New York Exposed: Photographs from the Daily News [Hardcover]

To get great photos the paper had always invested in its photo department, which by the fifties had two planes, ten radio cars, a brigade of motorcycle couriers and a staff of sixty-three to insure no story was missed. This book shows the benefits of this investment. Eight chapters are devoted to a photo record of the decades from the twenties thru the nineties and as the News was a tabloid, the rough and tumble of daily is revealed, politicians, celebrities, sport, crime (some of these predictably stark) the everyday and when appropriate, the weather. Each photo has very detailed captions and thankfully, the photographer's name.

Shawn O'Sullivan, who works on the paper, writes in a short essay titled 'Photography at the Daily News' 'In making this book, we sought to show the images in all of their original beauty, as the photographer originally witnessed the scene....' I think this was a mistake, newspaper photographers don't know how a photo is going to be used on the page and they try to take plenty of shots, so that Photo Editors will have lots of choice. I have a book published in 1979 celebrating fifty years of the News and it has many of the same photos as this latest book but in the earlier book the photos are handled in a much tighter way and sensibly trimmed to get the best from the image.

Apart from some of the photo trimming I enjoyed New York Exposed, a photographic book that captures the dailiness of New York life. If you lived in the city it will be a stimulating reminder of the last eighty years.

To get great photos the paper had always invested in its photo department, which by the fifties had two planes, ten radio cars, a brigade of motorcycle couriers and a staff of sixty-three to insure no story was missed. This book shows the benefits of this investment. Eight chapters are devoted to a photo record of the decades from the twenties thru the nineties and as the News was a tabloid, the rough and tumble of daily is revealed, politicians, celebrities, sport, crime (some of these predictably stark) the everyday and when appropriate, the weather. Each photo has very detailed captions and thankfully, the photographer's name.

Shawn O'Sullivan, who works on the paper, writes in a short essay titled 'Photography at the Daily News' 'In making this book, we sought to show the images in all of their original beauty, as the photographer originally witnessed the scene....' I think this was a mistake, newspaper photographers don't know how a photo is going to be used on the page and they try to take plenty of shots, so that Photo Editors will have lots of choice. I have a book published in 1979 celebrating fifty years of the News and it has many of the same photos as this latest book but in the earlier book the photos are handled in a much tighter way and sensibly trimmed to get the best from the image.

Apart from some of the photo trimming I enjoyed New York Exposed, a photographic book that captures the dailiness of New York life. If you lived in the city it will be a stimulating reminder of the last eighty years.