Nikon 100 Anniversary: A Landmark Book by Uli Koch

Seldom indeed you come across a unique book made through strenuous effort of years, amazing knowledge and expertise acquired for many decades and particularly with a high level of passion and love for what you do.

And if we add to it an uncompromising level of quality in the chosen paper for the 416 pages, the elegant hardcover, the 30 x 21 cm large format size and the superb quality of reproduction of the nothing less than 2,200 color pictures got by the author (who has an experience of more than 40 years as a Nikon enthusiast and collector) all over the world, showing every kind of Nikon cameras, lenses, accessories, binoculars, microscopes and other technical instruments over a period of 100 years from 1917 until 2016 and making up the core of the book, along with the information on each picture in English and the preface and the chapters descriptions both in English and Japanese, it seems apparent that this is a very special and historical work.

The advent of the Nikon F SLR in 1959 was a milestone in the history of photography, on a par in significance with the launching into market of the Leica I (Model A) in 1925, the arrival of the medium format Rolleiflex during thirties, the inception of the Kine Exakta (the first 24 x 36 mm single lens reflex camera) in 1936 and the appearance of the Leica M3 in 1954.

The Nikon F brought with it enormous changes to professional photography which would have far-reaching influence in the subsequent decades, and quickly became the yardstick by which other 35 mm SLRs were measured.

Until then, in addition to the 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 (6 x 6 cm) medium format Rolleiflexes and 4 x 5 " (10 x 12 cm) large format Speed Graphics, the 24 x 36 mm format Leica and Contax rangefinder cameras had mostly held a sway within the scope of professional photography, thanks to their remarkable compactness and low weight and above by virtue of their second to none highly luminous lenses delivering exceptional quality in terms of sharpness and contrast and an unsurpassed ability to shoot handheld at very low shutter speeds of 1/8 s, 1/15 s, 1/20 s and 1/30 s without trepidation (and even slower if the photographer managed to find something to lean his/her back on), because this kind of cameras lack a swivelling mirror and it enables the optical designers to create top-notch objectives with uncompromising optomechanical quality.

But though the full frame mirrorless with rangefinder cameras were, are and will go on being by far the best choice for street photography and reportages shooting from short distances in which human interactions take place, they are not at all the universal photographic tools to succesfully tackle every kind of photographic assignment, since the range of  focal lengths available to meet the principle of mirrrorless with rangefinder cameras is limited (between around 21 mm and 135 mm) and its possibilities for microphotography, macrophotography, astrophotography, sports and wildlife assignments are rather scarce, without forgetting that rangefinders aren´t the best choice for exact and tight framing.

Therefore, the huge worldwide triumph of the Nikon F concept from 1959 onwards, was based in a number of factors: a thorough planning and anticipation, getting everthing right from the very beginning,

with the legendary previous stage of Nippon Kogaku rangefinders during fifties (some of them really formidable as the Nikon SP), the Nippon Kogaku wide assortment of excellent lenses (painstakingly optimized for contrast, acutance and very good resolving power in the center, as well as boasting a superb and durable for many decades centering of the optical elements through the use of vertexometers, so though not reaching the resolution levels of the cream of the crop of Leica and Carl Zeiss lenses - specially on borders and corners-, they often delivered better printed results on paper when the negatives and slides were used in photomechanics of illustrated newspapers and magazines, thanks to their superior contrast and visual feeling of sharpness) manufactured from 1948 and which became the common choice of such famous photojournalists like David Douglas Duncan, Horace Bristol. Miki Jun, Hank Walker, Carl Mydans, Margaret Bourke-White, Michael Rougier, Max Desfor and others during their coverage of Korean War between 1950 and 1953, without forgetting the praiseworthy labour developed by the Nikkor Club (founded in 1953 by Ihei Kimura, Kenji Mizoguchi, Yusaku Kamekura, Ken Domon, Jun Miki and Hideko Takamine) who edited the first Nikkor Club newsletter magazine in 1953.

Notwithstanding, albeit the Nippon Kogaku rangefinder cameras were superb,

in the same way as their lenses and the Nippon Kogaku factory at Ohi (Tokyo) had already become a full-fledged international benchmark of optical designing (only second at the time to the Leitz factories at Wetzlar and Midland, Ontario, Canada and Carl Zeiss Oberkochen, though the Japanese managed to significantly reduce the distance in terms of optomechanical performance, thanks to the intensive labour fulfilled by optical wizards like Kakuya Sunayama, Saburo Murakami, Hideo Azuma, Zenji Wakimoto and others, and at a hugely competitive price/image quality ratio), to such an extent that Nikon Optical Co., Inc. had been founded in the United States already in 1953, Nikon President Nagaoka Masao and the great American Nikon distributor Joe Ehrenreich (who made some annual trips to Ohi factory to check the quality, reliability and market prospects of every Nikon product), realized that the future cornerstone camera of the firm should have to be much more versatile than rangefinder cameras, with many more attachable lenses of different focal lengths, from extreme wideangles to supertelephotos and with much higher possibilities of expansion through the added bonus of a very comprehensive array of accessories for micro and macro photography.

That was the beginning of the Nikon international spreading embodied by the rugged Nikon F camera (an exceedingly reliable model, whose shutter could be released 100,000 times in less than eight hours keeping on working like a charm) and the photographic system born with it (featuring a heap of different interchangeable viewfinder systems and focusing screens, a unique standard viewfinder that showed exactly 100% of what would appear on the negative and a slew of excellent lenses between 21 mm and 1000 mm), which would result in such extraordinary cameras as the utterly mechanic Nikon F2, Nikon F2S Photomic (1973-1976), Nikon F2AS (1977-1980). Nikon FM2 (deemed as a semiprofessional camera but highly used by professionals because of its shutter speeds up to 1/4000 s and its flash sync up to 1/250), working flawlessly without batteries throught many decades under the most extreme temperatures, the electronic Nikon F3 (1980-2001) and the last analog flagships Nikon F5 (1996-2004) and Nikon F6 (introduced in 2004).

