatin silver and black-and-white processes, she meticulously crafts compositions that explore cultural memory, natural topographies, and historical artifacts. Her acclaimed monographs and touring exhibitions include The Heart of Haiti (1996), Touching the Mekong (2003), Closely Observed (2006), Himalaya: Land of the Snow Lion (2009), and Bones, Books & Bell Jars (2012)—a visual essay created in collaboration with the Mütter Museum evoking the material history of medicine. Held in numerous museum and private collections, Baldeck's work bridges artistic sensitivity and scientific rigor, recording cultural, medical, and environmental heritage across the globe.