Leica: Witness to the Twentieth Century FROM THE PUBLISHER
Since the first Leica was created in 1913 by Oskar Barnack, its small size, mechanical precision, and marvelous optics immediately made it the preferred camera of choice for professional photographers as well as demanding amateurs. Almost no event of the twentieth century, no matter how large or small, escaped the lens of a Leica. And the same is true today.
This book relates the epic story of the invention and the nearly one-hundred-year development of the Leica. In so doing, it matches for the first time the emotional charge of two hundred famous images -- and the stories of the more than forty photographers who took them -- to the historical evolution of this astonishing photographic instrument. Here we encounter the work and lives of the greats, among them Paul Wolff, Andre Kertesz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gisele Freund, Robert Capa, and Elliott Erwitt. All fourteen Leica models are presented in double-page color images, with the relevant historical explanations and technical data. Also detailed are foreign efforts to copy the Leica's genius.
From the image of the flood in the city of Wetzlar in 1920 (perhaps the first work of photojournalism) to images of today, the Leica has been a witness to the history taking place before our eyes. Almost one hundred years after its creation, it has lost none of its power to amaze, astonish, and move us.
SYNOPSIS
This work intersperses 200 famous images made with the famous camera, and text on the history of its invention and evolution as well as stories of prominent photographers who used a Leica. Author Pasi has passions for social history and photography and is particularly interested in objects made in Germany between the two wars that have become icons of the 20th century (he's also written about the VW Beetle). The book is large format (9.75x12") and was originally published in Italy (2003, Bolis Edizioni srl). Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
With the development of the 35mm Leica camera in 1913-1914 by Oscar Barnack at the Ernest Lietz factory, in Wetzlar, Germany, photography became portable, a lens through which the rapid change of the 20th century could be observed and recorded on the fly. Used by the likes of American war correspondent Robert Capa, anti-Nazi sociologist Gisele Freund and revolutionary photographer Henri-Cartier Bresson, the Leica also attracted Nazi sympathizer Paul Wolff, controversial Third Reich documentarian Leni Reifenstahl, and the German military. This 9" x 11" history of the Leica includes, among 120 color illustrations, a full-size color photograph, published in a 1944 issue of the German magazine Signal, of German soldiers riding on a tank's shadowy bulk past a burning house on the Eastern front. This is one of the most chilling photos in the book and one of the few full-size selections that is not a "best of" rendered slightly threadbare through over-reproduction. One page later, a strikingly undersized reproduction of a concentration camp is the only evidence of how, according to the text, the SS "photographed in great detail [using the Leica] the inhuman barbarities committed in the concentration camps throughout Europe"-a questionable juxtaposition at best. The text, by Italian journalist Pasi, is stilted to the point that it is often difficult to follow the history of the Leica's evolution or the significance of its innovations; however, there is enough technical information, with enlarged photos of each model and explanatory notes on lenses, viewfinders, range finders, film speeds and shutter-release buttons, to satisfy professionals and devotees. While the selection of smaller photographs is extensive and varied, the unpredictable sizings and intrusion into large photographs by small photographs and information boxes often detract from the photographs' impact. (May) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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