But the book Nikon 100 Anniversary created by Uli Koch (one of the greatest experts in the world on the legendary Japanese photographic camera, along with Robert Rotoloni, Hans Braakhuis, Stephen Gandy, Hans Ploegmakers, Takayuki Kawai, Bill Kraus, Yutaka Ohtsu, Akihiko Suzuki, Bob Rogen, Thierry Ravassod, Niko van Dijk, Jim Emmerson, Tom Abrahamsson, Dr. Ryosuke Mori, Dr. Manabu Nakai, Shoichiro Yoshida, Mikio Itoh, Hirosi Kosai, Dr. Zyun Koana, Akito Tamla, Michio Akiyama and others) and edited by Ostlicht GmbH goes far beyond the most well-known optomechanical achievements and market feats accomplished by Nikon company.

It´s an extraordinary 412 page visual compilation of every Nikon camera, lens, accessory and all kinds of devices manufactured by the Japanese brand from its very birth in 1917 (when the three leading optical manufacturers in Japan merged into a fully integrated optical company named Nippon Kogaku K.K, with the research on manufacture of optical glasses beginning the following year)
until nowadays in full digital age, with the added bonus of accurate captions on all and every item, providing very interesting information and occupying the middle area of each page, revealing a thoroughly devised layout of the pages regarding the location of pictures and texts about them.

Uli Koch during the world premiere of his book Nikon 100 Anniversary at Westlicht Photographica Auction (Vienna) on November 19, 2015.

This is a remarkable book with two most significant aims:

a) To celebrate the centenary of Nippon Kogaku K.K / Nikon Corporation, Japan (NK).

b) To provide an exceedinly valuable trove of 2170 colour pictures made by himself (most of them reproduced in big or very large size, with impressive quality thanks to a very hard labor fulfilled by the author, who had to travel to a number of countries throughout some years to photograph all the Nikon items (a high percentage of them belonging to private collections), many of them real jewels, with a Nikon D800 full frame camera, AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105 mm f/2.5G lens and Bowens and Elinchrom flash lights) of virtually all existent rangefinder and slr Nikon cameras, lenses, accesories, binoculars, microscopes, telescopes and many other products manufactured by the Japanese company throughout its history in 

eleven chapters beginning with the 1917-1926 starting period 

and ending with the most recent 2007-2016 stage already in full digital age: lenses made for third parties, early Compur shutters, collapsible magnifiers, early Nikkor lenses without shutters for 6.5 x 9 cm cameras, enlarging lenses, film development acessories, military rangefinders,

Aero-Nikkor lenses for 13 x 18 cm format, leather cases, aircraft 5 x 38 observation binoculars,

naval alt azimuth scopes in wooden boxes, stereoscopic military viewers for analysis of stereo images taken from airplanes,

Nippon Kogaku SK 100 aerial cameras with Nikkor 18 cm f/4.5 lenses, Aeyo filter to reduce haze in black and white photogrammetry made from aircraft and 6 x 9 cm film, Niko infantry periscope with hand grip, Nikko panoramic machine gun sight device, Nikko military 10 x 70 aircraft spotting binoculars. Nikko rangefinder with lens spacing of 100 cm, Nikko artillery spotting telescope, Nikko naval antiaircraft sights, Nikko Galilean design infantry binoculars, Canon S cameras with Nikkor 5 cm f/2 lenses in Canon bayonet mount, tons of images of the superb Nikon rangefinder system of cameras and lenses

(Nikon I 24 x 32 mm format from 1948 with Nikkor 5 cm f/3.5 lens, very early Nikkor S.C 5 cm f/2, Nikkor S.C 8.5 cm f/2 and Nikkor S.C 13.5 cm f/4, 24 x 34 mm format Nikon S, Nikon S2, Nikon S3, Nikon SP), the very rare Variframe Type I viewfinder engraved 24 x 32 mm for the Nikon I, Nikon L experimental camera with Leica screwmount, Nikkor 5 cm f/1.8 prototype lens for Nikon 1, Nippon Kogaku telescope adapter for screw mount cameras,

Nicca camera with Nikkor 5 cm f/3.5 lens in screw mount, Nikon M 24 x 34 mm format with CPO logo, Tower III cameras with Nikkor 5 cm f/3.5 and Nikkor 5 cm f/2 lenses, microscopes O-Series from thirties, Micron and Nikon binoculars, pictures of all types of Nikon Variframe finders for Nikon rangefinder cameras,

Apo-Nikkor 30 cm f/9 lenses used for photoengraving during fifties, Nippon Kogaku lenses for an early Nikon profile projector from 1950, the rare Nikon S camera diopter from 1951, medium format 6 x 6 cm Airesflex and Aires Automat from 1958 with Nikkor lenses. cutaway Nikkor lenses for rangefinder cameras used to show the inner optomechanical construction of the objectives, lens shades for Nikon rangefinder lenses, Nippon Kogaku Reflex Housings from 1952 for Nikon rangefinder cameras, long telephoto Nikkor 50 cm f/5 lenses for Nikon RF cameras with additional Nikon reflex housing, Nippon Kogaku specific tripod for the Nikkor 50 cm f/5 rangefinder lens.

