Hi Frank, I'm glad you haven't rushed out to buy Glass Warriors. It's a bit disappointing.
I finished it this evening, and felt as though most of the book was irrelevant. The author is a lecturer or something at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, so he knows his stuff about wars and so on. But most of the book seems to be little more than a catalogue of all the conflicts that have taken place since Roger Fenton first wrestled with a tripod. So that's all the world's conflicts in 150 years, covered in slightly over 200 pages. It all amounts to 'in 19xx the Peoples Front for the Liberation of Judaea held 3 chickens and a goat hostage for 2 hours until a rescue was organised by the Judaean Peoples Liberation Army. They botched the rescue. The previously unknown photographer Ronald McDonald took 2 pictures of the chickens, but they didn't come out. Then the Russians invaded Afghanistan but the press was tightly controlled so there are no photos. The Berlin wall fell. Then some shit happened in former Yugoslavia and Arkan was so na�ve he let Ron Haviv take his photo'. In fairness, there is some interesting stuff in the early parts of the book about the first photographers to cover wars. That in itself would make an interesting book, I think. He also draws some interesting parallels between Britain empiring about a bit in the late 19th century, and the 'Anglosphere' (USA, UK and Australia, mainly) empiring around at the moment. Plus, I've learned a bit about the causes of some of the more obscure wars and conflicts that have gone on over the years. The book does convey a sense of the whole thing as being like a tragic, never-ending, mobile party of death and destruction. You don't really learn anything much about the photographers or their motivation. Well, except that I learnt a bit about what Dickey Chapelle did before Vietnam. He also perpetuates the old story, which I thought had been discredited, about Larry Burrows wrecking Capa's D-Day negatives. But altogether there is too much to pack in to such a small space, and he isn't able to do any of it justice. -- Cheers, Bob > -----Original Message----- > From: frank theriault [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 25 May 2005 04:28 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Glass Warriors > > On 5/22/05, Bob W <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > > > after visiting the World Press Photo exhibition today I bought this > > book, about the history of war photography, which I have not seen > > before: > > http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/photo/2005/05may/050516pic.shtml > > > > It may be of interest to others here. > > > > I've only read the first few pages so far, but it's certainly > > interesting and wide-ranging. > > > > Bob > > The World Press Photo exhibition came to Toronto last year > (in the autumn, IIRC) - hope it comes again this year; it > was quite incredible (if jarring). > > Thanks for the heads up WRT Glass Warriors. Of course, I'll > never buy it, but if I see it at a bookstore, it looks like > it's worth a browse or two. The photo on the front cover is > enough to grab my attention; I think it's my favourite Capa. > > cheers, > frank > > > -- > "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson > > > >
