Magnum Stories.

61 Magnum photographers. Edited and with an introduction by Chris Boot.

Phaidon, London, 2004. 512 pp., 235 color ad 545 black-and-white illustrations, 10¾x10¾".

Magnum Stories is a collection of photo stories produced by the photographers of Magnum. Through the work of key Magnum photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Eugene Richards, Martin Parr, Inge Morath and Leonard Freed, this book covers a wide range of subjects including the Vietnam War, student protests in Tiananmen Square, Fidel Castro overthrows Cuban dictator in 1959, Picasso, Malcolm X, the French theatre group Theâtre du Soleil, the US invasion of Grenada in the early 1980s, the New York police, Apartheid and Buddhism. The photographic genres covered include war photography, documentary, photojournalism, social realism, portraits of people and places, fashion and news. There are 61 Magnum photographers featured in the book. Each photographer is represented across 8 pages by a photo story of their choice, which is fully illustrated, and a text which is written in the photographer’s own voice based on new interviews with the author. The texts are intelligent, idiosyncratic, each with their own voice and style. Accessible and engaging to read, they reveal different perceptions and approaches to photography and each photographer’s unique and varied takes on the photo story and their practice – what is the photo story?, what does it mean?, how did they come across it? what key decisions are made when taking the story, etc. As well as featuring the work of individual photographers, this book functions as a history and interrogation of the form of the photo story – the key vehicle for photography in the twentieth century, from its earliest developments in the 30s, through the death of ‘photojournalism’, to contemporary manifestations, all of which is explored by the author in the introduction. The book explores the influences that have affected the photo story, such as key twentieth century events and the life of photographic magazines such as Newsweek, Time, and Paris Match, all of which have helped to define the genre. It provides a unique reflection on the course of photojournalism in the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, from the common purpose of the post-WWII years to the individualistic range of practices and interests that constitute documentary photography today.
A quick read of the table of contents of Magnum Stories is a bit overwhelming and exciting at the same time. 61 photographers are the subjects; from Abbas to Erwitt to Koudelka to Towell, the names on this list are synonymous with exemplary photographic storytelling. Most of the figures are well-known, but one of the more exciting aspects of the book is the chance to learn about some of the more unfamiliar photographers. The book follows a set format: a single photo story of their choice is accompanied by newly commissioned texts and a portrait of each photographer. The result is a survey of some of the most sophisticated imagery and stories of the 20th century. Burt Glinn's reminiscences about both Fidel Castro and the 1956 war in Israel, Leonard Freed's in-depth story on New York City's corruption-riddled police force in the early 1970s, David Alan Harvey's fantastic color work from Brazil, and Cartier-Bresson's iconic photos of Gandhi all merge together in these pages to form a magnificent compendium of documentary photography at its best.

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