Customer Reviews

The Adventure of Photography: 150 Years of the Photographic Image [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am not a self-appointed authority on the topic, so please don't expect an in-depth review from me :-)

Each episode runs for about 25 minutes including the opening/closing credits.

The 10 parts are:
1) Precursors
2) Surrealists
3) War photography
4) Portraitists
5) Photoreporters
6) Fashion photography
7) Nudes
8) Photography & Science
9) Amateur Photography
10)Photographic market

It touches upon the majority of the topics and issues of photography, and includes (a younger) Herb Ritz as a guest commentator among others. Some people may find its style, dvd menu design, or music a bit quirky or off(beat). I found the content quite interesting overall, given how rare it is to find serialized documentaries on photography. The only other one I recall is "The Language of Photography" that aired/airs on some PBS stations.

I ordered this DVD for my University Library. I will not show this DVD to my students until I can turn off the sound & replace it with my own voice. A 1-star is because there is no option for 0 or negative stars in the rating scale. I have never written a review for Amazon.ca but I am inspired by the wasted opportunity to write this. I purchased this DVD in hopes that it might offer the opportunity to provide a compact teaching aid of an overview of photography history. Indeed it does provide a compact history of photograpy --- completely ignorant of the important thinking around photography & representation since 1980. My despair is that these ignorant, but canny, authors have managed to soporificly subvert the enlivening re-evaluation of photography as the most significant & controversial invention of the 19th Century & enduringly significant in the 21st C. These authors are canny enough to include images by those photographers conventionally considered important to photo history in the 1990s, but overlaid with a 1970s heroic modernist perspective in the voiceover.
I've only viewed the First Part (there are many more) and it is striking that this DVD is predominantly French speakers, not Québecois, in translation. Yikes! Barthes wrote Camera Lucida sometime in the early 80s. The one Anglophone speaks of technology in a surprisingly complex way -- compared to the voice over & the other talking heads.
This is sad. So many good images of importance NOW, interpreted from uncomprehending authority.
Oh, funding powers that be, please give me the money to make 2 DVDs on the histories of photography & I will make something interesting and usuable & current.
If you buy this (that Brassai cover is seductive - hence, the canny) you will be disappointed.
Cyndra MacDowall, School of Visual Arts University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

This two-DVD set is a 10-part TV series from the BBC, produced about a decade ago. Each segment is approximately 25 minutes and covers a specific genre of professional photography -- war, photojournalism, fashion, et cetera -- with lots of examples and cameos by leading practitioners of each genre. Although a tad dated (the segment on future developments has been completely outrun already) and made to a British sensibility, it is an interesting and informative series, worth a look.

I would not say skip this DVD as would most of the other reviews.
It is very helpfull as a overview and exposes people to allot of diffrent photographers.
Yes it seems to have a dated perspective, and some weird bias on certian things.
But really can you expect much from a DVD that trys to cover so much.
Eventually something like this needs to be made as a full series of DVDS.
Untell then this is a suggested DVD purchase for a photographers or teachers DVD collection.
Just remember to tell whome ever is watching to not pay too much head to the commantary and
watch the devlopment of photography over the years.

Upon initially ordering this DVD, I was excited at the prospect of having a useful pedagogical resource in a single volume with which to instruct my introductory photography students. But after viewing its installments, my subsequent disappointment has led me to consider writing the company for a refund.

The series' audio presentation and accompanying visual inserts between the actual photographs is camp 80's-and not in any contemporary neo-kitsch appropriative manner either, rather surprising for a recent release. Granted, The Adventure of Photography provides a thorough display of many diverse photographic images from its 19th century origins to more recent expressions, although much is left untheorized and simply accepted, devoid of a necessary, critical self-reflexivity. For example, the treatment of the nude only confirms-or performatively illustrates-what photographic theorists and feminist cultural critics have argued since the 70's: that photographic practitioners are often complicit in the objectification of women and the male-dominant gaze found within western culture at large. Lauding the likes of Helmut Newton and presenting non-critical discussion of various other objectifying sorts renders this segment substandard.

Although other topic areas provide useful information, one has to put up with the *same* music clips in each chapter--along with the Star Wars-like textual display, which gets tiresome and irritating. In summary, The Adventure of Photography engages in nothing more than mere description, and as a result, gets my grade of D for disappointing.

I have this set, and I own it too! I very much like it, and that I mentioned to students that are going into photography to watchg this DVD set, Yes it maybe a half hour for each chapter, but you can look at it over, and over again. I like the sountrack, and also that its a French production with the sponsors from French PHOTO, and Paris Match. Two well know publications. And its very well done, and educational. And that Photography did started in France... Viva La France Viva La Kultur Video!

This is a superb dvd to those that are interested in Photography in general. If you are a beginner or a pro, the material shown here will make you blown. This DVD covers every area of photophy, and contains almoust thousand of pictures of the greatest camera artist,