The History of Photography: As Seen Through the Spira Collection

Rating:
Summary: The best photograpgraphic history book of 2001
Review: Fred Spira was born in Vienna in 1924 and came to the UK for the first time in 1939 as part of the Kindertransport staying in Doncaster before re-joining his family in the USA. He founded Spiratone which was instrumental in opening up the United States market to Japanese photographic products and had a high reputation amongst photographers at the time and is still remembered with a great deal of affection.
The Spira collection, unlike many collections, was put together with a great deal of thought to tell the story of the history of photography through photographic technology and each piece in it was important - all 20,000 or so. Although large in terms of the number of pieces non was superfluous to the overall theme and there was no element of gathering, for example, every Leica variant. If there were variants of the same camera then they were there for a good reason. The collection ranged from pre-photography and pre-cinema items, the history of the camera, the photographic image, the moving image and associated contemporary material such as engravings, cartoons printed material and ephemera.
This book is organised in a similar way starting with photography's precursors, the early years, daguerreotypy, wet-collodion, dry plates, stereo, rollfilm, prints and processes, 35mm, colour, the moving image, photography and humour and finally on to the digital camera. Each chapter provides a written survey of the theme and illustrates cameras, equipment and images. Throughout the book some themes are explored in greater detail across a whole page. As one would expect there are many rarities shown but also humbler cameras that are important from a technical point of view.
It is difficult to pick a favourite chapter. Two that stand out for me are those dealing with the daguerreotype and the digital camera. The former exemplifies what the whole book is about. The text surveys the development and importance of the process, there are illustrated profiles of the processing apparatus and various daguerreian cameras, and features on, for example, how daguerreotypes were coloured. Alongside these are reproductions of many superb daguerreotype images and daguerreotype display cases, broadsides and lithographs showing daguerreotypists, that give a wider context to the overall theme. The final chapter on filmless (digital) cameras, for the first time anywhere, looks at the history and development to date of the digital camera. Cameras and packaging are illustrated and there is a useful timeline. The inclusion of this chapter brings the Spira collection up to date and shows a perceptive acquisition policy.
There has been no comparable book dealing with the history of photography in this way by looking at the close interaction and relationship between photographic technology and images. The writing is excellent and the colour images do justice to the objects from the Spira collection and to the overall themes within the book.
This book cannot be recommended highly enough. It pays tribute to the Spira collection and at the same time makes a worthwhile contribution to the history of photography. Todd Gustavson, Technology Curator at George Eastman House describes the book as 'one of the most important photo-history books of the last quarter century'. I would not disagree.
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