Nikkors 13.5 cm f/3.5 lenses in Exakta mounts, Nippon Kogaku Microscope K with extendable tube, the gorgeous Nippon Kogaku Theodolite or Transit Level universal surveying instrument for field measurement with compass and all of its accessories (reproduced in full page 30 x 21 cm with wonderful green and orange colours), Nippon Kogaku individual chrome finders for Nikon I, M, S and S2 cameras. Nippon Kogaku bulb flashes for Nikon rangefinder cameras,

Nippon Kogaku Microscope KUG with extendable tube length, Nippon Kogaku close-up attachments for Nikon S, Nikon S2, Nikon S3 and SP, Nikon Copy Stand S from 1953, two Nikkor 5 cm f/1.4 lenses with attractive serial numbers (this picture is amazing, depicting the very beautiful blueish single coating),  Nikon Copy Stand P from 1957, Nippon Kogaku 65 mm telescope, tiny and rare -5.0 to +5.0 diopter lenses for S2 camera users wearing eyeglasses,

Cine-Nikkor 6.5 mm f/1.9, 13 mm f/1.9 and 38 mm f/1.9 lenses for 8 mm cameras with D mount, Nippon Kogaku laboratory Microscope J from 1955 with a Nikon SP camera mounted, Nippon Kogaku Transit Level Model-H for land surveying from 1955, Micro-Nikkor 5 cm f/3.5 lenses in Nikon rangefinder bayonet mount,

Stereo-Nikkor 3.5 cm f/3.5 outfit on a black Nikon S2 camera with special stereo finder and getting two 17 x 24 mm images on 24 x 36 mm format film, and many others.

And of course, there´s a lavish coverage of the 1957-1966 period (one hundred and six pages of the book devoted to this stage) in which Nippon Kogaku made many of their milestone photographic products, which were the core of its well-known reputation all over the world, particularly

the Nikon SP, Nikon F and the Nikon S 36 electrical motor drive, the first serial production electrical motordrive in the world for a 35 mm camera, without forgetting the movie cameras for 8 mm format which were also manufactured and a wide assortment of other products: the very rare Nikkor 5 cm f/1.1 lens in screwmount on a Tower Type 3 camera,

a fabulous near mint Nikon 36 motor drive in original box, Nikon Underwater Housing for Nikons S2, SP and S3, Nikon S3 camera from 1958 with Nikkor 2.8 cm f/3.5 lens and Nippon Kogaku Variframe finder type 7 from 1955, Nikon exposure meters for rangefinder cameras in different versions with booster and incident light plates, different Nikon leather camera cases for Nikon SP camera, wire shutter release cables for Nikon rangefinder cameras, 6 x 6 cm medium format Nippon Kogaku Sky cameras with Fish-Eye Nikkor 16.3 mm f/8 and an angle of view of 180º,, Nippon Kogaku TV-Nikkor lenses for RCA camera mount, Nippon Kogaku Mikron monocular version specially made for golf players, Nikon S3 with Nikkor 5 cm f/1.4 lens, Black Nikon S3 cameras with Nikkor 2.5 cm f/4 lens and finder, Black Olympic Nikon S3 with special Olympic Nikkor 5 cm f/1.4 lens,

Nikkor lenses for Zenza Bronica "D" mount: Nikkor 18 cm f/2.5 f/4 preset, 35 cm f/4.5 and 50 cm f/5 with large bayonet adapter for Bronica "S" mount cameras.

Following it, there´s  a chapter devoted to the 1962-1970 period in which Nippon Kogaku used their brand name Nikkor for all merchandized items in Germany, with a lot of images of items from this period: one of the first Nikkor F cameras with Micro-Nikkor 55 mm f/3.5 lens, a Nikkor J (German version of the Nikkorex F) with Nikkor J leather case, the Nikkor 8 (German version of the Nikkorex 8 cine camera), Nippon Kogaku accessories for Nikkor F cameras, Nippon Kogaku close-up accessories for Nikon F cameras ane different slide copying adapters for Bellows II, chrome and black Nikkormat FT for the German market and Nikkormat FTN cameras, Nippon Kogaku Calypso/Nikkor II underwater camera,

Nikkor Super Zoom 8 camera with 8.8-45 mm zoom lens, early Nikkor F camera with two Nikkor F250 motor drives, and many others.

Subsequently, Uli Koch gets into the prolific 1967-1976 stage in which Nikon developed a lot of new 35 mm cameras like the extraordinary Nikon F2 and its lenses, in addition to a host of optical instruments for industrial and scientific use: Nikon F high precision with modified pressure plate for pictures with Kodak Infrared HIE 2480 film, 

a Nikon F with Mikami rapid winder getting a faster winding of the film without motor drive, Nikkor-P.C 400 mm f/5.6 telephoto lens type 1 from 1973, Nikon F finders and ocular accessories, Nikkormat FTN chrome and black from 1967, Nikkormat FTN type 2 from 1971, Nikkormat FTN3 with AI modification from 1977, Nikkormat autofocus projector GC-2, 6 x 9 cm medium format Japanese Marshall Press camera with fixed 105 mm f/3.5 Nikkor lens,

Nippon Kogaku Apophot research microscope, Nippon Kogaku Slit- Lamp for ophthalmic work with flash, Nikon binoculars 7 x 35 mm, four different types of the Nikon F testers to choose the best screens out of 17 models and diopters, Nippon Kogaku SB-1 flash unit for Nikon F/F2 with GN-Nikkor 45 mm f/2.8 and acessories, repro copy outfits for Nikon F cameras, Nippon Kogaku Microflex PFM type 2 and Microflex AFM with automatic exposure and control box, extremely rare Nippon Kogaku Oscilloscope Unit for Nikon F,

Nippon Kogaku Microflex CFMA type 1 with integrated intervalometer made for Bolex H16 cine camera, Nikonos II underwater camera with very early UW-Nikkor 15 mm f/2.8 lens and 15 mm underwater finder, Zenza Bronica S2A medium format camera with Fisheye-Nikkor 30 mm f/4 prototype lens, Nikkor 400 mm f/4.5 lens mounted on a Bronica gun stock, Nikon Microscope H type 2 mounted on a Nikon F with waist level finder on a Nikon Microscope adapter, the Nippon Kogaku  Microscope Lke, large format Apo-Nikkor 45 cm f/9 and 60 cm f/9 lenses with a huge 60 cm right-angle reversing prism, Nippon Kogaku Photographing Screen with Nikon wooden cassettes for a Nikon 6c Profile Projector, Nikon F36 motor drives with standard battery pack, Nikon Inc. USA Intervalometers type 1 and type 2,

