On Home Ground by Denis Thorpe
I have always admired Denis Thorpe, especially since, as a staff photographer for ‘The Guardian’, he photographed the house of artist L. S. Lowry after he died, but just before they removed his belongings and furniture (the furniture van waited outside!). When I started organising the programme for Chester Photographic Society, he was one of the first on my list of speakers to book, and after giving us a most interesting presentation he kindly autographed a copy of this book for me!
Vietnam Inc. by Philip Jones Griffiths
First published in 1971, Vietnam Inc. played a crucial part in changing public attitudes in the United States, turning the tide of opinion and ultimately helping to put an end to the Vietnam War. Philip Jones Griffiths’ classic account of the war was the outcome of three years of intensive reporting and is one of the most detailed surveys of any conflict in twentieth-century history. I took my first edition copy to a RPS Lancaster Big Day a few years ago when PJ-G was due to speak. A signed 1st Ed. is now worth £1000s! Unfortunately he didn’t show up and he died in 2008.
World Exhibition of Photography
Following The Family of Man by 10 years, the 1965 Weltausstellung der Fotografie (World Exhibition of Photography) was based on an idea by Karl Pawek and, supported by the German magazine he edited, Stern, toured the world. It presented 555 photographs by 264 authors from 30 countries, outweighing the numbers in Steichen’s exhibition. In the preface to the catalogue entitled “Die humane Kamera” (‘The human Camera’), Heinrich Boll wrote:
“There are moments in which the meaning of a landscape and its breath become felt in a photograph. The portrayed person becomes familiar or a historical moment happens in front of the lens; a child in uniform, women who search the battlefield for their dead. They are moments in which crying is more than private as it becomes the crying of mankind. Secrets are not revealed, the secret about human existence becomes visible.”
I visited this exhibition in Liverpool and purchased this book there.
The Last Resort by Martin Parr
This ground breaking book put Martin Parr, as a photographer, on the map. Previously, documentary photography had always been in Black & White. The pictures were taken in New Brighton on the Wirral, where I myself lived in the early 1950s.
According to AnOther:
“In fact, what Parr captured was working class reality; there is nothing innately simple or conformist about his characters, they are just portrayed as is. It was the truth of their lives that seemed to shock the capital’s art scene, more accustomed to the established divisions that eighties Conservatism bred. “The thing about shooting in colour is that you see in colour,” said Parr. “Plus, I used flash, which adds a surreal touch and somehow that makes it more real. It is hyper real, in a sense.” And this true aesthetic of observation, precisely captured over three consecutive summers, shocked those familiar with a more glitzy, consumerist understanding of holidays; the chip-shop wrappers and cigarettes dangling from mouths at the rundown resorts seemingly at odds with what a holiday ought be. But, in the series, there is a warmth and an honesty that was scarcely applied to the lives the working classes of the time (which were, generally, completely ignored by the art world – and even more so by politics): they are a snapshot of the way things were, and their honesty and familiarity has sustained their impact and relevance into the present day”.