37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Famous Scenes, Human Pathos, and Restrained Beauty, November 14, 2000
Before considering this book, let me note that like many photography books this one contains a fair number of nude images of men and women that will offend some. If bare flesh is not something you want to see in your books, avoid this one.
Grading this book was difficult. The photographs were well chosen to be interesting and rewarding, were reproduced faithfully, and worked well as images on facing pages. The page sizes are generous to allow more room for reproduction. Many of them are photographs that almost anyone would want to have. Almost anyone would agree that the photographs and design of the book deserve five stars.
The accompanying texts, however, were not up to the standard of the photographs in most cases. I graded these texts on average at three stars. Averaging the two scores was how I arrived at four stars.
The book's concept is to take 500 of the best photographers ever, and show one image of each in alphabetical order. Although this sounds strange, it actually works quite well. Most of the images are in black and white, but some are in color. As a result, you get a full dimensionalizing of what photography can do and mean to the photographer and viewer.
Among the famous scenes in the book are Eddie Adams' Street Execution of a Vietcong Prisoner (1968), Neil Armstrong's Buzz Aldrin on the Moon (1969), Matthew Brady's General William Tecumseh Sherman (1865), Robert Capa's Death of a Loyalist Soldier (1936), Harold Edgerton's Milk Drop Coronet (1957), Alfred Eisenstaedt's V-J Day in Times Square (1945), Robert Jackson's The Murder of Lee Harvey Oswald (1963), Yousuf Karsh's Winston Churchill (1941), Joe Rosenthal's Iwo Jima (1945), Sam Shere's The Hindenburg Disaster (1937), and Nick Ut's Children Fleeing an American Napalm Strike (1972). If you are like me, these images brought me back to what I felt when I first saw these events or these photographs. It was a moving experience in each case. It is almost like looking at an album of your own life, once removed.
I was also moved by the many images of human pathos that I had seen less often or not at all before. Especially noteworthy to me are Abbas' South African Miners (1978), Lucien Aigner's Benito Mussolini (1935), G.C. Beresford's Leslie Stephen and his Daughter Virginia (Woolf) (1902), Margot Burke-White's Mahatma Gandhi (1946), Charles Hoff's Ezzard Charles and Rocky Marciano (1954), Frank Hurley's The Endurance by Night (1915), Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother (1936), and Arnold Newman's Georgia O'Keeffe (1968).
Beauty was very much present, but almost always restrained in a variety of ways. That restraint created a tension that heightened the awareness of beauty. I particularly was affected by James Abbe's Bessie Love (1928), Eve Arnold's Marilyn Monroe (1960), Richard Avedon's Dovinna and Elephants (1955), Ian Bradshaw's Streaker (1975), Robert Mapplethorpe's Derrick Cross (1983), Man Ray's Tears (1930), Lennart Nilsson's A Human Foetus at Three Months (1973), Vittorio Sella's On the Glacier Blanc (c. 1880s), Frederick Sommer's Livia (1948), Jerry Uelsmann's Floating Tree (1969), and Edward Weston's Nude on Sand (1936).
How can you further benefit from enjoying these images? I suggest that you dig out your old camera (or consider getting a new digital one), and find scenes that evoke the emotions and memories you most want. Take a few lessons from the ways the masters captured their scenes, and see what you can do. Like the student patiently painting a copy of a famous painting in a museum, you can create your own images to illuminate your life for now, for the future, and for future generations.
Turn it all into a snap!
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Wonderful Piece of History, January 10, 2004
This review is from: The Photography Book (Paperback)
The Photo Book might well be considered as much a work of art as the photographs represented within its bounds. This collection was given to me as a gift and has been so cherished as a pictoral index of inspirational and thought provoking works. Each page includes a short bio of the selected photographer and a sample of his or her work. Navigation through the book is easy as the photographers are categorized alphabetically.
Even more helpful is the additional information found in the back of the book. There are three appendices that help to explain this art form, its brief history, and how you can take part in enjoying it further. The first section is a glossary of techniques and terms - helpful for anyone who isn't skilled or knowledgeable of the art. The next section includes movements, groups, and genres of this form of art. This is a great help in understanding the context and influences of past photographers in relation to their work. The last section is an index of museums around the world including their addresses and phone numbers.
The aesthetics of the book are wonderful. Featured are over 500 photographers ranging over the span of the art of photography. The photographs represented are very clear and vibrant (where there is color), inviting the viewer to see, enjoy, and think critically about what is before them. The alphabetical organization allows for a quick read as well, enabling you to pick up at any given place in the book to enjoy a snippet of photography.
This book works excellently as a gift for a budding photographer, a coffee table piece, or a reference for those interested in influential and historic photography and photographers. It is a steal at what you can purchase it for - I doubt that you will find such a great assortment of so well established artists and their work for less than this. It's compact, but it's heavy too. For price, content, and availability, I gave this product 5 stars!
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