I am just working my way through this fascinating book. It lends itself to 'dipping into' because of its structure and style; each photographer has between two and fourteen pages pages devoted to them, depending on their significance/importance in the eyes of the author. I found the writing style of 'capsule remarks' a bit off-putting at first, but I'm getting into it. A good introduction to photographers well known and not so well known, with a few odd omissions in my view, but I guess you can't include everyone. Would make a good gift for anyone interested in photography and photographers.

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Product Description

Ian Jeffrey is a superb guide in this profusely illustrated introduction to the apprecation of photography as an art form. Novices and experts alike will gain a deeper understanding of great photographers and their work, as Jeffrey decodes key images and provides essential biographical and historical background. Profiles of more than 100 major photographers, including Alfred Stieglitz, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Paul Strand and Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, highlight particular examples of styles and movements throughout the history of the medium. Each entry includes a concise biography along with an illuminating discussion of key works and nuggets of contextual information, making this book the ideal gallery companion for photography aficionados everywhere.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15377 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
`An appetite-whetter ... inspires and informs' --Metro

Review
`You'll feel very smart for reading this and have a better appreciation for how hard it is to take a good picture'

Review
`A valuable commentary on the contribution made by a collection of dedicated photoreportage enthusiasts of the past century and a half'

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Customer Reviews

Practical appreciation

Ian Jeffrey explores the work of sixty-nine of the world's greatest photographers with some thought provoking text about their work. The pages are arranged in a vague history of the medium starting with Fox Talbot and four of his photos over four pages. Some names get more depending on how big their creative contributions were, for instance: Lee Friedlander six; Kertesz and Paul Strand eight; Ben Shahn, Bill Brandt, Cartier-Bresson and Tomatsu Shomei ten; Walker Evans fourteen.

The two great wars in the last century conveniently split the photographers into three sections with a further division created by the FSA photojournalists, who get a wonderful forty pages. Apart from Europeans and Americans the only others who get a look in are three from Japan.

Everyone gets a biography, an analysis of their printed photographs (one to a page) and additional text with a deeper interpretation of the themes in each photographer's work. I think these additional words are one of the strengths of the book. Jeffrey makes you think about the photos in front of you with suggestions which go further than just looking at the composition and texture. `How to read' in the book's title should maybe have been `How to appreciate'.

The 384 photos are well printed (300dpi) on good paper with a simple elegant layout though I found it slightly annoying that the second photo on each spread was too small, usually about a quarter of the size of the main image. There is an index and a bibliography. This listing would have worked better if it was placed with the relevant photographer's entry.

I expect everyone will have a favourite who isn't included (Weegee for me) but overall I thought this was a stimulating overview of photography and the relatively small number of people who created a very accessible art form.

Doesn't really do what it says on the tin
On the one hand, this book is a mine of information about photography and photgraphers through history. However, i don't feel it has taught me anything about how to read a photograph; It is basically a list of photographs ordered by photographer, with a short bio of the photographer and a description of the photographs, but i wouldn't really say it helped with 'how to read a photograph'.

The Art of Deception
When I look at a title as defined as this I expect it to represent the content of the book. Be aware it does not. If you're looking for a book that guides you through composition, symbolism, story telling, historical relevance and the many other facets that one might 'read' in a photograph (without text to spell it out to you) this is not the book for you. I was expecting to be given tutorials based around single images. I wasn't expecting a fairly straightforward history of photographers through the ages with two or three pages on each. And that's another point, this book doesn't really go through the ages. The youngest photographer considered was born in the 40s. The title is, in effect, an ill considered lie. Don't fall into it's trap.

The next concern is that the book needs a good editor for these mini histories. As an example of the clunky text I give you pages 96-97, providing a historical context for the industrial influence on photographer Francois Kollar. We're told three times in a very short space that the photographer worked in a car factory, twice in the same paragraph. Yes, it's an interesting fact and gives flesh to his fascination, but once would have been enough.

So I'm frustrated and annoyed by the book, but it gets its three stars for providing good reproductions and for introducing me to a handful of photographers that I hadn't come across before. If you've already got a couple of books on photographic history then you may not need this one, and don't be fooled into thinking that it might give you much more than the ones already on your shelf.