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In Focus: National Geographic Greatest Portraits
by Authors:
National Geographic
Hardcover Description:
Through the years, National Geographic magazine's staff photographers have often elevated stock depictions of "exotic" cultures into haunting glimpses of other lives. In Focus: National Geographic Greatest Portraits presents a century of captivating images of ordinary people from around the world--280 photographs of pleasure, grief, stoicism, shyness and sheer endurance. In thoughtful essays, five photographers frankly assess changing notions of authenticity and discuss their own methods of capturing a stranger's personality on the run. In the beginning, the magazine showed people stiffly posed in their native costumes, viewed as anthropological specimens. Advances in camera technology created a greater degree of intimacy and spontaneity. Then came color film, which ushered in an era dominated by corny themes and perkily posed subjects in brightly hued clothing. The 1970s marked a new honesty in portraiture, a willingness to go beyond the superficial to investigate the small moments that make up daily life everywhere. In Focus draws upon the magazine's complete archives to raise intriguing questions about how editorial choices help define our understanding of the world. For example, in 1981, National Geographic published Sam Abell's elegiac portrait of Rosa--the last of the Yahgan Indians of Terra del Fuego--wreathed in atmospheric smoke against a dark background, in the stately tradition of Edward S. Curtis. We also see one of Abell's unpublished photos of Rosa in her modest home, grimacing as she stands in the blue light of her TV, next to a poster commemorating the restoration of Chile's constitution in 1980. The gallery of portraits in this splendid book includes many memorable faces, from the unnerving grin of the Wodaabe tribesman in Niger (who wears colorful makeup as part of a courtship ritual) to the sunny self-possession of a child in Murmansk who holds up four tiny fingers to indicate her age. Beautiful women abound--they have helped sell the magazine from its earliest days. As the decades go by, people everywhere seem more at ease being photographed. But they remain as fascinating as ever, perhaps because we'll never know what they were thinking when the shutter clicked. —Cathy Curtis
Average Customer Rating:
Be inspired by the best of the pros
This is truly one of the great books of people pictures, a treasure chest of images truly deserving the self-imposed subtitle of "greatest portraits".
Trust me on this. Having spent almost 40 years in the news business as a reporter, photographer and editor, I have some experience in recognizing good pictures and hiring people who can produce good pictures. By any standard, these are great pictures.
A "great picture" hinges on an intangible called the moment of peak action. Let me explain that by referring to a photo not in this book; the angry defiant look of Sir Winston Churchill in the portrait by Yousouf Karsh of Ottawa, Canada. Churchill was angry because Karsh had just taken away his cigar, which Churchill had just lit of relax after a speech to the Canadian parliament. It's probably the most famous portrait ever of Churchill.
Had I taken that picture, instead of the angry portrait I'd have waited and asked Churchill to "smile". As everyone knows, it would have been a lousy picture of a great man. Karsh had the genius to recognize the precise moment of peak action; likewise, in picture after picture in this book, I saw the same superb talent in capturing the most evocative expression of the subjects. This is the heart of great photography; I think I can recognize it, just as an art critic can recognize a great painting without being able to do it.
Photography is the most accessible of the arts; every parent wants "great" pictures of their children, every lover wants "great" pictures of their beloved, every tourist wants that memorable vacation memory. This book is a superb course in what great pictures look like; it's not just a museum of the finest, it's also a teaching example of "here's what a good picture is like" for anyone who takes pictures. This quality can inspire your quality.
If we are to learn, we might as well learn from the best whenever possible; if we are to enjoy great art, we might as well have the best. This book is an example of both; the price is incredible for such a treasure trove. It's awesome.
Buy it; it'll improve your pictures, and your life.
Disappointingly average and too politically correct
Considering the millions of images created by National Geographic over the decades, this collection of portraits of "ordinary people" is disappointing. The images are defintiely not the most striking. The commentaries by photographers and editorial comments do no justice to the collection. The political correctness is overwhelming and entirely unnecessary. For example, the admission "[e]ntire tableaux were arranged to illustrate imagined lives in popular Geographic stories about American cities and states and exotic foreign metropolises and villages." No kidding? That's real news - especially when followed by "[i]ronically, the arrange of elaborate scenes for the sake of photography has become very fashionable these days."
Huh? What's the point?
Many of the photos are indeed transcendant, but the majority are mundane. Overall, a disappointing collection.
Jerry
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DVD's
Be inspired by the best of the pros 
Disappointingly average and too politically correct 
