Book review: photo journalism down the years

Hans-Michael Koetzle - Photo Icons - The Story behind the Pictures 1827-1991, Taschen: Koln, 2005, 5.99 pounds.

Malavika Karlekar  

Richard Petersen: View from the Dresden City Hall

By the 1860s, photography was regarded as the touchstone of progress, the symbol of truthful representation, recording not only the status quo but also changes in life styles and occupations. It was not surprising that in the decades that followed Nicephore Niepce¿s experiments and Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre¿s invention of the daguerreotype in 1839, photographic developments were meticulously recorded, problems discussed and innovations shared by professionals and amateurs alike. Though the term photojournalism came to be used only in the 1950s, from the early decades of the 20^th century, photographs had started accompanying stories in the popular media - that may or may not have been written by the photographer. Earlier, the new genre of the illustrated magazine - The Illustrated London News (1842), the first fully pictorial weekly and The Graphic published in the U.S., being among the best-known - carried sketches and engravings from different parts of the Empire. Often these lithographs were based on daguerreotypes, as printing techniques were not as yet sufficiently developed to efficiently reproduce the photographs.

It is to this world that we are introduced in this collection of what can best be described as photo essays by Munich-based Hans-Michael Koetzle, editor-in-chief of the international magazine Leica World and freelance writer with a passion for photography. Koetzle takes us on an enriching visual journey where he showcases the work of 36 western photographers over the last century and a half. His informed text (alas, without any information on sources!) provides us with glimpses of western history - adding a vital visual element to well-known events - the death of Bismarck, failure of the Paris  Commune, the Spanish civil war, the enigma of Che Guevara, last photographs of Marilyn Monroe, the Andy Warhol phenomenon and so on.

Though one misses  Ansel Adams and women like the pioneer, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Margaret Bourke-White who photographed Mahatma Gandhi¿s funeral, several of  Koetzle¿s vignettes provide deep insights into how the photograph enhances reportage.  Though he has woven his essays around well-known names such as Alfred Stieglitz, Lewis Hine, Paul Strand, Man Ray, Rene Burri, Sebastiao Silgado and many others, in this review, the focus is on those photographers whose visuals complimented the corpus of `hard news¿.  Excellent reproductions of selected photographs - often in a double page spread - helps in the `reading¿ of these visuals.

Interestingly, a number of early photographs discussed in the book were studio portraits - and it is only later that they became part of the public domain, used in discussions and analyses. For instance, from 1851 onwards, the French photographer Nadar (Gaspard-Felix Tournachon) was making portraits of `famous contemporaries¿ such as the composer Rossini, litterateur Baudelaire and artist Delacroix. He also photographed the actress Sarah Bernhardt and it is on his portraits of her that Koetzle concentrates, concluding that once she had become a legend, ?she was no longer of interest to the photographer¿. But many years later, in 1931, she re-surfaced in the pages of a glossy magazine, VU,  the article and accompanying visuals a commendable early experiment in photojournalism.

However, the true metier of the photojournalist are the fields of war, disasters, adventure and politics. And in the few essays that deal with photographers who used their skills to embellish the written word around such stories, Koetzle excels. Using the early photographs of Andre Adolphe Eugene Disderi to answer the question whether the Paris Commune of 1871 ?was merely an outburst of chaos and anarchy, or. . . the first proletarian revolution? (p. 72), the author analyses the shocking photograph of 12 men, anonymous members of the Commune who had been shot by the regular troops. The bodies carry numbers, not names, exhibiting ?the power of the living over the dead who can no longer remove themselves from such degrading exhibition and classification? (p. 73). Why did Disderi - often credited with having invented the carte-de-visite (visiting card size) of portrait - and a shrewd businessman, photograph these corpses? Koetzle concludes that it is possible that Disderi may not have been the photographer - and that the visual had merely been developed in his Paris studio. In fact, photographs of that phase of French history were taken by those committed to the uprising - and there is no information on whether Disderi was a supporter. Here, the commercial aspect enters the political arena, the visual becoming a part of the underground, disseminating information instantly.

In `Robert Capa, Spanish Loyalist¿, Koetzle analyses visuals of the dying Republican soldier - and the controversy surrounding it: while it was accepted that the visual got  ?its power precisely from its generalization of death? (p. 180), a poignant symbol of the Spanish civil war, critics seriously considered whether it was authentic: how could a man hit by a bullet fall backwards when he is rushing down an incline? And where was Capa positioned? Before the soldier obviously - but that appeared to be an impossibility. By this time, public debate was conceivable as by the mid-1930s, the illustrated news magazine had arrived. Apart from Life -  which had published the photograph in a large format, Vu as well as the Communist magazine, Regards, carried it along with a discussion of the war. The mystery over the photograph could not be solved by recourse to negatives as these were lost; it was Capa¿s words that finally settled it.  Both the soldier and Capa had been left behind by the troops, and the young man was anxious to get back to his lines. His impatience caused him to be foolhardy - and Capa was at his side as he keeled over. ?Later, he [Capa] discovered that he had taken one of the finest shots of the civil war? (from World Telegram quoted on p. 186).

The buzzwords - albeit of yesteryear - `feminisation of poverty¿ would find an echo in Dorothea Lange series on a female migrant worker and her children during USA¿s `bitter years¿ following 1929. The Great Depression found a face in Florence Thompson and her hungry brood, homeless and jobless as the pea harvest had failed.  Florence apparently agreed to be `shot¿, assured by the photographer that in doing so she would be able to raise some funds for her.  On March 6, 1936, two versions from the series were published in the San Francisco News - and the Federal government arranged for food to be sent to the region. As late as 1983, Florence Thompson re-entered the public domain as her photograph was used once again to raise money for her, now afflicted with cancer. At the same time, at some stage, one of the daughters in the photograph had made a futile attempt to stop publication of the visuals. Obviously, adulthood and awareness brought a different consciousness to the erstwhile helpless infant. Unfortunately, Koetzle doe not tell us more about the case that would surely have found a resonance today when the issue of copyright, ownership over `the truth¿ and so on is so alive.

For those who have lived through the Parisian barricades, Danny the Red, Naxalbari and embattled universities, Swiss photographer Rene Burri¿s portfolio of Che Guevara four year before he was hunted down in the Bolivian jungles are powerfully evocative. Che smokes his Havana as he mesmerises - and Burri clicks. Portraits accompany what was to be his last interview to be published in Look magazine of April 9, 1963, the reporter being the persuasive Laura Bergquist.  At the back is a Venetian blind, leading Burri to describe Che as a caged animal, the slats resembling those of an enclosure.

But would we have known all this about the atmosphere of the interview, of the charisma of the man, without the photographs? Would we have realised what Dresden looked after the fire-bombing of the city in 1945? Carcasses of buildings stretch for miles - homes, churches, schools (it is estimated that more than 30,000 persons died) - brought home by Richard Peter sen¿s spine-chilling photographs.  To say nothing of the young African stealing the ceremonial dagger from Belgian King Baudouin car as he stands to take the salute in Leopoldville. The occasion: handing over power in the Belgian Congo - and what could be more expressive than the theft of the monarch¿s symbol of power! Hans-Michael Koetzle¿s book is worth every penny - and very reasonably priced to celebrate Taschen¿s quarter century. The only caveat one would add is that the absence of a bibliography and indeed, in some cases information on where the photographers published their photographs, detract from the overall value of the book as a resource for more research.

Contact:karlekars@vsnl.com