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Rating: 
Summary: A special piece of history
Review: Dream Street will not win you over with its elegant aesthetics or even with "decisive moments," as might the work of other famous photographers. This is more like the kind of photography that Robert Penn Warren or Edgar Lee Masters might have created if they took pictures. Smith is a humanist whose pictures reveal the fabric of the lives of everyday people. My favorite pictures include the grimacing zoning commissioners and the hopeful faces of young veterans. Smith complements his photographs of people with compelling landscapes that show how people and machines interacted in this unique industrial ecosystem.
The pictures come with a text that explains the unusual story behind the creation of this essay. Like a few other geniuses, Smith was not adept at meeting the demands of his mortal peers. The original impetus for this work came from Life Magazine, who asked for a short term assignment about the region. Smith missed his deadline and ended up staying on to make pictures for several years! A set of galley layouts reveal the way that Smith conceptualized the important parts of his work, from sections such as "money and commerce" to "alone in the city." The text explains how his vision was compromised by the format of magazines. Even when more than 80 images were finally published with Smith's edit in Popular Photography, the photographer still viewed the result as a failure. The reader of this book will see that Smith was wrong about his efforts. Instead, this pictures make a great historical document about the life of a city.
Rating:
Summary: A special piece of history
Review: Dream Street will not win you over with its elegant aesthetics or even with "decisive moments," as might the work of other famous photographers. This is more like the kind of photography that Robert Penn Warren or Edgar Lee Masters might have created if they took pictures. Smith is a humanist whose pictures reveal the fabric of the lives of everyday people. My favorite pictures include the grimacing zoning commissioners and the hopeful faces of young veterans. Smith complements his photographs of people with compelling landscapes that show how people and machines interacted in this unique industrial ecosystem.
The pictures come with a text that explains the unusual story behind the creation of this essay. Like a few other geniuses, Smith was not adept at meeting the demands of his mortal peers. The original impetus for this work came from Life Magazine, who asked for a short term assignment about the region. Smith missed his deadline and ended up staying on to make pictures for several years! A set of galley layouts reveal the way that Smith conceptualized the important parts of his work, from sections such as "money and commerce" to "alone in the city." The text explains how his vision was compromised by the format of magazines. Even when more than 80 images were finally published with Smith's edit in Popular Photography, the photographer still viewed the result as a failure. The reader of this book will see that Smith was wrong about his efforts. Instead, this pictures make a great historical document about the life of a city.
Rating:
Summary: A special piece of history
Review: Dream Street will not win you over with its elegant aesthetics or even with "decisive moments," as might the work of other famous photographers. This is more like the kind of photography that Robert Penn Warren or Edgar Lee Masters might have created if they took pictures. Smith is a humanist whose pictures reveal the fabric of the lives of everyday people. My favorite pictures include the grimacing zoning commissioners and the hopeful faces of young veterans. Smith complements his photographs of people with compelling landscapes that show how people and machines interacted in this unique industrial ecosystem.
The pictures come with a text that explains the unusual story behind the creation of this essay. Like a few other geniuses, Smith was not adept at meeting the demands of his mortal peers. The original impetus for this work came from Life Magazine, who asked for a short term assignment about the region. Smith missed his deadline and ended up staying on to make pictures for several years! A set of galley layouts reveal the way that Smith conceptualized the important parts of his work, from sections such as "money and commerce" to "alone in the city." The text explains how his vision was compromised by the format of magazines. Even when more than 80 images were finally published with Smith's edit in Popular Photography, the photographer still viewed the result as a failure. The reader of this book will see that Smith was wrong about his efforts. Instead, this pictures make a great historical document about the life of a city.
