Things As They Are

From Publishers Weekly

When the World Press Photo organization wanted to issue a commemorative volume that would dynamically trace developments in the last half-century of photojournalism, they had a very good idea: instead of presenting just a selection of memorable images, they would also reproduce the context—the actual pages of newspapers and magazines—in which the images first appeared. The result is a resounding technical success; the volume is big enough to clearly reproduce a variety of formats while remaining comfortable to look through. The book is also exceptionally well edited, with spare but helpful texts, an intelligent mix of the familiar (Salgado's 1987 series of Brazilian miners for the London Sunday Times) and fairly obscure (Donna Ferrato's powerful Philadelphia Inquirer series on domestic violence from the same year). Serious topics rub shoulders with comparatively lighthearted but era-defining sequences, like Helmut Newton's 1979 shoot in Berlin for the German edition of Vogue and Martin Parr's "Sun Kitsch" spread for W in 1997. The original layouts are highly evocative in themselves, and the reduced format intensifies their graphic power. This book is compulsive reading for anyone interested in how photographers have witnessed history and how their images have entered it. (Mar.)
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Review

"Throughout Things As They are, we are reminded of a lesson that hasn't changed, even in an era when the most naïve Internet or camera-phone snapshot can pass for journalism (the Tsunami, Abu Ghraib): the power of photographs is still the intimate cohort of applied arts like typography, pacing, cropping (or not cropping); in short, the partner of a mix of skill sets that goes well beyond those that create an image in the first place." -- Jim Cornfield --Rangefinder
"Taking the reader from the golden era of the illustrated press to the explosion of digital media in the 21st century, Things as They Are traces how photojournalism has developed over time and how the events of the world, the art of photographers, and the interests of publishers and the press converged on the printed page." -- Lindsay E. Dygert --Focus: Fine Art Photography Magazine
"'Things As They Are'... surveys the quest to chronicle world events without altering the situation on the other side of the lens. But rather than single images -- the usual 'best of photojournalism' approach -- the book is made up of 120 photo essays published in the second half of the 20th century. The essays appear as they did in the original magazine and newspaper layouts, giving a fuller historic record of how the photographs, along with the texts, shaped our view of the world." -- Philip Gefter --The New York Times
"Things as They Are is not a book designed to make its owner feel comfortable. It exists to provoke--and make one appreciate the rare photographers and even rarer publications still loyal to that mission." -- Jason Gay --GQ
"...by including magazine work by Avedon, Weber, Diane Arbus, Helmut Newton, Daido Moriyama, Wolfgang Tillmans, Martin Parr, and others, the editors expand the focus and underline the importance of magazines as showcases and repositories of that collective memory." -- Vince Aletti --Photograph
"The talent, variety and dedication displayed by the photographers are breathtaking, and the dash and daring of the editors and designers are inspiring. One can't help wondering if we'll ever see a mass audience arise again with enough in common to support such a creative outburst." -- Phil Harris -- Photo-Eye Magazine
"Good photojournalism allows for integrated understanding. We need these graphic examples of human suffering (and joy) to deal honestly with social questions. We cannot afford to lose the truths so eloquently stated and shown in 'Things as They Are.'" -- John Huddleston --The Chicago Tribune --This text refers to the Paperback edition.