Life Photographers : What They Saw

A revolution in American storytelling, photojournalism burst on the scene with the advent of Life magazine in 1936.

Here, in this remarkably compelling book, are the voices of pioneers who invented the picture story and the photographic essay.

Starting with the father of photojournalism, Alfred Eisenstaedt, their riveting tales evoke the struggles and triumphs that created the astonishing imagery which made Life our national family photo album. "We felt a great responsibility", Eisenstaedt remembers. "We educated the world". In fact, Eisenstaedt and colleagues like Carl Mydans, Andreas Feininger, Dmitri Kessel, Gordon Parks, and thirtynine other Life photographers interviewed here, were practicing journalism, but the results frequently turned out to be art.

They related their ambitions, anxieties, and accomplishments to their friend and peer John Loengard, Life's most distinguished contemporary photo essayist.

More than two hundred photographs that unforgettably fixed the image of our era accompany the text.