Fisheye-Nikkor 6.2 mm f/5.6 230º with Symmetrical Angled Projection with an angle of view of 230º equaling the angle of view of the human eye, Nippon Kogaku Autocollimator Model 6 used for non contact measurement of angles, Nippon Kogaku Microtester Type 5 optical instrument for linear measuring of the thickness, depth or diameter of machined parts as thin as 0.005 mm, Nikon F NASA with a special Nikkor 55 mm f/1.2 NASA lens and an F36 modified motor drive, very rare Nikon F High Speed Camera for 7 fps with modified F36 motor drive and Nikkor-H 300 mm f/2.8 preset lens,

early Nikkor F2 cameras in chrome and black with Nikon MD-1 / Nikon MD-2 motor drives, Nikon finders for Nikon F2 cameras, Nikon F2 camera backs MF-1 for 250 exposures, Fisheye-Nikkor 6 mm f/2.8 lens covering an angle of 220º,

Reflex-Nikkor 2000 mm f/11 lens mounted on a Nikon F2 Photomic camera, Nikon dummies with Nikkor 50 mm f/1.4 lenses, Nikon NT-2A theodolite in orange carrying case and AE-3M auto level for levelling the ground of buildings,

MF-2 camera back for 750 exposures on a Nikon F2 AS and 55 mm f/1.2 Nikkor lens, Nikon binoculars J-B7 (9 x 35 mm) Micron (8 x 50 mm) and CF (10 x 25 mm), Nikon Profile Projectors lenses, rotatable screen for Nikon C-6/2 profile projector and a Nikon spare bulb, very rare Nikon F High Speed camera for 9 f.p.s (with pellicle mirror) and modified Nikon F36 motor drive with a 300 mm f/2,8 preset Nikkor ED lens, ultra-wide-angle Nikkor lenses 15 mm f/5.6, 15 mm f/3.5 and 13 mm f/5.6 with exceptional correction of distortion,

ED Zoom-Nikkor 360-1200  f/11 lens mounted on a Nikon F2 High Speed camera, Nikon Enlarger RA-350 Auto-Focus with 50 mm f/2.8 EL-Nikkor lens, and many others.

Afterwards comes the chapter focused on the 1977-1986 decade, which meant another milestone for the Japanese brand with the introduction of the Nikon F3 camera designed by Giorgietto Giugiaro, in addition to the launching into market of the 15 mm f/3.5 lens and a lot of telephoto lenses with special ED optics and internal focusing like the famous Nikkor 300 mm f/2.8 IF-ED or the Nikkor 300 mm f/2 IF-ED and many other top-notch cameras, lenses and devices: Nikon F2 Data camera with Nikon MF-10 (36 pictures) and MF-11 (250 pictures) data backs, Nikon F2 Anniversary and Nikon F2 Titan cameras, Nikon F2 camera for the 25th Anniversary of the US distribution by the Ehrenreich Company, Nikon F2 High Speed Outfit for 10 fps (with pellicle mirror), Nikon F2 High Speed with modified Nikon MF-1 Back for 250 exposures,

unknown Nikon F2 Titan version in champagne colour, dummy of Nikon FM, Nikon EM cutaway, cutaway PC-Nikkor 28 mm f/3.5, Nikkor 300 mm f/4.5, Nikon SB-12 flash, Zoom-Nikkor ED 80-200 mm f/2.8 lens, Nikon MF-18 data back, Nikon F3 with MF-4 back (250 pictures), Nikon F3 tester with four rails of screens (20 screens) and diopters, Nikon F2 medical modified camera with special eye level finder and special Nikkor lenses, Nikonos IV underwater camera with Nikkor 35 mm f/2.5 lens, Nikon Diaphot TMD Inverted research microscope with EPI Fluorescence attachment used to clone sheep " Dolly", Nikon Microflex CFMA type 2 on a Bolex 16 mm cine camera, Nikkor ED 300 mm f/2 lens coupled to a black Nikon F3 Titan camera, Industrial Nikkor lenses Apo-Nikkor 1780 mm f/14, EL-Nikkor 360 mm f/5.6 and COM-Nikkor 88 mm f/2, Nikon F3 AF outfit, Nikonos V underwater cameras with Nikkor 35 mm f/2.5 lenses, special gold edition Nikon FA camera bestowed to Nikon as a winner of the Camera Grand Prix 1984, four Nikon FM golden cameras for the 60th anniversary of Nippon Kogaku in 1977, Nikon NT scanner transmitter for the scanning of standard 35 mm film and to transmit the electronic image to the editorial office by phone connection, Nikon NW-100 printer,

Nikon F3 NASA with special Nikon MD-4 motor drive and special Micro-Nikkor 105 mm f/2.8 NASA lens, Nikonos RS SLR underwater camera with Nikkor 50 mm f/2.8 and 28 mm f/2.8 lenses, Nikonos RS cutaway with Nikkor 20-35 mm f/2.8, superb Nikkor W 180 mm f/5.6 and Nikkor-Q 105 mm f/3.5 large format lenses, Nikon lenses for Measuring Microscopes, Nikon stage for profile projectors with 17 cm surface area, digital encoders for X- and Y- axis with Nikon SC-102 digital counter, modified Nikon F3 for use inside a submarine and featuring a special action finder and Nikon F3 different types of finder.

Thereupon, we come across the 1987-1996 chapter, covering among many others Nikon items like

the Nikon F4 camera with its available finders, the rare Nikon F4 NASA using a small 12 x 12 mm square format, the TV-Nikkor 8.5-127.5 mm f/1.7 for use on Sony Betacam SP/Ampex/Fuji professional videocameras,

the Kodak DCS 100 (the very first professional digital camera based on a Nikon F3 camera and featuring a 1.3 megapixel sensor), Nikon F3 special editions, Nikon 35 Ti and Nikon 28 Ti high quality compact autofocus cameras with titanium casting, the Nikon F5 camera, a cutaway of a Nikon F5 camera, and others.

The next chapter delves into 1997-2006 period which meant the transition from 35 mm analog cameras (whose last flagship is the Nikon F6) to digital ones and the beginning of professional Nikon "D" series digital cameras, as well as providing further information on:

Nikon Scan Touch AX-110 flatbed scanner and Nikon Coolscan LS 10 scanner for 35 mm, Nikon F5 Anniversary Limited Edition,

Nikon D professional cameras with DX Sensors (24 x 16 mm format) Nikon D1 and Nikon D1x, Nikon S3 Limited Edition with Nikkor 50 mm f/1.4 Olympic lens, Nikon SP Limited Edition with Nikkor 3,5 cm f/3.5 lens,

Nikon F6, and many others.

Finally, the book ends with the chapter encompassing the 2007-2016 period, the most recent one, showing new Nikon items of the digital era like the

top class telephoto lenses AF-S 200 mm f/2G ED VR, AF-S Nikkor 300 mm f/2.8G ED  VR, AF-S 400 mm f/2.8 ED VR,

the PC-E Nikkor 24 mm f/3.5D ED tilt and shift lens with ED lenses, aspherical elements and Nano Crystal Coat, the Nikon D4 full frame camera with 24 x 36 mm sensor and 16.8 megapixels, the Nikon D4s with great high ISO capabilities and Full HD video, the special golden edition of the Nikon Df 24 x 36 mm format  digital camera with special Nikkor 50 mm f/1.8G lens, and

the Mr David Douglas Duncan Happy 100th Birthday with a typical Nikkor screwmount lens from the early 1950s and others.

CONCLUSION

Highly probably an irrepeteable work in which the author has made a colossal effort of years to beget the book and commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Nikon, along with Leica and Carl Zeiss the most important and influential brand within the photographic market in the History of Photography (it said with all respect to the rest of photographic companies), regarding the Japanese brand particularly between early sixties and early nineties, above all from the moment in which compact motordrives like the MD-1, MD-2 and MD-3 drew the professional market towards the extraordinary Nikon F2, F2S Photomic, Nikon F2A and Nikon F3.

Consequently, after almost thirty years of dominance of the professional photographic market by the 24 x 36 mm Leica and Contax rangefinder cameras between early thirties and late fifties, the Nikon F System became the common choice among the foremost pros between 1960 and 1990, in many different photographic genres like photojournalism (Bill Eppridge, Malcolm Browne, John Dominis, George Silk, Göksin Sipahioglu, Bob Adelman, Josef Darchinger, Alain Ernoult, Volker Rost, Ursula Meissner), war photography (Nick Ut, David Douglas Duncan , Eddie Adams, Dana Stone, Reza Deghati, Don McCullin, Henri Huet, Larry Burrows, Slava Veder, Taizo Ichinose, Art Greenspon, Steve McCurry, many of whom also used Leica rangefinder cameras coupled to 28, 35 and 50 mm primes for pictures made from very near distances), sports photography (Ken Kelly, John G. Zimmerman, Marvin E. Newman, Herb Schafmann, Andrew D. Bernstein, Robert Beck, Bill Frakes, John W. McDonough, Nigel Snowdon, Valeria Witters, Jerry Lodriguss, Rick Tomlinson, Christine Lalla, Robert Bösch, Stefan Warter), nature and wildlife photography (Bates Littlehates, Heather Angel, Jim Brandenburg, Frans Lanting, Art Wolfe, Fritz Pölking, Chris McLennan, Galen Rowell, David Tipling, Gilles Delisle, Mike Macri, Mattias Klum, Laurie Campbell) , fashion photography (Peter Lindbergh, Bill Cunningham, Christopher Morris, Katrin Thomas, Jean-Louis Coulombel, Paul Van Riel), live concerts photography (Amalie M. Rotschild, Jerry Schatzberg, Henry Diltz, Ed Caraeff, Jill Furmanovsky, Barry Plummer, Michael Putland, Allan Titmuss) and others.

Furthermore, this is the most comprehensive work ever made about Nikon firm in terms of quantity of pictures of cameras, lenses, motor drives, all kind of accessories, special editions, microscopes, telescopes, etc, and an accurate description of each one, fruit of many decades of painstaking research.

To properly understand the magnitude and significance of this colossal work (whose production cost has been very high because of the first class thread-sewn binding system used to guarantee a good cosmetic appearance of the book throughout many years, the very expensive top quality thick paper chosen to enhance the beauty of the tons of 100% colour photographs included in the book, the hard cover and the many trips to a number of countries to get a high percentage of the pictures belonging to fantastic private collections (with many classic Nikon items featuring a lot of decades of antiquity in near mint, A- and A/B condition), suffice it to say that the photographs of the book pages illustrating this humble article don´t make up even the 5% of the total figure of 2170 images that it contains.

The fabulous images of the myriad of products appearing in this unique work (made by the author in different countries with a Nikon D800 full frame digital camera, and AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105 mm f/2.5G lens and Bowens and Elinchrom flash lights, one by one, with a huge level of endeavour and often hiring equipment in foreign cities, as well as managing to get access to private collections) feature a far superior quality and aesthetic appearance on the superb glossy paper pages of the book (oozing gorgeous beauty and an impressive level of detail inherent to the medium format scope, since the full frame professional digital cameras have reached that level of sharpness, contrast and tonal range) than on the screen of any computer, are the core of the book and become a true relish and unforgettable experience for any lover of both the history of photography and particularly of photographic devices manufactured with a very high standard of optomechanical quality and able to flawslessly work through many decades, as happened with workhorses like the Nikon SP, Nikon F, Nikon F2, Nikon F2S Photomic, Nikon F Photomic FTN, Nikon F3 and Nikon FM2, which are among the best pieces of engineering in the History of Photography.

On the other hand, Nikon has always been a great admirer of the German optical designs, and from twenties (a period in which the Carl Zeiss Jena engineers Heinrich Acht, Hermann Dillmann and Max Lange visited Japan between 1921 and 1928) it was inspired by them.

As a matter of fact, since mid twenties, they had paid a lot of attention to the legendary Carl Zeiss binoculars which had been used by Roald Amundsen in his Polar trips since he bought them in 1902, preserving identical optomechanical qualities and centering of the optical elements for twenty-two years, working flawlessly under the most extreme temperatures and intensive use.

It is also true that Kakuya Sunayama (Head of the Nippon Kogaku Lens Design Department) visited Germany in late twenties, learned very much and took advantage of the huge German know-how in lens designing to thoroughly disassemble and study Tessar, Triplet and Dagor scheme lenses, starting with the 3 element Carl Zeiss 50 cm f/4.8 Triplet, to such an extent that Nippon Kogaku had already created the Tessar type Anytar 50 cm f/4.5, until the Nikkor breed of lenses was born in 1932.

Nippon Kogaku lenses manufactured between 1946 and late fifties like the Nikkor H.C 5 cm f/2 and the Nikkor S.C 8.5 cm f/1.5 were clearly inspired by the Carl Zeiss lenses (though the Japanese firm was able to approach in resolving power in the center and often improve contrast and acutance).

Anyway, Uli Koch´s book undoubtedly proves with oodles of wonderful images in big size that Nippon Kogaku had already manufactured between early twenties and mid forties a very wide range of top class optical products (binoculars, scopes, telescopes, transit levels, collapsible magnifiers, large format lenses, infantry periscopes, Nikkor lenses for 24 x 36 mm format Hansa Canon cameras, large format aerial photogrammetry lenses, naval azimuth scopes, stereoscopic viewers, lenses for industrial devices, aircraft spotting binoculars, artillery rangefinders, etc), though because of circumstances the designers of the firm had to mostly create items for the Japanese Army and Navy.

To all intents and purposes, it meant an impressive optical and mechanical expertise that would be fundamental before the definitive success of Nippon Kogaku in the photographic market from early fifties, something which was greatly fostered by the huge advances made by it during thirties in the sphere of single coatings

which resulted in the state-of-the-art 15 meter main rangefinder and 10 meter secondary rangefinder of Yamato battleship, at the frorefront of innovation in this field and by far the best ones in the world at the time of its launching on August 8, 1940, featuring an extraodinary accuracy up to a distance of 37 km and whose specifications were kept in utmost secret at every moment, as well as having exceptional single coatings in their huge optical elements.

But from around mid fifties they went their own way in lens designing for photographic cameras, an ongoing trend epitomized by the amazing for the time 7 elements in 5 groups W-Nikkor 3.5 cm f/1.8 highly luminous wideangle lens designed by Hideo Azuma in 1956, boasting an aberration balance which would be the hallmark of Nikkor lenses in future.

And within time, Nikon would create many more world class lenses whose highlights were:

- The 5 elements in 3 groups Nikkor P.C 8.5 cm f/2, designed by Saburo Murakami in 1949 (and benefiting from subsequent further improvements made by Kenji Wakimoto).

It features a Sonnar optical scheme and delivers superb sharp and high contrast images with excellent rendition of textures even at the widest aperture, along with a commendable control of spherical aberration and coma on the whole image surface and meant the turning point which made Nikon worldwide known as a manufacturer of top-notch photographic lenses.

- The 5 elements in 3 groups (5 elements in 4 groups since 1970) Non-ai Nikkor-P Auto 10.5 cm f/2.5 from 1959 with Nikkor F mount, designed by Kenji Wakimoto.

A lens attaining impressive image quality and which became one of the favourite objectives among photojournalists and portrait photographers during sixties and seventies.

- The 6 elements in 6 groups Nikkor -H Auto 2.8 cm f/3.5, designed in 1960 by Zenji Wakimoto, who accomplished the optical feat of greatly correcting the chromatic aberration present at the edge of the image (which had been until then the weak spot of wideangle retrofocus designs), though it suffers from field curvature.

- The 5 elements in 4 groups Micro Nikkor 55 mm f/3.5 from 1961, designed by Kenji Wakimoto (who managed to extend 5 cm the length of the rear focus, so modifying the 1956 Micro-Nikkor 55 mm f/3.5 design created by Hideo Azuma for the Nikon S camera) for Nikon F mount.

- The 8 elements in 7 groups PC-Nikkor 35 mm f/3.5 from 1962, the first PC lens for slr cameras made in the world, featuring tilt-shift and an amazing compactness which proved the prowess of Nikon mechanic engineers.

- The OP Fisheye-Nikkor 10 mm f/5.6 from 1968, a superb orthographic projection lens rendering subjects in very big size in the middle area of the image. It was the first aspheric lens made for slr cameras.

- The 9 elements in 7 groups Nikkor Auto 35 mm f/1.4 from 1971, designed by Yoshiyuki Shimizu. Nikon used all of its optical and mechanical expertise in this photojournalistic par excellence lens, the first one in the world boasting f/1.4 large aperture, introducing a lot of new technologies during its manufacturing, which were even more enhanced when Teruyoshi Tsunajima modified both the composition of the glasses of its optical formula elements and the curvature of the lens, bettering its performance at full aperture.

This lens was a real optical and mechanical tour de force at the time, since it is very small (front diameter of 52 mm) and light for an f/1.4 wideangle lens for slr cameras, as well as having been the first Nikkor lens featuring the famous NIC (Nikon Integrated Multilayer Coating), a seminal factor to achieve high contrast and color accuracy.

