Things as They Are: Photojournalism in Context Since 1955 (Paperback)

by Christian Caujolle (Author), Mary Panzer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
When the World Press Photo organization wanted to issue a commemorative volume that would dynamically trace developments in the last half-century of photojournalism, they had a very good idea: instead of presenting just a selection of memorable images, they would also reproduce the context—the actual pages of newspapers and magazines—in which the images first appeared. The result is a resounding technical success; the volume is big enough to clearly reproduce a variety of formats while remaining comfortable to look through. The book is also exceptionally well edited, with spare but helpful texts, an intelligent mix of the familiar (Salgado's 1987 series of Brazilian miners for the London Sunday Times) and fairly obscure (Donna Ferrato's powerful Philadelphia Inquirer series on domestic violence from the same year). Serious topics rub shoulders with comparatively lighthearted but era-defining sequences, like Helmut Newton's 1979 shoot in Berlin for the German edition of Vogue and Martin Parr's "Sun Kitsch" spread for W in 1997. The original layouts are highly evocative in themselves, and the reduced format intensifies their graphic power. This book is compulsive reading for anyone interested in how photographers have witnessed history and how their images have entered it. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description
This paperback edition of the bestselling and award-winning survey, Things as They Are presents the story of photojournalism over 50 years, from 1955 until today. It takes us from the golden era of the illustrated press--the heyday of Life and Picture Post magazines and the moment of The Museum of Modern Art's defining Family of Man exhibition--to the explosion of digital media in the twenty-first century. This history is told through the presentation of 125 photojournalistic features shot and published around the world. The stories are presented in context--reproduced from the pages of the newspapers and magazines where they originally appeared, as their contemporary public would have experienced them. In this way, Things as They Are reveals how the events of the world, the fine art of photography, and the interests of publishers and the press converged on the printed page. It traces how photojournalism has developed over time alongside changing technology, media, fashions in photography--and a changing world. Includes landmark photo-essays by W. Eugene Smith, Sebastiao Salgado, Mary Ellen Mark and James Nachtwey, among others, each accompanied by expert commentary.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Aperture (June 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597110361
• ISBN-13: 978-1597110365
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 9.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #660,925 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It reminds you of what we miss., May 1, 2006

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Things as They Are (Hardcover)

Like with everything else, the role of the photojournalist is changing. This book covers the years 1955 to 2005, with each ten year period broken down into a section. For instance, the years 1955 to 1964 is called 'When Magazines Were Big.' This was the time of Life and Look, now both long gone.

As you might expect, most of the pictures show war in one guise or another. The Viet Nam war gets it's own ten year section. But Viet Nam was just one war, this is an international publication so it covers the wars of many countries.

While warfare is a major part of the book, this was also the time of some really great things, like the moon landing and tragedy like Kennedy in Dallas or the tsunami in Southeast Asia.

Seeing photographs like these make me realize how much we miss with the absense of these magazines. Television shows the images, but only for a fleeting moment so that you cannot stay as long as you wish, before you get turned over to some drug company telling you to ask your doctor about their product. This is a great set of pictures.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!!!, March 14, 2006

By	Jonathan Flaum (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Things as They Are (Hardcover)

Intended to mark the 50th anniversary of World Press Photo, Things As They Are tells the story of the photojournalism of the last half century - in its original context.

The book shows 120 picture essays - dating from the 1940s, but picking up steam with the heyday of Life magazine in the mid-1950s and continuing through a clearly marked trail of bodies and changing attitudes to beauty right up to the present day - in the same way as they were first seen, namely on the pages of newspapers and magazines. By doing so, it manages to present what are (mostly) familiar images in a new light.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A photo is clearly worth a thou....., April 5, 2008

By	Robin Benson - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I only recently came across this book and it was an especially wonderful find because of the editorial format. To reproduce the photos in the context of their spreads and pages was just right for me as I spent my life as a publication designer. Although it is celebration of the World Press Photo organization another of the book's strengths is the range of material, not just hard news images but feature photography, so Richard Avedon's 1968 psychedelic Beatles shots are here, a Diane Arbus set for Esquire in 1960 or a series of feet photos for Suddeutsche Zeitung, 2004.

Mary Panzer's introduction does a neat job of describing photojournalism from past decades and her captions for each photographer and publication are spot-on. As a designer I was interested to see how current affairs magazines handled photos and mostly they left are alone to tell their story though Paris Match has a habit of putting text on the photo but unfortunately in a rather un-designed way where as Stern do it in a much more considered way.

I thought the book a first class survey of journalism in past decades. A similar book is Kiosk. A History of Photojournalism covering the years from 1839 to 1973 and like 'Things as they are' it shows photos as they originally appeared on covers and in the spreads inside.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.