The Fat Baby is a selection of 17 "stories" that photographer Eugene Richards (b. 1944), member of Magnum since 1981, has produced since the early 1990s. Working mainly as a photo-journalist, Richards has covered various events around the globe for different magazines since the early 1970s. Each of the stories selected for this book is composed of 2 to 20 photographs and a text, all by Eugene Richards. Altogether, these various stories compose the first comprehensive monograph on the work of the photographer since the early 1990s. The Fat Baby received his title from one of the stories included in this book, about a village in Niger hit by famine and where a baby was surprisingly born fat. Composed of black-and-white photographs and texts, this story, like all the other stories included in this book, is a photography-based piece to which Eugene Richards later added text, in order to narrate more precisely the event depicted in the photographs, and to share his own perception and memory of the event. For this book Eugene Richards selected, out of all the photographs he shot since the early 1990s (whether assigned by a magazine or of his own initiative), 17 stories that are among the most significant to him. The topics of each story, as well as the geographical area each covers, vary widely, and range from gay parenthood in Arizona to a war hospital in Bosnia, from a youth homicide in Chicago to a mental institution in Mexico. Always grounded in social and/or humanitarian content, Eugene Richards's photographs are intense in emotions. He stresses the human emotions in each of them, without showing the misery. Eugene Richards does not, as many photo-journalists do, report bluntly and coldly the event he is witnessing. Rather, he gets involved in the event and with the people participating to the event he is about to shoot, and therefore shows his own perception, his own emotional involvement in the event. There is always a sort of autobiographical dimension in the way he chooses to show a story. Thus, his 1986 book Exploding into Life, that relates his wife's struggle with breast cancer, translates this interest in pursuing an autobiographical photo-journalism. It is this unique way of working that beget the original concept of this book of combining Eugene Richards's own words with each of his photographic story. With this book one indeed discovers that Eugene Richards is not only a great photographer, but also a gifted writer, and his written stories narrate with equal emotion and strength his own journey into each of the events he shot. Therefore, each story is composed of 2 to 20 images, and of a text between 1,000 and 4,000 words long. Photographs and texts are therefore deeply connected (the photographs have no captions other than the text), and both are carefully entwined in the layout. The result is a breathtaking compilation of images that will stand as the most definitive publication on the photographer to date.
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About the Author
Eugene Richards was born in 1944. He started his career as a photographer in the early 1970s after studying journalism and photography. He published his first book in 1973, and joined Magnum in 1981. He has covered, for several magazines in the United States and Europe, several war-related events, as well as social issues such as health conditions in underdeveloped countries, aging, homicides, drugs, and homosexuality.
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15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stunning book,
By Jurek Wajdowicz (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Fat Baby (Hardcover)
It is a deeply moving photojournalistic record of the highest probe. Painfully honest, profound, harsh, unnervingly personal and exceptionally remarkable, this book is one of the best on my own personal and yes, unfairly short list of truly great photographers.To all aspiring photographers and to established practitioners, I would suggest that perhaps instead of searching for your own style or buying the latest tool in the growing digital photo arsenal -- save the money and get the Gene Richards? ?Fat Baby? collection published and printed with care by Phaidon Press. Hopefully it will serve you well as a "lighthouse" showing you the right direction while you navigate in the frustrating, never-ending search for new assignments. Perhaps constantly reminding you of what powerful photojournalism can be when commercial compromises and opportunistic careers are not the only options.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The standard of photography as art.,
By Marlow (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Fat Baby (Hardcover)
Very nearly peerless as a photographer, artist, and person. This is a must have photography book. This book will keep you fascinated for a very long time.
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