Things As They Are: Photojournalism in Context Since 1955

Things as They Are presents the story of photojournalism over the past five decades, from 1955 until today. Published in collaboration with World Press Photo on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary, the book takes us from the golden era of the illustrated press--the heyday of Life magazine and Picture Post, and the moment of The Museum of Modern Art's defining Family of Man exhibition--to the twenty-first century's explosion of digital media. This history is told through the presentation of 125 photojournalistic features shot and published around the world, shown in context on the pages of newspapers and magazines as the public originally experienced them. In this way, Things as They Are reveals how the events of the world, the art of photographers and the interests of publishers and the press converged on the printed page. It traces how photojournalism has developed over time alongside changing technology, media, fashions in photography, and a changing world. And it does so using landmark photo-essays from some of the greatest photographers in the world, including W. Eugene Smith, Sebastiao Salgado, Mary Ellen Mark, James Nachtwey, Annie Liebovitz, Nan Goldin and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Each project is accompanied by expert commentary. An international panel of 100 specialists--photographers, editors, art directors, historians and magazine collectors--made the final selections. They chose stories that exemplified the highest quality of work published internationally during each period, stories that demonstrated important innovations in photography and in publishing, and stories that played a key role in shaping the history of photojournalism itself.