Roger Tooth

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ormat: Hardcover Verified Purchase
The decade or year in photos is an old standby in the publishing biz. Who remembers the yearly photo specials Life Magazine published after the weekly folded in the early seventies. I always thought the format slightly flawed because photos were frequently used that weren't particularly inspiring but had to be included because they recorded a newsworthy event. Fortunately the criteria for inclusion in these pages is simple: is it a great show more photo.

When the Guardian was redesigned in 2005 the centre spread was devoted to a stunning photo. The ones in the book for the years before that have been selected on the basis that they would have been included in the centre Eyewitness spreads. Roger Tooth, photo editor for the daily, explains the criteria for inclusion: the photo must be able to be blown up to twenty-four inches wide without any loss of quality; it must have plenty of detail; everything had to be in sharp focus and finally it could be a news or slice-of-life image.

Each year of the decade gets about eleven photos, either as whole spreads or as landscape on a page and fortunately, unlike the daily with its 100 screen these photos are printed with 175 screen on a good matt art paper and incidentally the Honk Kong printer C&C Offset should be congratulated on perfect binding: every photo that goes across a spread butts together perfectly.

Virtually every photo is an eyeball grabber, whether a news shot like the pulling down of Saddam Hussein's statue in 2003 in Baghdad or the totally non-newsworthy event of the partial demolition of a house that belonged to a trailer-park owner by a resident who had a grudge against him. One thing I really like about the contents, there are virtually no celebrities included. I would say that most photos have been taken outside in the environment in cities or the countryside.

If you are a news or documentary photographer or just want to see stunning photos of what's happening in the world I think this is an impressive book. It might be worthwhile checking round the net because I bought my copy (nearly new) at a very impressive low price. show less