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150 Years of Photo Journalism
Book by The Hulton Deutsch Collection
440 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 19, 2013
I approached this book with high expectations but as I progressed through it, I became somewhat disillusioned.
First of all, the title of this book is misleading. The book claims to be a history of photojournalism, yet is only a pictorial book of contemporary history and not a very good one at that. Photojournalism as a branch of photography is never even mentioned - the first and last place you'll see the word is in the title. Out of hundreds of photographers, maybe half a dozen happen to have their name mentioned in the captions but that's where it stops. Needless to say, that the photography itself is not discussed or analyzed at all.
Thankfully, the selection of photos is quite varied, with quite a few thought-provoking, interesting and excellent photos throughout the book. However, since many of the photos are famous in their own right, then this is where the book misses a crucial opportunity to provide us with more background of the photos we already know from before. When where they taken? By whom? Under what circumstances? What were the consequences? The book will answer none of those questions. Instead, the author uses the captions to provide us with a flimsy bird's eye view of the history of the times. Sadly, at best the end result is just a simplistic historical background (done much better in almost any history book) and at worst it is either strange or plain wrong. Too many times I noticed that people in the photos were wrongly identified, years wrongly noted or historical facts inaccurately presented.
Over time it also became painfully obvious, that the author lacked historical data to provide alongside many of his photos. Instead he just strings the photos together in an almost random manner. A common technique is to say "While this was happening in this photo, another thing was happening in another photo", whereas the photos may only be vaguely related, but sometimes may not have been taken even in the same decade. Quite often the author simply improvises based on what he sees in the picture and lacking much else to say, tries to be funny without much success. Honestly, if we wanted a history lesson, we would have bought a history book (and I love history books). Or if we wanted to be entertained, we would have bought a book by a proven comedy writer. However by purchasing this book, we wanted to know more about the history of photojournalism, yet reading this book will hardly shed any new light on the subject, most probably because the author just completely avoids it.
The themes chosen and the stress given to them are also a bit puzzling. Both world wars are covered in a fairly short manner. This is fine, since those are gargantuan subjects anyway, but then we get pages upon pages of opera and ballet pictures, whose share is quite disproportionate compared to events of actual historical importance.
All in all, this is an good book of photo-journalistic images. The selection is varied and many of the photos are excellent. The book however is marred by inferior captions and with some strange choices for themes. Recommended as a picture book, unfortunately not a very informative one at that.
First of all, the title of this book is misleading. The book claims to be a history of photojournalism, yet is only a pictorial book of contemporary history and not a very good one at that. Photojournalism as a branch of photography is never even mentioned - the first and last place you'll see the word is in the title. Out of hundreds of photographers, maybe half a dozen happen to have their name mentioned in the captions but that's where it stops. Needless to say, that the photography itself is not discussed or analyzed at all.
Thankfully, the selection of photos is quite varied, with quite a few thought-provoking, interesting and excellent photos throughout the book. However, since many of the photos are famous in their own right, then this is where the book misses a crucial opportunity to provide us with more background of the photos we already know from before. When where they taken? By whom? Under what circumstances? What were the consequences? The book will answer none of those questions. Instead, the author uses the captions to provide us with a flimsy bird's eye view of the history of the times. Sadly, at best the end result is just a simplistic historical background (done much better in almost any history book) and at worst it is either strange or plain wrong. Too many times I noticed that people in the photos were wrongly identified, years wrongly noted or historical facts inaccurately presented.
Over time it also became painfully obvious, that the author lacked historical data to provide alongside many of his photos. Instead he just strings the photos together in an almost random manner. A common technique is to say "While this was happening in this photo, another thing was happening in another photo", whereas the photos may only be vaguely related, but sometimes may not have been taken even in the same decade. Quite often the author simply improvises based on what he sees in the picture and lacking much else to say, tries to be funny without much success. Honestly, if we wanted a history lesson, we would have bought a history book (and I love history books). Or if we wanted to be entertained, we would have bought a book by a proven comedy writer. However by purchasing this book, we wanted to know more about the history of photojournalism, yet reading this book will hardly shed any new light on the subject, most probably because the author just completely avoids it.
The themes chosen and the stress given to them are also a bit puzzling. Both world wars are covered in a fairly short manner. This is fine, since those are gargantuan subjects anyway, but then we get pages upon pages of opera and ballet pictures, whose share is quite disproportionate compared to events of actual historical importance.
All in all, this is an good book of photo-journalistic images. The selection is varied and many of the photos are excellent. The book however is marred by inferior captions and with some strange choices for themes. Recommended as a picture book, unfortunately not a very informative one at that.
September 9, 2016
This book was disappointing in the extreme! It was poorly organized, poorly captioned, and very difficult to follow. I'm glad that I bought it discounted.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews