1001 Photographs: You Must See Before You Die

by Paul Lowe

Is photography art, documentary or both? Should images simply reveal the world we live in, or provoke us to think, act and react?1001 Photographs You Must See Before You Die is a visually arresting and invaluable guide to the history and practice of photography. Sweeping through the arts, fashion, society, war, peace, science and nature, the images in this enticing book are as eye-catching as the commentary is engaging. Some you have seen, others will be unfamiliar, but what all the photographs have in common is their ability to move you, shock you and open up the notion of what it is to be human. Organized chronologically by the date that each image was made, and featuring a reproduction of each photograph, the selection provides some fascinating and unexpected juxtapositions. Insightful text uncovers the creative process behind each image, revealing its visual, aesthetic and historic significance. Why was the photograph taken? Was it set up? What was the intention? How did the world react? From Roger Fenton to William Eggleston, from Henry Fox Talbot to Nick Knight, and from Henri Cartier-Bresson to Dorothea Lange, all the photographers featured in this book transgressed the boundaries of the camera with a skill and spirit that helped to develop their field into a highly evocative art form. Packed with information that will entertain, inform, educate and surprise you, 1001 Photographs You Must See Before You Die is an essential reference for all lovers of photography.

Genres: Photography, Art, Nonfiction, Collections

960 pages, Paperback

Published October 4, 2018

About the author

Paul Lowe was a British photographer, educator, writer and critic. He was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's Vic Odden Award in 1999.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let’s get this out of the way first – the photos & commentary in this book are a beautiful FIVE STARS.

And the presentation in this bricksized thing is ONE STAR because at least a quarter of the photos are teeny tiny – what is the point of reproducing these great pix like that so you can’t see them??? Oh I see, this is part of a series called 1001 (Fill In The Blank) That You Must See Before You Die ( – I believe the next in the series will be 1001 Mountains You Must Climb before you Will Certainly Die, followed by 1001 Sexual positions You must Try before You will Probably Die of Something or Other and finally 1001 Wild Animals You Must Fight Before You Will Absolutely Die Horribly.) So the design of this book has to conform with all the others in the series. There is no such tiny-photo problem in 1001 Books You Have to Read or Films you Have to See but there sure is here because it’s ABOUT PHOTOS.

So, here you have the first photo of a human being in 1838



They had to expose the film for a long time at the beginning of photography, which meant that things that moved – like people – were not caught on the film, only static things – like buildings – except that down in the lower right corner there are two figures who were stationary for quite a long time & were thus caught in the photo quite by accident – it’s a guy getting his shoes shined.

And here you have the great and the not so good, Alice Liddell, Oscar Wilde, Stalin, Madonna (from 1979 – wow, she has been around for a long time), Frank Sinatra’s mugshot when he was arrested, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Prince, the desk where The Little Prince was written, Jodie Foster, etc etc.

Emotional whiplash is always an issue in vast collections like this – an American slave displaying his back hideously deformed by scourging faces the beautiful Clementina Maude lounging in front of her boudoir mirror; Ham the Chimp (sent into space by NASA in 1961) on page 453 is immediately followed by Eichmann in prison on p454. U S Marine Sgt William Bee Under Fire From the Taliban on p880 faces some guy dressed in a stupid wolf costume on p881.

And for any of these big photo collections you have to be okay with the display of the hundreds of varieties of human pain and suffering – for example, one photo has the caption

My Lai : A Group Of South Vietnamese Women And Children, Cowering. Minutes Later They Were All Dead

SOME TIMES CAPTIONS ARE EVERYTHING

So, a beautiful study of a young woman looking at a paper she is holding is just a lovely woman looking at a paper she’s holding except the caption says Woman Reading Possession Order (so she was a squatter and now has to has to clear out of the house). And there’s also a photo of a woman at a writing desk looking at a human skull



Fairly innocuous, she might be a medical student, but the caption is

The Skull Of A Japanese Soldier Sent By An American Soldier To His Girlfriend

Yes, apparently this was a thing soldiers used to like to do – send their families and girlfriends human trophies. This photo was instrumental in getting that sort of thing stopped.

Some other favourite captions :

The Shirt Of The Emperor Worn During His Execution
Man Selling Mummies
Emperor Hirohito Inspects Giant Ear Trumpets
We Are Animals In A World No One Knows
Memphis Housewives Meet And Compare Recently Purchased Weapons

So, this is a wonderful exciting head-spinning collection of photos almost but not quite wrecked by stupid publisher-imposed design. 1001 fragments of this quite insane world we try to live upon.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 5 out of 5]

What kind of book takes you five months to read? A browsable book, of course, and that's exactly what 1001 Photographs You Must See in Your Lifetime is. It wasn't 1001 pages, but close to it, and it's filled with pages and pages of photos that you'd like to blow up and paste on your walls. There are stories behind the photos as well, and you will want to read those, too.

I'm planning to pass this on to my photographer sister as I want her to get a chance to enjoy all this photographic lusciousness, too. An absolute delight.

[Chantal · Rating 3 out of 5]

The photos and commentary in this book are a beautiful, although I sometimes wished the photo's were larger. There are stories behind every photo. I liked to book, but wished sometimes there would be more stories with photo's that were news over the years.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me months to read this book! I often had to put it down and take a break. For good reason, we photograph human tragedy and conflict. However, when reading this and examining so many photos one may begin to despair in the human capacity for hate, greed and violence. This is a great book and I learned a lot about photography, history and more! This book will make you think.

[JoJo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly not as good as I was expecting - the photographs are small and while the text is interesting for some of the pictures it wasn't the case for all of them. It would have been a better book for being 100 photographs as the stretch to 1000 made the inclusion of the also-rans a necessity

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

The photos are miniscule! 1001 thumbnails you can barely see.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. Some amazing photography, but I can’t help but think of how the overall depictions cater to quite a western neoliberal point of view, a few photos that were dehumanising and graphic seemed to only be those who weren’t white or European. I am being picky truthfully, overall I love photography no matter what but I can’t seem to unsee hidden biases these days, especially within such an impactful and historical medium of art that is photography, it’s linked hand in hand with media, politics and the truth so when it’s skewed slightly, it’s harder to appreciate

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite disagreeing with the title and premise of this, and finding many of the accompanying notes aimed to inflate or further distort the supposed 'importance' of many of the photographs, this contains much of interest - primarily the documentary category - and that I was unfamiliar with. In many ways, a smaller number, more carefully chosen and each given a whole page to itself, might have been more convincing.

[Vicente Núñez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lo más destacable me ha parecido el prólogo, donde se discurre sobre el medio fotográfico como tal, y quizás los comentarios que acompañan a las primeras fotografías de la historia.

Pero, a medida que se avanza en el tiempo, la lectura se me iba haciendo más pesada, menos interesante por conocerla más de primera mano, y revisar los comentarios de 1001 instantáneas me parece también algo tedioso y excesivo.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Como una primera aproximación a la historia de la fotografía, e incluso como inspiración es increíblemente útil. Fotógrafos favoritos: Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Tina Modotti, Man Ray, Florence Vandamm, Ed Van der Elsken, Clifford Coffin, Duane Michals,

[Stefan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re a lover of photography, this book is a must for your collection. I didn’t even realize how far photography went back. It’s a history lesson in itself. Wish some photos were larger and talked about more of the story.

[Enso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Огромное количество фотографий, не всегда самых релевантных у конкретного фотографа, тем не менее, одна из лучших таких книг.

[Ryan Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice collection of many of the most well know photographs throughout history.

[sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

history books need more photographs

[Chiara Brandelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW

[:) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5/5

[Thomas J · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK I'm re-writing this - again - initially I wasn't too impressed with the book. Maybe it's just a knee jerk reaction to being told that I "must see" these photographs. However, the longer I kept it out of the library the more I liked it. I even gave it another star.

It might be a good book to own, so you could take your time with it. The background histories of the various photographers and the sample pictures are often interesting and give you a good starting point to pick someone you like and look up more detailed information on them and their work.

As a borrowed book I found it a bit overwhelming to try to get through.

A couple of criticisms: many of the pictures are thumbnail sized and too small to appreciate any detail. And my old eyes found the faint print and shiny paper difficult to read with overhead lighting. I had to keep shifting the book to avoid the glare from the paper.

[Clement Ying · Rating 4 out of 5]

The selection of photos is above-average.

The comments are better.