Street seen

The book's overdesign includes these tiny initials on the right-hand page for every  photographer, the above is for Lee Friedlander. It's pure designer whimsey

The book was originally published in 2010 and priced at a rather extravagant fifty-five dollars, now, years later it's a bookstore dust-catcher available at less than ten dollars. The nine street photographers each get ten photos though oddly Robert Frank only has eight. The more well known names have photos reproduced many times like Frank's 1955 New Orleans trolley, Winogrand's 1967 Central Park zoo or Lyon's 1966 Route 12, Wisconsin (the one with the back shot of five bikers).

All of the photos show a snapshot of the nation during the sixties though Frank's photos are from the 1955/56 but he was a major influence on the eight others in the book. There are some themes in the photos, Davidson and Withers look at segregation during the sixties, Berndt covers Boston's red light district, Lyon and the bikers and Friedlander has his usual quirky shots of street scenes only he can find.

I think it's worth picking up a copy for some good examples social documentary style photography but I though the book's production rather over-done. How many titles these days have book ribbons? 'Streetwise' has three: red; white; blue. There are fifty three blank pages (mostly white but some in red or grey) out of the book's 186 pages, the back pages have a spread on each photographer with a short essay and thumbnails of their photos with copyright information, all of this could have gone on the blank page at the start of each chapter. Andy Grunberg's interesting intro, over eight pages, has the text in different line lengths and generally over fussy typography. Fortunately none of this design extravaganza detracts too much from some excellent photos throughout the pages