167pp, many illustrations.
Casebound. Routledge. £16.95. (1989 pricing)
Second hand copies available for under £5 (2021)
ISBN 0 415 01009 8.
[This review first appeared in the Winter 1989 edition of Stand To ! No.27 - less this selection of photographs]
The author has been Keeper of the Department of Photographs at the Imperial War Museum since 1983; there can be few better qualified than she to select and present for us over 100 photographs from the Museum's collection and to write about the people who took the pictures, how and why they were taken and how they were used.
As there were surprisingly few 'official' professional photographers and as the Press was restricted, the amateur played an important part and has not been neglected by Jane Carmichael.
A most interesting chapter traces the development of the camera, which had become quite sophisticated by 1914, and describes the ubiquitous Vest Pocket Kodak which could produce excellent results in the hand of a gifted amateur. All those thousands of contact prints from the diminutive 127 film were the bottom end of the work by the non professional, without the negatives these little pictures add little to our knowledge.
The amateur pictures shown here are in an entirely different category. What is particularly satisfying is the excellent quality of the reproduction of the originals here, it is as good as I have seen for a long time.
Do not go away with the wrong impression about this book. Superb though the pictures are, it is not just another high quality picture-book. Many of the pictures will be new to you, but you will have in your library a most interesting study about the background to the taking and displaying of the pictures during the War.
Reviewed by Bob Wyatt