The Photobook

Rating:
Summary: Not as Beautiful as "Book of 101 Books," But Has More Info
Review: I bought this book after reviews in the January 2005 New York Times and the December 2004 Guardian Unlimited. It defines a photobook as "a specific 'event'... in which a group of photographs is brought together between covers, each image placed so as to resonate with its fellows as the pages are turned, making the collective meaning more important than the images' individual meanings." The authors exclude books such as Edward Weston's 1947 "Fifty Photographs" which are "simply anthologies."

After a Preface and Introduction ("The Photobook: Between the Novel and Film"), the book has nine chapters. Each chapter has an introduction of 5-7 pages, followed by 14-40 pages with discussions and photographs of books relevant to the chapter's theme. The chapter titles are: (1) "Topography and Travel: The First Photobooks"; (2) "Facing Facts: The Nineteenth-Century Photobook as Record"; (3) "Photography as Art: The Pictorial Photobook"; (4) "Photo Eye: The Modernist Photobook"; (5) "A Day in the Life: The Documentary Photobook in the 1930s"; (6) "Medium and Message: The Photobook as Propaganda"; (7) "Memory and Reconstruction: The Postwar European Photobook"; (8) "The Indecisive Moment: The Stream-of-Consciousness Photobook"; and (9) "Provocative Materials for Thought: The Postwar Japanese Photobook." The earliest books discussed date from the 1840s; the latest was published in 2001. The scholarship of the essays, the descriptions of the books, and the quality of the reproductions from the books are all excellent.

As the NY Times review points out, "Photobook I" (as I'll call this book) and "The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the 20th Century" by Andrew Roth (2001) "cover similar terrain." Here are some points of comparison and contrast. First, although the books are approximately the same size and weight, "Photobook I" summarizes about 40 books from the 19th century and about 160 from the 20th century, while "101 Books" concerns only the 20th century. (Apparently "Photobook II" coming in 2005 will concentrate on non-Japanese books from the 1970s onward, which are sparse in "Photobook I.") Second, "Photobook I" has less blank space, smaller reproductions of pages from the books, and tinier font describing the books than "101 Books," making "Photobook I" less alluring visually. Third, "Photobook I" is printed on white paper as opposed to the nicer cream-colored paper of "101 Books." You would keep "101 Books" on your coffee table for casual reading but not "Photobook I."

Fourth, the essays in "Photobook I" give more factual historical context than the essays in "101 Books" which are more reflective and subjective. Fifth, "Photobook I" has endnotes and a bibliography, unlike "101 Books." Sixth, over three-fifths of the works in "Photobook I" were published in languages other than English (especially Asian and Eastern European ones); in contrast, only about one-third of the "101 Books" are not in English. Seventh, I like the specification of dimensions in millimeters in "Photobook I" better than the "folio," "4to.," "octavo," etc. used in "101 Books." Eighth, "Photobook I" gives the number of pages and photographs in each book, but "101 Books" doesn't. Finally, the "Photobook I" index allows the reader to find works by author, but if you don't know the author for a particular title you have to scan the entire index; the "101 Books" index by both author and title is better.

If you are a fan of photographic books, buy this book and "101 Books" at Amazon.com!

BTW #1, Amazon.com shows a black circular figure as the cover art. In actuality, the dust jacket contains a montage of the covers of various works such as Metal by Krull and Pro Eto by Mayakovsky and Rodchenko.

BTW #2, I could not find on the Web a list of the books discussed. A complete list would exceed the Amazon.com word limit, but here are the books to which at least a full two-page spread is devoted, with the non-English titles translated to English: Anna Atkins (1843-1853) Photographs of British Algae...; Alexey Brodovitch (1945) Ballet; Ilya Ehrenburg (design by El Lissitzky, 1933) My Paris; Paul Eluard and Man Ray (1935) Facile; P.H. Emerson (1886) Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads; Walker Evans (1938) American Photographs; Leon-Paul Fargue and Roger Parry (1930) Banality; V M Gorfunkel (1938) Moscow Under Reconstruction; Lorinczy Gyorgy (1972) New York, New York; K (Keid) Helmer-Petersen (1948) 122 Colour Photographs; Gustavo Ortiz Hernán (photos by Augustin Jiménez et al., 1937) Chimneys; Eikoh Hosoe (1969) Kamaitachi; Eikoh Hosoe and Yukio Mishima (1963) Killed by Roses; Eikoh Hosoe and Yukio Mishima (1971) Ordeal by Roses Re-Edited; Yasuhiro Ishimoto (1958) Someday Somewhere; Kikuji Kawada (1965) The Map; Hans Killian (1934) The Face of Pain; Dorothea Lange and Paul S. Taylor (1939) An American Exodus; Maurice M. Loewy and M. Pierre Puiseux (1896-1910) Photographic Atlas of the Moon; Erich Mendelsohn (1928) America: An Architect's Picturebook; Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1925) Painting Photography Film; Daido Moriyama (1972): Bye, Bye Photography; Takuma Nakahira (1970) For a Language to Come; Victor Palla and Costa Martins (1959) Lisbon: Sad and Happy City; Giulia Pirelli and Carlo Orsi (1965) Milan; S B Reyzin (1937) First Cavalry; F E Rodionov (1934) Red Army of Workers and Peasants; B M Tal', ed. (design by El Lissitzky, 1935) Socialist Industry; L Tandit (1935) Fifteen Years of Kazakhstan ASSR; Zdenek Tmej (1946) Alphabet of Spiritual Emptiness; Shomei Tomatsu (1966) <11:02> Nagasaki; M Tursunkhodzhaev (1934) Ten Years of Uzbekistan; Ed Van der Elsken (1966-1968) Sweet Life; and Joan Van der Keuken (1963) Mortal Paris.

BTW #3, the dust jacket says that Volume II will cover "...The American Photobook since the 1970s," "...The European Photobook since the 1980s," "The Worldwide Photobook," "...The Artist's Photobook," "...The Company Book," "...The Picture Editor as Auteur," "...The 'Concerned' Photobook since World War II," "...The New 'New Objectivity,'" and "...The Photobook and Modern Life."