Magnum Contact Sheets

A must-have book for any photographer or photography enthusiast! Full of wonderful imagery, and just being able to view the photographers’ processes before they get to a final image is just fascinating. The book might seem pricey, but it’s well worth it!

Absolut fantastisch! Ein Buch, das Einblicke gewährt in die Geschichte hinter legendären Aufnahmen großer Fotograf:innen. Die Kontaktbögen erzählen so viel: über die Zeitgeschichte und vor allem über die Art, wie der Fotograf oder die Fotografin arbeitete. Welche Bilder haben die Fotograf:innen der großen Agentur Magnum davor und danach aufgenommen? Warum haben sie oder die Herausgeber:innen sich für genau das Bild entschieden? Hätte ich mich genauso entschieden? Für mich als Fotografin ist dieses Buch ein Schatz, ein Fundus an Inspiration! Und nein, die Taschenbuchausgabe ist keineswegs zu klein oder gar schwer leserlich. Beeindruckendes Katalogformat, großartig gemacht, lädt zum Schmökern und Nachdenken ein!

Es increíble poder ver el proceso de selección del autor de una fotografía famosa, y leer o bien el comentario del mismo autor o de especialistas de la época. No me gusta el encuadernado suave, pero la buena calidad de impresión de las fotografías compensa. Un imprescindible en la biblioteca de un fotógrafo.

I've had my eye on the Contact Sheets book for the past few years, and I saw it on Amazon for ~32 USD (45 CAN?) and had to pull the trigger. For this price, I'd say the book is an insane deal. The quality of the book is very good - the pages are smooth with smart edges and decent thickness, and the book cover is well-made with a minimalistic design. The dust cover got a little bit wrinkled during shipping (from Amazon? the vendor?). I'm not too miffed because it shipped all the way from Canada to me (in California), and the wrinkles were all on the corners/binding. Some people in the US amazon complained about poor book binding, but I don't perceive the binding to be a weak-point. Caveat: I've only had the book for a few weeks and babied it, so take that FWIW. The actual content is well laid out and in chronological order. The text have relevant stories leading up to the culmination of the photos. Some of the stories are in-depth than others. The Magnum photographers write about people involved, the events, and the feelings they felt when shooting or selecting photos from their film rolls. I don't have the book with me, nor do I think describing a particular page very useful. If you're already interested in Magnum, you'll probably know a few of the stories behind the photos (e.g. Hoepker's photo of the young people relaxing during 9/11 twin towers incident). However a few stories I was happy to learn more about (e.g. the fortuitous accident involving the photo processing of Frank Capa photo of soldiers on Omaha beach). I only wish that the book covered more photographs and more recent time period.

O livro mostra um pouco do processo criativo de inúmeros fotógrafos a partir de uma ou duas fotos de uma sessão, revelando o processo de busca pela imagem com a folha de contato do rolo da foto consagrada. Em um breve porém suficiente relato o fotógrafo conta a história de como chegou naquele resultado. É simplesmente incrível para quem fotografa.