Rating:
Summary: Artistry of the Camera: A City in Transition
Review: Pittsburgh -- the smoky city at the end of an era -- Snap shots frozen in time through a sensitive and interpretative lens.Smith's book provides a true insight into the people, business and architecture of the Pittsburgh of the late Fifties. These were the days when Mayor Davey Lawrence was setting about to destroy and forget the old, ushering in the new. Steel was still king with its blast furnaces spewing smoke. Street cars still rumbled through city streets. For the reader interested in the nostalgia of the times, for those seeking the artistry of the lens, for the serious student of metropolitan evolution this book is a must read!
Rating:
Summary: Astounding
Review: Simply astounding. As a former Pittsburgher I was familiar with the locations of Smith's photos and with much of the genre of Pittsburgh related documentary photography. (Smith was doing this work in PGH when my father was an undergrad at Pitt, so it is also nice to get another look at that era). But, you should not own this book for sentimental reasons. You should own it because it is simply some astonishingly vivid B&W photography. (See also Robert Frank's The Americans. These folks were utterly in charge of their craft and working all on their own.) An amazing rush to look at, Smith's photos make you to get out your camera bag and get to work. It totally reenergized my own B&W work.
Rating:
Summary: Astounding
Review: Simply astounding. As a former Pittsburgher I was familiar with the locations of Smith's photos and with much of the genre of Pittsburgh related documentary photography. (Smith was doing this work in PGH when my father was an undergrad at Pitt, so it is also nice to get another look at that era). But, you should not own this book for sentimental reasons. You should own it because it is simply some astonishingly vivid B&W photography. (See also Robert Frank's The Americans. These folks were utterly in charge of their craft and working all on their own.) An amazing rush to look at, Smith's photos make you to get out your camera bag and get to work. It totally reenergized my own B&W work.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, especially if you can't see the gallery
Review: The Pittsburgh project gallery (shown in Pgh and other cities this year) is a fantastic display of nearly 200 prints that comprise one of the most important works of a great photographer. While reproductions hardly do justice to most fine prints, I recommend this book as a companion to the show, as well as a way to view the work if you are not able to see the gallery at one of the few cities in which it appears. I grew up in Pittsburgh, though long after these shots were taken. It is a spectacular look at mid-century Pittsburgh, and mid-century America.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful, especially if you can't see the gallery
Review: This collection of photograph shows what Pittsburgh was like while the steel mills functioned there. But the images capture all facets of life in Pittsburgh during this era, not just life in the mills. For example, you will see a couple playing shuffleboard at the Fox Chapel Country Club and contrast that with street scenes of poor neighborhoods. You'll see the fine old Mellon Bank building in dowtown Pittsburgh and the Duquesne Club nearby. The pictures of men laboring near the furnaces of Pittsburgh's steel mills portray the lives these men led in contrast. I also enjoyed the pictures of Forbes Field and its envrions, the former home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The book includes a wonderful picture of "Home Plate Cafe" and the home of the "Original Kolbassi Sandwich." The pictures are beautifully reproduced. The book is reasonably priced consudering the quality of what you get. The photography is superb. If you know Pittsburgh, it is a trip down memory lane. If you don't know what Pittsburgh was then like, this book will show you.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Portrayal of Pittsburgh in its "Steel City" Era
Review: This collection of photograph shows what Pittsburgh was like while the steel mills functioned there. But the images capture all facets of life in Pittsburgh during this era, not just life in the mills. For example, you will see a couple playing shuffleboard at the Fox Chapel Country Club and contrast that with street scenes of poor neighborhoods. You'll see the fine old Mellon Bank building in dowtown Pittsburgh and the Duquesne Club nearby. The pictures of men laboring near the furnaces of Pittsburgh's steel mills portray the lives these men led in contrast. I also enjoyed the pictures of Forbes Field and its envrions, the former home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The book includes a wonderful picture of "Home Plate Cafe" and the home of the "Original Kolbassi Sandwich." The pictures are beautifully reproduced. The book is reasonably priced consudering the quality of what you get. The photography is superb. If you know Pittsburgh, it is a trip down memory lane. If you don't know what Pittsburgh was then like, this book will show you.
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