- The 6 elements in 5 groups Nikkor-H 300 mm f/2.8, designed by Yoshiyuki Shimizu in 1972. It was an extraordinary for the time supertelephoto lens, featuring a very wise optical balance optimized for high resolving power, colour accuracy and very beautiful bokeh, thanks to its very good correction of chromatic aberration, an almost negligible spherical aberration, highly reduced astigmatism and Petzval curvature, avoiding any out of focus zones even on the most off-centered areas, truly an achievement for the time to such an extent that it proves that Nikon optical designers fully understood the major degrading effect of field curvature on image quality and the huge importance of controlling it during the lens design (since it won´t change during any subsequent optimization stage), striving upon finding a lot of methods to correct the Petzval sum in the optical system and glimpsing significant aspects in this regard that would be tackled forty-four years later by Yuhao Wang in his Advanced Theory of Field Curvature set forth at the University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences.

It included special low dispersion glasses and a diaphragm located in the center of the optical path.

This super telephoto meant the birth of a breed that would be embodied in the future inception of 300 mm f/2.8 stellar performers by different brands, like the manual focusing 8 elements in 6 groups Nikkor 300 mm f/2.8 EDIF from 1977, the 11 elements in 8 groups Nikkor AF-S from 1996, the manual focusing 8 elements in 7 groups Carl Zeiss Tele-Apotessar T* 300 mm f/2.8 from 1992 for Contax/Yashica Mount cameras, the manual focusing 8 elements in 7 groups Leica Apo-Telyt-R 280 mm f/2.8 from 1984, the manual focusing 9 elements in 7 groups Canon New FD 300 mm f/2.8L and others.

- The 16 elements in 12 groups  Nikkor 13 mm f/5.6, designed by Ikuo Mori in 1971 and launched into market in 1976. It is the best rectilinear extreme wideangle prime under 14 mm ever made for 35 mm format cameras, with a superlative correction of distortion

- The 11 element in 8 groups Nikkor 300 mm f/2 ED IF from 1981, in which Nikon showed its prowess in lens designing created this supertelephoto lens of amazingly large aperture, as well as specifically manufacturing for it the 1.4 x TC-14C teleconverter turning it into a 400 mm f/2.8 lens without almost no loss in quality.

- The AF-S Nikkor 400 mm f/2.8E FL ED VR from 2014, a masterpiece supertelephoto lens designed by Toshinori Take, who managed to greatly reduce the weight and dimensions with respect to previous lenses featuring this focal length.

This is a state-of-the-art objective with an optical formula of 16 elements in 12 groups (two of them made of fluorite and other two ED glass, with the added benefit of a fluorine coated front meniscus glass element for added extra protection) with a remarkable electromagnetic diaphragm mechanism that keeps very consistent exposures during high speed shooting, Nano Crystal Coat in its elements and SWM (Silent Wave Motor) technology making possible exceedingly fast, accurate and quiet autofocus.

Therefore, the book Nikon 100 Anniversary by Uli Koch also pays homage to the Japanese photographic firm designers who were able to create a number of milestone optical designs, something particularly praiseworthy between mid forties and sixties, when the legendary Saburo Murakami, Hideo Azuma and Zenji Wakimoto managed to spawn excellent lenses with very few means, making intensive calculation of ray tracing with abacus and table of logarithms along with thousands and thousands of trial and error hours, as well as using classical optical bench testing techniques with collimators and T-Bar nodal slides, in a time when Nippon Kogaku lacked any IBM 650, Z5, Elliot 402F computers used by Leica optical wizards Walter Mandler and Helmut Marx from mid fifties onwards or any computer programs for optimizing optical systems like the adapted automatic correction method incepted and used by Zeiss genius optical designer Erhard Glatzel during sixties.

And during the following decades, Nikon would develop breaktrhrough optomechanical technologies like

- The machining workshops, where brass blanks are converted to intricate lens mounts by means of multi-staged computer controlled automatic lathes made from late eighties.

- The steady improvement of AF algorithms since the launching into market of the Nikon F-501 in 1986 until the 51-point Multi-CAM 3500 AF System of the Nikon D4 and D4s full format professional digital cameras taking advantage of its great 3D-tracking mode which keeps following moving subjects, and the recent state-of-the-art Multi-Cam 20k AF module featuring 99 points of autofocus.

This has been a feat accomplished by Nikon, since on increasing the total number of AF points, the probabilities of wrong focusing soar a great deal.

In this regard, the historical evolution and constant betterment attained by Nikon with its superb AF algorithms (the international benchmark in this respect) delivering an outstanding performance interaction between the RGB and AF sensors has been truly amazing.

- The early nineties method for producing glass blanks fulfilled by Takashi Inoue, Tadayoshi Yonemoto, Toshihiro Muroi and Yoshiyoki Shimizu.

- The high precision optical glass components manufactured without grinding and polishing the glass thanks to an avantgarde method (dropping melted glass from the glass outlet from a glass melting furnace to a mold and cooling the dropped glass on the mold) to make glass blanks used for optical glass elements incepted in mid nineties by Hiyoshi Hayashi, Toshiro Ishiyama, Yoshiyuki Shimizu and Yutaka Suenaga.

- The manufacturing of aspherical lenses through a press molding technique using glass or resin developed by Akira Hosomi, Yoshiyuki Shimizu and Akira Morimoto whereby at least one of the dies is created by etching a rotational symmetric surface of a base material, unevenly, so the etched surface becomes rotationally asymmetrically aspherical in shape.

- The MTF measuring systems adopted from late seventies and which have been replaced by the Nikon Optia Metrology System since 2012, a breakthrough device that measures all of the elements of the lens, something which has revealed to be of instrumental importance to simulate the combination of lens elements.

Optia measuring system analyzes lens performance bearing in mind such traits as resolving power, bokeh, reproduction of textures, sense of depth, etc, in symbiosis with the specific image simulating software created for it.

