This book explores the 'photo story' through 61 master classes by some of the world's greatest photographers, all members of the international photographic agency Magnum.

This book is a biography of Magnum, told largely in the words of its photographers. It offers a unique perspective on half a century of world history from an extraordinary group of men and women who were front line witnesses at virtually every major event in the last fifty years. Wars, famines, natural disasters, social, political and environmental crises - Magnum photographers were there. They have been acute observers of the human condition, photographing the richest people in the world, the poorest, the least known and the most celebrated, from Marilyn Monroe to Che Guevara, JFK to Nelson Mandela, Picasso to Krushchev. This is a multi-layered story. At one level, it tells how a small group of photographrs - among them Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson and George Rodger - came together, established and nurtured a co-operative photographic agency that has survived against all the odds to become the most famous in the world. At a secondary level, it is the richly anecdotal story of the photographers themselves, their adventures around the world and their feelings about, and reactions to, their assignments.

The Magnum Photos archive—a collection of more than 200,000 photographs by some of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries' greatest image makers—is the most comprehensive accumulation of prints made by the distinguished photo cooperative. Consistently and with striking artistry, Magnum's photographers have done more than simply document the far reaches of the globe; they have helped shape generations' understanding of the world around them. While many of its photographs have been widely published, until now no one has examined the Magnum archive itself. In Reading Magnum, experts from several fields investigate this visual archive, now residing at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, to discover how a select, influential group of visual authors has used the camera for an ambitious project of cultural interpretation and social commentary. The chapters in Reading Magnum are devoted to themes generated by a close reading of the archive—war and conflict, portraiture, geography, cultural life, social relations, and globalization. These themes are further developed by evocative portfolios of images, which suggest something of the depth and range of the photo agency, and by tracing the trajectory of several iconic images from annotated press print to distribution to eventual publication. Volume editor Steven Hoelscher provides an overview of the Magnum enterprise, and Alison Nordström offers an appreciation of the Magnum archive as a material record of information about the making and disseminating of photographs that is being lost as images on paper are replaced by images on screen. As a whole, the book's unique reading of the Magnum archive reveals patterns of intention, aesthetic vision, and political perspective that become legible only by viewing both the physical objects and the recorded images that constitute this remarkable collection.

"Since its founding in 1947, the legendary Magnum Photos agency has been telling its own story: Its photographers were concerned witnesses to history and artists on the hunt for decisive moments; their pictures were humanist documents of the postwar world. Based in unprecedented archival research, The Decisive Network peels back layers of the Magnum mythology to offer a new history of what it meant to shoot, edit, and sell news images after World War II. Between the 1940s and 1960s, Magnum expanded the human-interest story - about the everyday life of ordinary people - to global dimensions while bringing the aesthetic of news pictures into new markets. Its best-known work started as humanitarian aid promotion, travel campaigns, corporate publicity, and advertising. Working with this range of clients, Magnum made photojournalism integral to visual culture. Yet Magnum's photographers could not have done this alone. This book unpacks the collaborative nature of photojournalism as it transpired on a daily basis, focusing on how picture editors, sales agents, spouses, and publishers helped Magnum photographers succeed in their assignments and achieve fame. The Decisive Network concludes in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when, amidst the decline of magazine publishing and the rise of an art market for photography, Magnum turned to photo books and exhibitions to manage its growing picture archives and consolidate its brand. In that moment, Magnum's photojournalists became artists and their assignments turned into oeuvres. Such ideas were necessary publicity, and they also managed to shape discussions about photography for decades. Bridging art history, media studies, cultural history, and the history of communication, this book transforms our understanding of the photographic profession and the global circulation of images in the pre-digital world"--

Traces the author's Hollywood experiences, from Magnum, P.I. to his adventures among the rich and famous to his stint as a restaurateur, and his friendship with Tom Selleck

Presents more than four hundred photographs taken by the photograhers of Magnum Photos.

Award-winning photographer Matt Black traveled over 100,000 miles to chronicle the reality of today’s unseen and forgotten America. When Magnum photographer Matt Black began exploring his hometown in California’s rural Central Valley—dubbed “the other California,” where one-third of the population lives in poverty—he knew what his next project had to be. Black was inspired to create a vivid portrait of an unknown America, to photograph some of the poorest communities across the US. Traveling across forty-six states and Puerto Rico, Black visited designated “poverty areas,” places with a poverty rate above 20 percent, and found that poverty areas are so numerous that they’re never more than a two-hour’s drive apart, woven through the fabric of the country but cut off from “the land of opportunity.” American Geography is a visual record of this five-year, 100,000-mile road trip, which chronicles the vulnerable conditions faced by America’s poor. This compelling compilation of black-and-white photographs is accompanied by Black’s own travelogue—a collection of observations, overheard conversations in cafe´s and public transportation, diner menus, bus timetables, historical facts, and snippets from daily news reports. A future classic of photography, this monograph is supported by an international touring exhibition and is a must-have for anyone with an interest in witnessing the reality of an America that’s been excluded from the American Dream.