Wonderfully written and illustrated. These interviews provide personal narratives from the photographers who brought us the images recording our history. While the photograph is a moment in time, these interviews tell the stories that preceeded the camera click. The one-on-one relationship between the photographer and subject can be very intimate -- abstract historical figures become real when described in these pages.

***** This is a splendid book. John Loengard, himself a distinguished photo-essayist and picture editor , has presented in their own words the stories of many of the men and women who had served on the photographic staff during the years of publication of the influential. LIFE magazine. In the early nineties Loengard interviewed 44 of the total 88 staff members who had defined the profession of photo-journalist. And just in time! Since the video-taped conversations, one third of the subjects have followed their pioneering fellows in death. Most of the very earliest group are included in this sad roster, including Alfred Eisenstadt, Peter Stackpole, Hansel Mieth, and Horace Bristol. In this handsomely produced volume these noted photographers, along with many of their less well-known colleagues, recount their experiences in the momentous years since LIFE¹s first issue in October 1936. The book is well illustrated with photographs of and by these talented people. It will be especially appreciated by readers with an interest in photography but will also fascinate ordinary observers of the exciting times of our century, as they were recorded by this very perceptive group.

Rex Hardy

It is magical to know that when we take a photograph, we take more than two. The negative is the other side of the photo, another way to express the reality. I think that is important to get closer to that reality as the first expression for both beginners and professionals, because with it we can play and get a lot of different results. That is what the book invites us to do.

Convenient size. You can take it with you when you travel to New Mexico and see the lands that inspired a truly remarkable woman. The black and white photographs and the simple design of the book would please Ms. Okeeffe, I feel. I have been to Ghost Ranch and it really is amazing to see some of the changes and similarities that the pictures present. The photographer John Loengard has produced a compelling insight into the private life of a very intriguing woman.

This book is full of potential, poorly developed. The softcover version has 47 color and 73 black and white photographs drawn from over 2100 issues of LIFE Magazine. The images are explained in terms of the methods the photographers used to capture the photograph in fairly simple terms. Many wonderful images are reproduced in sizes far too small, and many others are cruelly chopped by the book's center crease. As a result, much potential joy was cut out by the book's designer. Of particular technical interest will be the many shots staged to capture motion in unusual ways.

"The photographs need no explanation . . . . I . . . write about the photographers . . . their methods of working." This book contains 18 new images from the original edition of this work.

Knowing that a big part of LIFE's appeal was its large page size, why would anyone ever create a softcover version with a page size much smaller than the original? Has cost-consciousness totally overwhelmed aesthetic concerns among photography publishers?

Despite the small pages, often even smaller images, and painfully placed center creases, some powerful photography survives as being worthy of your time. The caption notes could have been a little more detailed for my taste, and there was certainly space remaining for more material to have been included.

Here are my favorites (as reproduced in this book):

Earthrise, William Anders, 1969

Desert Bikes, Bill Eppridge, 1971

AIDS, Therese Frare, 1993

Canterbury Cathedral, Dennis Waugh, 1981

Bruno Sammartino, Theo Westenberger, 1985

Picasso, Gjou Mili, 1950

Swimming Baby, Lena Bertucci, 1985

Multiple Exposures, Tobey Sanford, 1982

Grief, Dmitri Baltermants, 1985

Jump, Phillipe Halsman, 1959

Unbrellas, Bruno Barbey, 1982

C.P.O. Graham Jackson, Ed Clark, 1945

Presidential Birthday, Michael Evans, 1982

Eclipse, Henry Groskinsky, 1979

Hand, Mike Wells, 1980

Buchenwald, Margaret Bourke-White, 1960

Andrea Doria, Loomis Dean, 1956

Streaker, Ian Bradshaw, 1975

18-Week-Old Human Embryo, Lennart Nilsson, 1965

Steve Martin, Joe McNally, 1992

Spielberg and Mother, Michel Bourquard, 1995

I would also like to single out the photograph looking down Dolly Parton's cleavage as one of the tackiest images I have ever seen in a photography book.

The best images are those that evoke fundamental human feeling like AIDS, Grief, Buchenwald, and C.P.O. Graham Jackson. Many of the photographs involving movement are technical tours de force such as Picasso, Dali, and Eclipse. I also liked the ones with humor, like Streaker. The sense of nature's awesome presence was profound and wonderful in Earthrise and Embryo.

After you finish examining the images that you can enjoy in this collection, I suggest that if you like photojournalism you start a scrapbook of images that move you. In that way, you won't have to rely on what a book designer does in the future to preserve wonderful photographs.

Appreciate the world around you by observing it more closely. In this way, you can deepen and extend your humanity . . . and your mind.