The Tumultuous Fifties: A View from the New York Times Photo Archives

A fascinating collection of two hundred large, one to a page, photos capturing the fifties. The photos are divided into five sections and each picture has a caption and credit taken from the back of the print. Page sixteen shows the back of a photo from 1953 taken in Berlin and it is a mess of crossed out picture sizes, pasted on captions, five in all, and rubber stamps, this photo has been used at least six times over the years. I was pleased to see that most of these photos can be viewed not just as historical news images but as well crafted compositions. So many photos that we see on a daily basis (especially in the media) are purely for the moment and lack any real creative input but the ones in this book encourage you to linger and think about what the photos are saying. Apart from the two hundred pictures there are three essays, Douglas Dreishpoon's on the background to the Times Picture Desk is particularly interesting, a twenty-one page time-line to the fifties, bibliography and index. The elegant layout and excellent printing make this book a good addition to the library of anyone interested in the recent past. The book is published in conjunction with an exhibition of the photos that is travelling around the Nation between now and 2004 Another book of photos from the paper is 'Pictures of the Times' by Peter Galassi and Susan Kismaric, this has 154 photos covering the last century and is equally as good as 'The Tumultuous Fifties'. Both books rightly conclude that The New York Times is the world's premier daily. ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.