150 Years of Photo Journalism (150 Years of Photo Journalism)

Rating:
Summary: Armchair Time Travel
Review: If you are a lover of things past; if the thought of walking into Marie Curie's laboratory and coming face-to-face with the scientist herself makes the hair on your forearms stand up; if seeing the Eiffel Tower only one-third completed thrills you in ways hard to explain--then you cannot, must not, pass on this book.

From my first glimpse of its intimate portrait of Queen Victoria on the cover, I was utterly mesmerized. Whether the photographs catch the famous, the infamous, or the never-to-be-known child in the street, you will be transported instantly to other times, other places. Some pictures will enchant you, while some, of war and its destructive madmen, will send ripples of horror down your spine.

The text (in English, French and German) takes a secondary role here to the photos but provides some interesting historical tidbits (e.g., Edward VII was laced into a metal corset for his coronation).

Best of all, the photographs, all from the Hulton Getty Picture Collection in London, are new to most of us.

May I suggest that the video "Shooting the Past" by Stephen Poliakoff would be a first-rate accompaniment to "150 Years of Photo Journalism," either for yourself or someone who yearns for "le temps perdu" (the times that are lost to us).