Synopses & Reviews
A century after it began, we still struggle with the terrible reality of the First World War, often through republished photographs of its horrors: the muddy trenches, the devastated battlefields, the maimed survivors. Due to the crude film cameras used at the time, the look of the Great War has traditionally been grainy, blurred, and monochromeandmdash;until now.
The First World War presents a startlingly different perspective, one based on rare glass plate photographs, that reveals the war with previously unseen, even uncanny, clarity.
Scanned from the original plates, with scratches and other flaws expertly removed, these oversized reproductions offer a wealth of unusual moments, including scenes of men in training, pictures of African colonial troops on the Western front, landscapes of astonishing destruction, and postmortem portraits of Belgian soldiers killed in action. Readers previously familiar with only black-and-white or sepia-toned prints of the hostilities will be riveted by the bookandrsquo;s many authentic color photographs, products of the early autochrome method. From children playing war games to a wrenching deathbed visit, these images are extraordinary not only for their subject matter, but also for the wide range of emotions they evoke.
Accompanied by a preface from celebrated writer Geoff Dyer and an essay by historian David Van Reybrouck, the photographs here serve both as remarkable witnesses to the everyday life of warfare and as dramatic works of art in their own right. These images, taken by some of the conflictandrsquo;s most gifted photographers, will radically change how we visualize the First World War.and#160;
Review
andldquo;The authors of this sumptuous album have presented the journey of exceptional, often unpublished, photographers. . . . The amazing quality of the images . . . makes this book a work of art, a gift for lovers of photography and history.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Geoff Dyer and Carl De Keyzer unveil the Great War in a new light. . . . The pictures are beautiful, shocking. . . . . A work that stands out from the wave of books on WWI.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Shocking, these photographs have amazing power. These disturbing photographs . . . return us to a past anterior to the war that they illustrate. . . . In this beautiful book, the reader is invited to dive into the First World War. . . . It is not only the mud, the corpses, and the craters in these images. It is a whole daily life parallel to the fighting that is revealed.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;This beautiful book on WWI is not about debates, executions, deserters, or comments on the effectiveness of the military. Itandrsquo;s just about life, the lived lives behind the lines, children playing, construction workers . . . the lives near the front lines. . . . If one wanted to keep only one book of photographs of the Great War, this would be it.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;A moving evocation of this first human cataclysm. . . . A wonderful book that provokes historical and philosophical interest in the notion of commemorating historical events.andrdquo;
Synopsis
One hundred years later, the First World War has returned to public consciousness, often through republished photographs of its horrors: the muddy trenches, the devastated battlefields, the maimed survivors. Because the most popular cameras of the time were the Vest Pocket Kodak and other crude film cameras, the and#147;lookand#8221; of that Great War is grainy, blurred, and monochrome. This book presents a startlingly different First World War, one seen through rare glass plate photographs made by the warand#8217;s most gifted cameramen, selected and digitally restored by Magnum photographer Carl De Keyzer. Scanned from the original plates, with scratches and other flaws painstakingly removed, these oversized reproductions reveal the war in uncanny and previously unseen clarity. Also startling are the unfamiliar scenes selected by De Keyzer and elucidated by historian David Van Reybrouck: staged scenes of men in training (and of children imitating them), dramatic industrial photographs, landscapes of astonishing destruction, pictures of African colonial troops on the Western front, and postmortem portraits of thirteen Belgian soldiers killed in battle on the second day of the war. A quarter of the photographs in this book are in color, made with the autochrome process. The book includes a preface by Geoff Dyer, who refers to and#147;the extraordinaryand#160; power and surprise ofand#160; this hoard of photographsand#8221; and discusses the disconcerting temporal effects of seeing such unusual pictures of a historical event we strongly associate with entirely different imagery.
About the Author
MARK HOLBORN has edited a number of books on photography, and has worked with Annie Leibovitz, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Hiro, Susan Sontag, and Issey Miyake, among many others.
HILARY ROBERTS studied at University College London, University of London. She is the head of Collections of Imperial War Museums' photography archive and has coauthored Cecil Beaton: Theatre of War (September 2012), also with Mark Holborn.