10.22.2008

Worth 100,000 words


Lord, how I miss holding a book.

So many of you have asked me whether I can now see photos after my cataract surgery. Alas, I do see them better, better than seeing nothing at all. I can see close-up images, like the sailor and nurse above, but, background details escape me. And, RP affects color perception.

What these two paragraphs have in common is my real regret that I won’t be able to enjoy what must be Life magazine’s most unique photo essay yet.

“Life: The Classic Collection” promises not to be just another coffee-table book. Compiled “by Editors of Life Magazine,” the book contains 100 photos and is unique in that 25 of the photos are removable and suitable for framing, while the image remains on the page behind each.

Here’s Life’s promotion of the new book:

“The most famous, wonderful AND inspiring pictures ever to appear in the pages of LIFE are here. All the great action shots are here - from the sailor kissing the nurse to the first astronaut walking in space. The unsurpassed portraiture - from screen icons like Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor to world leaders including John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Winston Churchill - are all here as well.

“LIFE has, of course, visited its archives before, but never like this. This edition puts the photographs on display, not only as part of the page layout but as the page itself. The explanatory text will be out of the way, so that each image can be savored. Moreover, prints will be included that are not just suitable for framing, but meant for framing. And, not only will there be photographic prints; there will also be 75 other famous pictures that appeared in LIFE's pages, the story behind each of them and the narrative history of what LIFE's photography has long meant to the country and, indeed, to the world.”

A great Christmas gift idea, but don’t send me one. I would just cry.

***

PHOTO: “The Kiss,” Alfred Eisenstaedt, V-J Day in Times Square where the crowd had just heard WWII was over. THE SAILOR. THE NURSE.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a great memory book of a great deal of history. I was in third grade when the sailor/nurse photo was taken.

The teachers whooping, crying, jumping up and down, hugging each other in the school yard scared me half to death. I figured the world had come to an end, just like I heard all my life.

Once recess was over and we're back in the classroom, Mrs Fulton told us the war was over. I always thought she could have told us that outside!

I guess I will never forget that day. Not only for the above reason, but my team won kick ball that day.

Plus, I won a mitten half-full of marbles playing keeps with the boys. At home I'd sort out the good ones and put them in my cigar box and put back in the mitten the ones I was going to use at school the next day. I kept my shooters in the thumb of the mitten.

When people tell me I've lost all my marbles, I can show them that I still have a whole bunch of them!

Jan

Anonymous said...

Oh, I'm glad to know about that book. I love the rich past and love the nostalgia of photographs that are so good taken over time. I'll be a Powell's bookstore looking at that one.

Anonymous said...

How did you know that the sailor in the picture was the Hobbit?