Through the lens with print: part two | The Photobook: A History - Volume 2

book: The Photobook: A History - Volume 2 | Martin Parr, Gerry Badger

books:


	• The Photobook: A History - Volume 2 Martin Parr, Gerry Badger Phaidon Press, 2006 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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An excellent sequel...

Just where Volume 1 left off, Volume 2 takes off. Very thorough and well organized, be reminded this is not an all inclusive book of books. You may agree with some of the entries and you may also disagree, but, most important, you'll end up learning on new possible entries for your library as well as discarding considered ones.

All in all an exquisite reference book. Enjoy...T

Through the lens with print: part two

As I wrote in my review of the first edition, both will surely become the standard reference about photobooks. This second one is mostly concerned with contemporary photography and the coverage is really impressive which raises an important point: both books regard their subject as a lively and energetic creative medium and not a dry academic one reflecting an elitist point-of-view.

Just over two hundred photobooks are considered in nine chapters and like book one each has a technical caption (publisher, size, pages, date etc) and an excellent analysis of the photos and the book. The coverage, as I mentioned is very comprehensive. There is a chapter devoted to books that are not commercially available (The Company Photobook) and the twenty-five covered include a high school yearbook, or chapter six: Looking at Photographs, where the theme is the picture editor as author with twenty-two books. Controversy is not avoided either, chapter eight looks at the work of the New Topographic photographers with their stark takes on blast furnaces, prisons and other potential visual failures of society.

This second book is the same design, with excellent printing and paper, as the first (and to my mind) has the same fault in that there are not enough spreads shown from all the books looked at despite plenty of white space on each page. This does seem an odd editorial oversight when the purpose of the book is to show pages from books full of photographs. The first book had a few examples of many pages from a particular book but I could only find one in this book: a 1957 Norfolk and Western brochure where seventeen pages are shown (out of eighteen) using Winston Link's wonderful train photos

Look through the 656 pages of these two books and you'll soon realise that Badger and Parr have achieved a remarkably lively study. Surely the photobook gold standard.

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

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Much Anticipated Second Volume of the Story of Photographythrough the History of the Photobook; Compiled by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger "The Photobook: A History, Volume I, by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, isthe most important contribution to the field since modern histories ofphotography began to appear in the early twentieth century.We can be surethat this book, and its forthcoming second volume, will lead the way torevitalization of thinking and publishing in the field.It dwarfs previouspublications in both its scope and the information it provides."(Photo-Eye, December 2004) More photobooks are being published now than ever.For most photographers,this format is the ideal vehicle to present their work and communicatetheir vision to a mass audience.While the history of photography is awell-established canon, much less critical attention has been devoted tothis alternative history of the medium through the pages of the photobookFollowing the critically acclaimed first volume, THE PHOTOBOOK: A HISTORY:VOLUME II, co-edited by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, brings the mostcomprehensive illustrated history of the photobook fully up to date. Featuring over 200 photobooks, this lush survey offers a fresh approach tophotographic history and is a celebration of the medium's diversity. Broadly thematic in structure, each chapter features an introductory easyfollowed by detailed discussion of the individual photobooks alongsideimages of the book covers and spreads. While the first volume stressed the subjective nature of the history of themedium and how that history was molded by the influences of curators andhistorians, the second volume brings a new perspective from the viewpointof the photographer and the editor.A secret web of influences andinterconnections between photographers and photographic movements aroundthe world is revealed producing a global network of ideas.Spanning from Edouard Baldus's magnificent book for the Paris-Lyons RailwayCompany of 1861 to Stephen Shore's American Surfaces of 2005, thedevelopment of photography in its published form is the main focus.THEPHOTOBOOK: A HISTORY: VOLUME II is a chronicle of contemporary life,covering key artistic genres, including The American Photobook, TheEuropean Photobook, The Artist's Photobook and The Company Photobook. Gerry Badger explains the narrative function this unique format provides,"The photobook has become a worldwide phenomenon as practitioners of allcultures look to photography as a means of understanding the world aroundthem."The books that fill the pages of this magnificent volume havedefined photography, telling us just as much about the history of themedium as the history of the world.THE PHOTOBOOK: A HISTORY: VOLUME II isan indispensable resource.

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