Engaged observers Documentary photography since the sixties

The Vietnam War launched a new era in documentary photography, as photojournalists were given a free hand to capture everything, unlike previous 20th-century American wars in which the government tightly controlled coverage. The practices that started in Vietnam quickly spread globally. Abbott, the J. Paul Getty Museum's associate curator of photography, presents a survey of documentary photography gleaned from nine previously published volumes, including Philip Jones Griffith's Vietnam Inc., W. Eugene and Aileen M. Smith's Minamata, and Mary Ellen Mark's Streetwise. Monochrome is the medium of choice for documentarians, with only Lauren Greenfield's Fast Forward and Girl Culture and Susan Meiselas's Nicaragua in color. All the artists' representations are dramatic and often emotional, but subjects range from the mundane to the horrific, from children sleeping and farmers working to Japanese villagers sickened and deformed by mercury poisoning and battle zones capped by Nachtwey's army field hospital photos depicting surgeons desperately working to save gruesomely wounded soldiers in Iraq. VERDICT The camera's might as the teller of history and societal critic is in full vigor in this remarkable collection. Anyone with a taste for this brand of photography will be richly rewarded. Highly recommended.-Mike Rogers, Library Journal (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.