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Amazon.co.uk Review
Elliott Erwitt may not be a name that rolls off the tongue, but many of the photographs featured in Snaps, Phaidon's delightful retrospective of his work, will be instantly recognisable. And those that aren't, often prove even more eye-catching. Born Elio Erwitz in 1928 to Russian parents, but raised in America, Erwitt was already a member of the elite Magnum photographic agency when he was in his 20s. The mortgage was paid with high-profile, big-budget colour assignments, but he always carried his hobby camera, a Leica, for his alternative canon, so to speak, of black-and-white, one-take wonders. These second sights make up Snaps, a consciously casual title that captures the essence of Erwitt's professional philosophy as perfectly as he captured his subjects, encapsulating the moment as well as the medium. Put simply, he could not take a bad picture, and this uncropped, unmanipulated collection, reactive rather than conceptual, encapsulates the deceptive simplicity of his sustained talent, from a time when photographers just--snapped.
Most famous for portraits of cute mutts and bug-eyed Chihuahuas in his bestselling Dogdogs, in skirting the sentimental, Erwitt unashamedly embraces the affirmative, yet his compositions are sympathetic and often cheekily playful; one can identify his influence on the likes of Martin Parr, for example. For Snaps, pairs are found for most pictures, to spar or smooch, often across the years or decades, with recurrent studies of juxtaposition, advertising signage, city life, fowl carcasses, children, and something of a leg fetish. Standout images include the famous Nixon/Khrushchev confrontation, stills from the Nevada set of The Misfits, Muhammad Ali mid-fall against Joe Frazier in New York in 1971, a smouldering portrait of Che Guevara, and a brilliant groupshot of Erwitt's fellow Magnum-ites, all obscuring their faces. The sheer quality of his work is also borne out by the less grand images, where he can insinuate the quietly political from the personal, whether a gesture, gait, expression, or the naked human body. In showing another side to 20th-century photography--and Magnum--beyond war reportage, Snaps presents the ridiculous, indomitable beauty of everyday life, and a brilliant career that has celebrated it. --David Vincent --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'The hallmarks of an Erwitt classic: the ability to spot an absurd juxtaposition and to record it with childlike delight... This tome shows that he hasn't lost any of the visual wit that makes one relish his pictures, while, at the same time, recognizing the melancholy that infuses any realization of the arbitrariness of existence.' (Time Out); 'Rare among photographers, Erwitt can make you laugh out loud (just turn to pages 86-87), but his scope is Tolstoyan. This 550-page retrospective will absorb you for years.' (Independent); 'An essential career-spanning retrospective that reveals Erwitt's unassuming wit, brilliant framing and deep humanity.' (New York Post)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
How does Erwitt do it? How can anyone have such a sharp, quick eye for such witty images? I wish I knew, but almost every page of this thick book will make you smile or gasp. This is a masterwork of street photography, absurdly cheap for the vast collection of images, by a photographer with more than a touch of genius. The book would be welcomed by anyone, whether they are a photographer or not.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a heavyweight book, both in terms of physical tonnage and the amount of thought that has gone into compiling it.
The book is organised into themes as most art and photography books are but this is unusual in its lack of pretension. The photographs are, as you would expect, exceptional but the way they are presented is what makes this book important.
I would recommend this book to any one who wishes to see the world slightly differently after reading it.
The book is organised into themes as most art and photography books are but this is unusual in its lack of pretension. The photographs are, as you would expect, exceptional but the way they are presented is what makes this book important.
I would recommend this book to any one who wishes to see the world slightly differently after reading it.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A tresure trove of imaginitive images, generally well presented, but it is dissapointing that the seminal images are reproduced across two pages, thereby losing the image into the gutter of the spine. Additionally the pages of text, with the white letters on green background (with no margins and stretching the whole width of the page) I find well nigh unreadable. No doubt the 'designer' thought it looked impressive on the computer screen, pity it doesn't work at all well in reality.
Nevertheless, a book to value
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
SNAPS
Doskonaly album. Jezeli mozesz miec tylko jeden album Erwitta, wybierz "Snaps". Musisz miec! Im wiecej ogladasz tym wiecej widzisz na zdjeciach.
Published 4 months ago by mtkonieczny
The best photography book ever.
I don't need to say much, just buy this book, for £21 it's truly amazing. Small problems like the double spreads aside, this is a perfect photography book, I wish all photographers... Read more
Published on 11 July 2005
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