Lenka S. reviewed First Seen: Portraits of the World's Peoples, 1840-1870 on + 825 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
It says 'the world's peoples' but in fact it should be called 'People of Middle East, Africa, Asia and The Native Indians of America' There are only few photos that represent the rest of the world at large: 2 Jews, 2 Cossacks, 2 Mexicans, 1 Spanish person, and few others, and the photographs are randomly mixed in with the rest.
By randomly mixed I mean the pictures may be chronologically organized but it takes away from the experience when you have a group of Cossacks with a dead tiger right next to a geisha (front/back) who gazes at the celling, in the general direction of an Indian maharaja, followed by 2 faceless bundles identified as 2 women, with a praying Tatar man close up, staring at a family of hairy people. Honestly no self respecting artist (photographer) would mix apples and oranges. The photos should have been organized by kind, region, or nationality.
I must also say that the lack of diversity was an enormous disappointment. For example, I saw no Kurdish people, no Slavic people or costumes (Russian wedding is a specially beautiful) I saw no Hungarians, no traveling gypsies, no Irish and their horses, no nuns, no farmers, no soldiers, no sailors, no... Well you get the picture. It is hard to believe that we are to think that there were no interesting photographs taken by the photographers of their own native surroundings.
My other issue with this book is the unidentified pictures (90%). When you name a photograph a 'sitting woman' giving the name of the photographer BUT without at least naming the approximate region or country where the photo was taken or who might be its subject (example how it SHOULD be identified: sitting woman - possibly native Mexican - taken in Mexico City - author....). The nameless person is a ghost of ghost customs, ghost heritage, ghost life, she does NOT tell us any story of her self, her life, her people, she becomes a space filler for some publishing house solely for profit. And I do not like to think that the pictures which were to remind us of other times and other lifestyles should be reduced to that.
And lastly, please note that the photos were not remastered or in any way corrected. Their quality (in comparison to others from that period) is poor on most, average on some. For a coffee table book this can be a major problem (a specially in low light) as not all photos are clearly legible.
Also there are very few 'stunners' such as the one on the cover. And though I absolutely love about 8 of the photos, I wish I did not get this book.
By randomly mixed I mean the pictures may be chronologically organized but it takes away from the experience when you have a group of Cossacks with a dead tiger right next to a geisha (front/back) who gazes at the celling, in the general direction of an Indian maharaja, followed by 2 faceless bundles identified as 2 women, with a praying Tatar man close up, staring at a family of hairy people. Honestly no self respecting artist (photographer) would mix apples and oranges. The photos should have been organized by kind, region, or nationality.
I must also say that the lack of diversity was an enormous disappointment. For example, I saw no Kurdish people, no Slavic people or costumes (Russian wedding is a specially beautiful) I saw no Hungarians, no traveling gypsies, no Irish and their horses, no nuns, no farmers, no soldiers, no sailors, no... Well you get the picture. It is hard to believe that we are to think that there were no interesting photographs taken by the photographers of their own native surroundings.
My other issue with this book is the unidentified pictures (90%). When you name a photograph a 'sitting woman' giving the name of the photographer BUT without at least naming the approximate region or country where the photo was taken or who might be its subject (example how it SHOULD be identified: sitting woman - possibly native Mexican - taken in Mexico City - author....). The nameless person is a ghost of ghost customs, ghost heritage, ghost life, she does NOT tell us any story of her self, her life, her people, she becomes a space filler for some publishing house solely for profit. And I do not like to think that the pictures which were to remind us of other times and other lifestyles should be reduced to that.
And lastly, please note that the photos were not remastered or in any way corrected. Their quality (in comparison to others from that period) is poor on most, average on some. For a coffee table book this can be a major problem (a specially in low light) as not all photos are clearly legible.
Also there are very few 'stunners' such as the one on the cover. And though I absolutely love about 8 of the photos, I wish I did not get this book.
