Customer Reviews

As I See It

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John Loengard is a master of his craft of journalistic photography. Having first served as a freelance photographer for Life Magazine while a student at Harvard in the fifties, Loengard moved to staff photographer and ultimately photo editor of that indispensable magazine. In this excellent book he not only shares examples of his camera's eye through the years, but also accompanies his discussion with the reader with a history of photography and some elements of his craft, both of which add to the importance of this book to students and professional photographers. His writing is enlightening on many levels.

But the core of this book is the ample array of Loengard's superb photography. By nature of his assignments with Life Magazine there are many 'portraits' of famous people such as Maya Angelou, Jesse Jackson, Jimmy Carter, Marilyn Monroe, Ronald Reagan, and fellow photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson and Annie Leibowitz. In each he captures the spirit of the subject, not the usual public image, making these glimpses through his camera lens unusually fine works of art.

Though a majority of the works in this book are portraits, there are also images of people around the world. The duplicity of social classes in England, men at work in Ireland, places in America, people of 'ordinary' status who in Loengard's camera's eye become timeless icons of humanity.

The photographs are in black and white and very well reproduced (with the exception of a few unsuccessful attempts to span two pages with one image, losing a substantial amount of visual information in the process). These are more than just images form a famous artist: these are statements about history, culture, art, humor, pathos, and humanity. A rare treasure. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, December 05

Those familiar with John Loengard's work and career will be thrilled all over again, but not surprised, by the quality of the photographs collected in this book. But the added element of delight lies in Loengard's pithy and insightful comments on each of them. Although mostly anecdotal, these glimpses "behind the scenes" give a wonderful sense of how luck, skill, insight, technical expertise, charm, and patience are woven together in the photographer's quest for the unforgettable image. It's a dazzling education in how the "magic" is achieved.

John Loengard's "As I See It" is one of the best photography books to be published in a long time. Loengard was a staff photographer and picture editor for Life, and he was the first picture editor of People magazine. This book will appeal to anyone, and it is a must-have book for anyone interested in photography. The subjects alone are fascinating: The Beatles, Georgia O'Keefe, Presidents Carter and Reagan, Marilyn Monroe, T.S. Eliot, Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, John Updike, and many other famous and not-so-famous people.

Loengard has a rare ability to coax his subjects out of themselves and to encourage them to open up for the camera. The result for the viewer is a new window into the heart of the subject. And Loengard is a technical and artistic master of photography. Every photo is perfect. Loengard is a "photographer's photographer." This is truly a magisterial publication.

The production values of the book are superb: beautiful prints, strong binding, compelling layout, clear and unobtrusive captions. In addition to the photographs comes Loengard's witty and insightful commentary, which constitutes a crash course in photo-journalism.

More than a collection of photographs, this book is a walk through history. It makes me miss the world of photography we all experienced in the days when Life magazine used to arrive at our homes.

Some 20 years ago or so I went to a photography exhibition during "Encontros de Fotografia", in Coimbra - Portugal, which impressed me a lot. The pictures concerned Georgia O'keeffe and her environment in New Mexico. At the time I was not so interested in Photography as I was to become later, the reasons in both cases not being relevant for what I want to write now.
At some point, I wanted to discover who had been the photographer and did some search which led me to John Loengard's "Georgia O'keeffe at Ghost Ranch" (actually, the photographs I had seen were by Myron Wood).
The book on Georgia O. is wonderful and I emphasize this because the great merit of "As I see it" is to free Loengard from the O'keeffe images, at least from where I stand. O. K., O. K., there are two in the book, but they are masterpieces and I am aware that I am making a strong statement.
Mr Loengard says his work is a mixed bouquet. Nothing wrong with that. We have excellent portraits (Merce Cunningham's, for instance); unusual images (Cartier-Bresson flying his kite); events that got to newspaper front pages (Ted Kenny arriving for the funeral of Mary Jo Kopechne), landscapes (The Aghileen Pinnacles); some irony ( The supper intermission at Glyndebourne); "la joie de vivre" ( The Beatles in a swimming pool); and I will leave it here since I just want to exemplify.
Different people read (or, rather, see, in this case) the same book in different ways. I would like to point out two threads that I followed while browsing through "As I see it".
-"The image within the image"- This is, perhaps, the main one and there are lots of examples to illustrate it ( Avedon's portrait, the Turnley twins). Ocasionally, the link, which is "supposed" to be the picture's subject, between the photograph itself and "the second degree image" - that is, the image within the image - almost disappears in a subtle way ( André Kertész and his distortion). Some other times, the second degree image is only suggested, as we have in the spectacular picture of Leibovitz, where she stands on a gargoyle of the Chrysler Building in N. Y. to photograph dancer David Parsons, posing on another one . At first I thought it was a fake (do these people not suffer from vertigo?). The irony here is that, in the end, Ms Leibovitz ended up preferring an image she took in her studio, a less riskier place we all agree.
-"The pairing way" when two two pictures face each other. The most brilliant example is Brassai's eye and Georgia O.'s little black stone. But there are others: Bill Cosby and the negative; George Nakashima and Loengard's son.
That every picture tells a story is commonplace. I am much more interested in what is behind, what happens before. Therefore I found the notes accompanying each photograph, at the end of the book, important material. They are interesting, informative and amazing in some cases. What happens afterwards is worth looking forward to if it leads to a book like this. If the end of the story happens at an auction then I would say it is an "unhappy end".