Kiosk. a History of Photojournalism Book

Life, Look, Picture Post, Quick and Kristall--once upon a time, you could buy them at the kiosk around the corner, and they were the most accessible, exciting, up-to-date form of news available. Nowadays they are an anachronism, replaced by the mass media of television, newspapers and the internet. But photojournalism has existed for the last 150 years, and photojournalists have spent that time on the front lines, not only in times of war but in times of peace, recording the important events of contemporary history alongside the situations of everyday life, condensing the essential of a story in just a few pages of pictures. Kiosk reprints original newspaper pages produced between 1839 and 1973, from nineteenth-century illustrations of new railway stations to legendary photo series taken in Vietnam, from Roger Fenton to Robert Capa, from the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung to USSR in Construction, from Collier's Weekly to AIZ to Vu.

Library Journal

Von Dewitz, director of the Agfa Foto-Historama of Museum Ludwig Cologne, and Lebeck, a longtime photojournalist and collector, focus here on the history of photojournalism in illustrated news magazines. This book consists mainly of reproductions of news reports with very concise, chronological essays printed in parallel German and English text. Most of this work deals with 20th-century press photography up to 1973, with considerable attention to war pictures; but there are also chapters on 19th-century photo-reproduction techniques, including woodcut and early halftone processes. Kiosk is unique because it includes many important examples from popular German serials such as Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung and Die Woche. While the choices of illustrations are generally successful enough to minimize the need for lengthy essays, the reader may want to search for more historical background on the magazines included. It should be noted that German is the primary language of this book and that the bibliography and a section including biographical sketches of photographers are provided only in German. Thus, this is recommended for academic libraries and specialized art collections. Eric Linderman, East Cleveland P.L., OH Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.