A Book Recommendation

While perusing the racks at Barnes & Noble recently, I came upon a must-have book for photographers. It is The Great Life Photographers, produced by Life and published by Little, Brown and Company. There are hundreds of images packed into a little more than 600 pages. The reproduction is excellent and so many of these photographs are gems.

As a photographer, I never stop looking at others work. It is always instructive to see what your contemporaries are doing, whether the work moves you or not. To be able to see a compendium of work spanning eight decades is an absolute gift. Work from Margaret Bourke-White to Joe McNally is presented in alphabetical order with commentary and background on each photographer. Now the title says, the GREAT Life photographers – implying that there are some that have not been included. The group that is included begs the question, “Are they all equally 'Great'?” Maybe so, maybe not. But the least of them are very, very good.

In order to decide where these photographers fall on an imaginary “greatness” scale you will end up comparing the likes of Phillipe Halsman, Robert Capa, and David Douglas Duncan, to Robert Kelly, Ralph Morse, and Hansel Mieth. They have different styles and different motivations and their subjects differ widely. Can you compare combat photography with “slice of life” Americana? Can you sort out what makes a photo great in one genre as compared to another? A difficult task. And maybe an unnecessary one.

Maybe the best course of action is just to enjoy the book. Over and over again. I have it sitting on our dining room table and each morning, over breakfast, I peruse it again. Personally, I cannot get enough of these images. Some are iconic. Some bring back moments in time that personify a culture or a cultural phenomenon. Some bring to life celebrities who have long passed from the scene or those that remain young and vibrant only in our memories. You can see a very young Mohammed Ali; the painter Jackson Polack at work in his studio; or the Beetles lounging in a hotel pool early in their careers. Combat photos of Duncan and Capa vie with the whimsical “jumping” series of Phillipe Halsman that included Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and Marilyn Monroe.

The Life photographers captured most of the twentieth century on film. All of the momentous events from the '30s on are displayed in this book. I am part of the first year of the baby boomer generation. I was born in December of 1946. My father was in the advertising business (an original Mad Man) and subscribed to all the mainstream magazines. Life, of course, was among them and was my favorite. I think that my love for B&W photography sprang from between the covers of that magazine. There are many images in the book that I remember seeing when they were published in the '50s and '60s. The America in which I grew up is there as well. For those readers that are younger, I can recommend this as a first-hand, visual history of our country and the world. It is a great book to have and one that you will keep for a long time. 

 

Whenever I am out shooting the Life images are always in the back of my mind.