Customer Reviews

The Face in the Lens: Anonymous Photographs

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I've got an entire wall of built-in bookcases filled with remarkable collections of anonymous photographs. This is one of the best such collections. My favorite has always been the volume entitled "America's Yesterdays: Images of Our Lost Past Discovered in the Photography Achieves of the Library of Congress" by Oliver Ormerod, Jensen. The only photographic collection I like better is "The Family of Man" a collection by Edward Steichen made for the Museum of Modern Art in the mid-1950s. However, in the "Family of Man" we know who the photographers were, so maybe that's not a fair comparison. The fact that these anonymous amateur snapshots can even be mentioned in the same breath, as "The Family of Man" is a huge recommendation all by itself.

One of the chief reasons I like this volume so well is that every single photograph is powerful and can stand pretty much on it's own merits. The two surreal snapshots on page 130 and 131 are wonderful examples of comedy in photography. They show the humor of both the photographer and the models. One is a stoned looking semi-nude lying on her sofa about to be frightened by a corny looking boggy man who looks a lot like a giant stalk of celery. The second is a headless man standing half hidden in the bushes with his head in his hands. The head is a football wearing sunglasses. The pictures are better seen than described. There is an equally memorable portrait on the page before of a man with a profile like a square jawed cartoon character. It is a Hollywood location picture but the viewer could care less because it's a terrific photo even if, like me, one doesn't recognize the people portrayed. The section of the book entitled "Celebrity" includes many candid shots taken on movie sets and at news events. They may well have been taken by unknown pros because of the quality of the pictures and the fact that the photographers were allowed in usually very restricted areas. This section includes candid images of Shirley Temple, Ellery Queen, Charles Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Howard Carter at the entrance to the King Tut's Tomb, Charles Lindbergh just after he landed in Paris, Marlene Dietrich, Mata Hari dancing outside (only the second photograph I've ever seen of the famous spy), Benito Mussolini and a skinny, gangly teenage Princess Elizabeth to name a only a few. A mug shot of Al Capone graces the Adversity section.

Besides "Celebrity" the other nine chapters include: Immaturity, Masculinity, Femininity, Activity, Festivity, Adversity and Inevitability among others. There is the obligatory selection of nudes, often jokes done for the camera by the camera subject such as a woman sans her panties mooning the camera in a deserted French Subway Tunnel Staircase. The book includes a lot of humor and that's one of the things that make the collection so interesting. There is a very short (one page) essay at the end of the book entitled "Collecting Anonymous Photographs." The collection includes two insightful essays at the book's beginning; Alexander McCall Smith titles the first "Being Human" and Robert Flynn Johnson names the other "Whole in One." The pictures are the most important part of this coffee table book of photographs. They were very well chosen and it's amazing that so many have been located and saved from obscurity for future generations. The readers and viewers of this book can only marvel at the result of George Eastman's bringing photography to the general public. Thanks, Mr. Eastman. This volume is filled with "Kodak Moments." It will be interesting to see if the zillions of digital photographs being taken today survive as well as these film based photographs and prints.