Picture This!: The Inside Story and Classic Photos of UPI Newspictures

My husband worked for UPI Newspictures from 1961 to l981 and shared the ups and downs of UPI and Gary Haynes has captured the story of the wonderful photographers and their work who were always out numbered by the AP and were able to compete and win many stories by sheer determination. UPI Newspictures had a great planner,Charley McCarty who out thought the oposition and two fantastic photo editors Ted Majeski and Larry Desantis who could find the best images on the film they edited. This books shows some of the photos they found on the film made by the hardworking photographers who never were willing to let the AP beat them. Thanks to Gary Haynes for putting it all in this book.

Gary Haynes' book, Picture This, is as wonderful as dicovering the Mobius Strip. One carefully explores the wonderfully detailed black and white photographs and ends up (without even thinking about it) at the beginning again. Teachers of history should have this book available because it shows just what humanity found to be visually riveting. The pictures range from shots of terrible, horrific destruction to the delightfully ridiculous.

If you are as old as I, you like renewing old friends, the pictures that adorned newspapers in the days before TV. {Some even after.}The author has presented us with the best of United Press International, the best of the old news bureaus. Each picture is a masterpiece of telling visually a piece of news. From the tennis players on the wing of the flying plane to JFK in a rare hat, the shots amuse. Some of the other ones still horrify. All are interesting and the author tells a lot about many of them. Well, if Walter Cronkite does the Introduction, you know the book is a rare view of news gathering by skilled photographers. Get some copies for your children, too. You might even give some to your local school library. Great work.

As a reporter and editor at UPI (1970s), I wax nostalgic for the old service and will buy any book produced by a fellow alum. A picture book -- okay, I thought, good for the coffee table or powder room. But I was delighted when I opened the cover and poured over the hundreds of amazing photos that told a visual story of the 20th Century. Remember "Dewey Defeats Truman"? It's all here, it's more than a coffee table book. It's something my kids are already enjoying and I believe their kids will one day discover with delight. Way to go Gary!

Everyone who picks up a newspaper is used to seeing photos credited to the Associated Press (AP). Not so long ago, United Press International (UPI) photographers worked the trenches "shoulder to shoulder" with their AP rivals. UPI's rise and fall has been chronicled by other journalists, but this is the first tribute to its incredible wealth of photographic history. Although underpaid and overworked, UPI photographers and photo editors churned out remarkable visuals. In Picture This, Haynes has assembled an amazing collection of black-and-white photos that is a mere representation of the more than 11-million photos contained in archives preserved by Bill Gates' Corbis group. Like history itself, the mood of the photos range from humorous to somber to devastating to profound. This is not a volume for the faint of heart, as some of the photos stem from intense tragedy; but these images should never be forgotten. Words cannot describe what UPI--and AP--photographers have endured to record history as it happens. To that, the rest of the world owes them an everlasting debt of gratitude. Reviewed by Christina Wantz Fixemer 9/4/2006