1001 Photographs: You Must See Before You Die Paperback – 7 Sept. 2017

Really impressed by this book. It has one of those titles that begs comparison with audio collections like ‘Now that’s what I call Music’ but is, in fact, a true History book. At first I was just determined to turn every page and look at the pictures (the word ‘photograph’ is preferred to ‘image’) but found myself unfurling the twentieth century in my hands. Poverty. Wealth. War. Ignorance.Many photographs are unknown photographers but I also got a taste of names I’d seen but not experienced, Man Ray one example. The text by each photograph is far more than desultory. The photographs sometimes are documents of real events and sometimes made by the photographer, a deliberate construction like mine uploaded.Plenty to inspire me, yes, but as a narrative of these image-ridden times I would suggest 1001 Photographs You Must See Before You Die is a book second to none.I saw a copy on Waterstones bookshelf but it looked well-leafed. I got mine Amazon Warehouse ‘Like New’ for fifteen quid. Spot one if you can.

Good information from this I like the style of how the information is presented.

Whilst this is a very interesting book, in terms of the 1001 photographs I was a bit disappointed to find that very few are full page and most are at best 1/3 or 1/2 page and many are even smaller. That said the arrangement in chronological order does make for very interesting discoveries. And, of course a book of full page photograph reproductions would be far more expensive than this book! So this is not the book for closely studying photographs but one rather to enjoy exploring the history of photography with a good sample of important photographs.

Good selection of photographs with good accompanying text description.

It's a bit of a tome. Very thick as you'd expect with 1,000 images in it. Great descriptions.

THE PHOTOSI thought the selection was excellent, from Joseph Niepce 1826 shot to Bryan Smith's 2015 color photo of the Empire State Building. The book's scope is broad, too, with portraits. documentary, news, war, still life, art, photojournalism, fashion, sport, nature in fact any kind of photography that involves some creative input by the photographer rather than photos for the record like first past the post horseracing or police mug shots.The photos are obviously arranged historically, pages 20 to 363 have photos before 1945 and 364 to 945 photos up to 2015. The pictures, obviously reflecting the author's selection, had some omissions, in my view. Nothing from Stephen Shore, David Bailey, Diane Arbus, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton or Annie Leibovitz. On the other hand, there are plenty of photographers I've never heard of so their work is a voyage of discovery for me.THE BOOKThe before you die numbers book is a standard for general publishers: 1000 record covers, 200 places to visit, 1001 books to read et cetera. They all require images but one about photos is different because it's the image that counts. To put 1001 photos, one to a page, in a brick of a book (960 paperback pages, printed with a 175 screen on a matt art paper) doesn't seem the best way to reveal artistic intent. So many of them are not much bigger than postcards or largish thumbnails. To a certain extent, this is because there is too much background copy about the photos.The book's front pages have an unusual index listing titles, is a reader really going to look for Congo Free State page 154, or Polar panorama page 842? The back pages are more useful with a glossary and photographer index (though regrettably in tiny type).'1001 photographs' is a sort of history of the subject and a better title could be Juliet Hacking's 'Photography: the whole story' published in 2012 (ISBN 978-3791347349). You can look inside the book at Westread Book Reviews then click 2023 and April.

If you love photos from all eras this is a book for you. Each one stands on its own merits (some you will love some you will not) as the book cateers for all tastes. Quality is very good all round

For the 1001 series, about 5 have been traslated to Chinese and published, it is useful to a Chinese like me to get more understanding to Westen culture