Ian Jeffrey

In September 1939, thousands of German soldiers were turned loose on Poland. In 1940, they descended on Holland, Belgium and France. In 1941 they went to the Balkans, and then to the USSR. Armed with Leica and Rolleiflex cameras, some of these soldiers were officially commissioned as photographers, while others were asked by their commanders to snap records of events. Among them were trainees who knew about the Bauhaus, and other, older, men who could remember Weimar. Some excelled at formal portraiture, others were storytellers, stylists or humanists who wept at what they saw. The style and content of their work changed along with the collective mood after 1942, a change that is discernible in the photographs themselves.

Celebrated author and art historian Ian Jeffrey the author of Photography: A Concise History and The Photography Book has trawled through these albums, picking out the most compelling of these works to create an intimate record of anonymous lives experiencing the unprecedented.… (meer)

La fotografía de Tomatsu (1930-2012) recorre tanto cronológica como temáticamente más de seis décadas de la vida y la historia de Japón. Tomatsu utiliza tanto la técnica del posado como las imágenes captadas al vuelo para cartografiar sin pretensiones la vida de los japoneses tanto en la dureza de la posguerra y la presencia militar de las tropas norteamericanas como en los estallidos y revueltas de los estudiantes a finales de los sesenta. Especial atención merece la relación, vital y profesional, que mantuvo Tomatsu con Okinawa, en el sur nipón adonde llegó en 1969 y a la que volvió en las siguientes décadas de modo constante atraído por una población fiel a sus tradiciones y costumbres, que defendía contra viento y marea su forma de vida y su libertad espiritual. (Reseña de la editorial)… (meer)