Customer Reviews

Harms Way: Lust & Madness, Murder & Mayhem : A Book of Photographs

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

 

 

A partial listing of photo journalistic topics: physical prodigies of all kinds, pinheads, dwarfs, giants, hunchbacks, pre-op transsexuals, anyone with a parasitic twin, twins sharing the same arm or leg, living Cyclopes, people with tails, horns, wings, fins, claws, reversed feet or hands, elephantine limbs, etc. Anyone with additional arms, legs, eyes, breasts, ears, nose, lips.

This classic of morbidity is out-of-print so it's hard to track down, but Amazon does have a few used copies of it. It's a collection of bizarre vintage photographs compiled by a bizarre modern photographer, the legendary Joel-Peter Witkin. If I have a complaint about this book it's that it's all over the place, subject-wise. I have a hard time grasping what the point of it is, exactly. But it's still an excellent collection of vintage crime scene, medical, freakshow, and erotica images, complete with fascinating descriptions of the history behind the images. Some of the crime scene photographs are better presented in Evidence by Luc Sante, but I can forgive that flaw. After all, there are many images here that aren't found anywhere else. Overall, I'd recommend this to enthusiasts of the unusual.

This is a compendium of images Witkin has put together that are either photo-journalistic, done by crime photographers, or pure documentation of people with deformities, maladies or other differences that set them apart from the rest of the world.

If you are a serious collector of early photos,this is not the book for you.Besides the terrible organization of photo subject and type reference,some of wich have no reference at all,some of the photos would probably be already quite familliar to you,and are all done over in this sepia like tone instead of their true colors.As well,some of them are not quite so early.The text is taken from books of other people who have done great works on crime photogrphy,(Eugenia Parry),and so are the photos.if you want artsy,you might appreciate it.If you want a serious book on early photos of crime or the like,don't waste your money

daaaaamn

While the photographs here were shocking, they were also exploitative. Just because they are old does not lessen the impact of photos of murdered children and freaks of nature. I am not sure what this book wanted to do, but it did not do it well. It is like reading a book version of the trashy Faces of Death video series.