It all has meant in practice an extraordinary progression by Nikon since the times of classic design softwares used in optical design and working by ray tracings algorithms which didn´t enable to anticipate lens features like the bokeh and others, to such an extent that now Nikon is able to carry out a designing stage simulation with a painstaking control on a wide range of optical qualities of the lens roughly tantamount to real photography with prototypes of lenses.

Text and Photos: José Manuel Serrano Esparza

JOHN G. MORRIS 100TH BIRTHDAY PARTY CELEBRATED IN PARIS ON DECEMBER 11, 2016

John G. Morris 100th Birthday Party has been held on Sunday December 11, 2011, at his home in Paris, in which has been a milestone event to commemorate the century of the most influential picture editor ever, after an amazing photographic career throughout which he was Life magazine Hollywood correspondent, London Life magazine picture editor during Second World War, Executive Editor of Magnum Photos, Ladies´Home Journal photo editor, assistant managing editor for graphics of the Washington Post, picture editor for The New York Times and a Europe corresponding editor for National Geographic, so turning into the most experienced picture editor in the History of Photography.

This living legend of the photojournalism worked through many decades of the XX Century with the foremost photographers in the world: Henri-Cartier Bresson, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Robert Capa, Margaret Bourke-White, David Seymour Chim, Werner Bischof, Gjon Mili, Georg Rodger, Bob Landry, Ralph Morse, Carl Mydans, Elliot Elisofon, Hansel Mieth, Elliott Erwitt, Phillippe Halsman, Eugene Smith, Cornell Capa, Inge Morath, Dmitri Kessel, David Douglas Duncan, Fritz Goro, Myron Davies, George Silk, Peter Stackpole, John Florea, Hans Wild, Frank Scherschel, Dave Scherman, Ernst Haas, Lee Miller, Bill Vandivert, Ruth Orkin, Sol Libson, Esther Bubbley, Gordon Coster, Larry Burrows, Eve Arnold, Burt Glinn, Erich Hartmann, Dennis Stock, John Phillips, Erich Lessing, Marc Riboud, Kryn Taconis, Bill Snead, Ernies Sisto, Barton Silverman, Neal Boenzi, Edward Hausner, Jack Manning, Don Hogan Charles, Peter Magubane, Michel Laurent, Eddie Adams, Steve McCurry, David Turnley, Peter Turnley and many more.

His birthday has really been four days before, on Wednesday, December 7, 2016, but John G. Morris 100th Birthday Party has been scheduled for today December 11, 2016.

Many guests from all over the world (particularly from United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Spain) have attended the event,

And among the roughly 95 attendees who filled John G. Morris´s home at the Paris III Arrondissement there has been a vast amount of recognized photographers, documentary movie producers, TV producers, editors-in-chief of magazines, journalists, filmmakers, writers and artists: Jane Evelyn Atwood, Amalie R. Rothschild, Mort Rosenblum, Barbara Nagelsmith, Joan Z. Shore, Riccardo Fisichella, Thomas Haley, Dimitri Beck, Cheryl Ann Bolden, Elisabeth Lortic, Dan Spigelman, Irene Walsh, Dragana Jurisic, Daphné Anglès, Jeffrey Schaeffer, Maya Vidon-White, Peter Brooks, Sonya K. Fry, Guillermo Altares, Hélene Grelou, Zachary Miller, and many others.

Besides, it must be highlighted the previous arrangement great work fulfilled by Mr John Morris (John G. Morris´s son) and his wife, John G. Morris´s grandsons and granddaughters and Riccardo Fisichella (John G Morris´s assistant, who has also worked with Martin Parr in New York, and a key factor during the making of My Century, the next autobiographic book written by John G. Morris on his lifetime as a picture editor and featuring stunningly lavish historical information on the myriad of photographers he met during his lifetime and sent on assignments, multitude of anecdotes, special events, defining instants of photojournalism, a number of exceedingly interesting stories, the usually difficult decisions which had to be quickly taken to publish iconic images, the exhausting hours before the deadlines to include the selected images and texts inside the magazines, the intricacies of the layouts along the many days spent envisaging the best way to visually enhance the pictures and making them match the texts and captions, etc.

Many of the pages of this exceptional book containing a slew of the best pictures made in XX Century were thoroughly prepared in advance before the party and projected during it on a screen through a laptop by Riccardo Fissichella, bringing about moments of unutterable relish among the guests, all of them lovers of timeless photojournalistic images.

Four days before, the guests to the party have been sent an email by the Morris Family explaining that John G. Morris has had to go to hospital, so he won´t be able to attend the open house party in his honor on Sunday December 11, 2016, and will spend his birthday in bed, though they hope that everybody goes to the event such as it had been scheduled to toast him and send him a birthday message.

They also report that if everything goes well, the guests might be able to share the occasion with him via Skype.

17:30 h in the evening.

The big lounge of John G. Morris´s home in Paris is already overcrowded with the guests, who in spite of the Maestro absence, have wished to be present to cheer him up and express the uncompromising love they all feel for him.

There can be seen among others Riccardo Fissichella (John G. Morris´s assistant, who has made a strenuous and praiseworthy labour in a number of sides to have the book My Century, written by John G. Morris and containing tons of gorgeously reproduced fundamental pictures of the XX Century as a photographic memoir particularly focused on those memorable photographs and the legendary photographers that made it , finished in time), Dimitri Beck (Director of Photography of Polka Magazine, currently one of the best illustrated publications in the world on photojournalism and featuring 236 pages), Amalie R. Rothschild (Producer of Anomaly Films and one of the most prolific photographers and movie producers ever regarding mythical concerts, singers, musical groups and social topics revealed through the lives of people in the arts), Irene Walsh, Elisabeth Lortic (one of the founders of Les Trois Ourses association in 1988) and Guillermo Altares (a highly versatile journalist working for El Pais Spanish newspaper, writing on a wide range of topics, having been editor-in-chief of that publication and its cultural supplement Babelia, as well as having formerly worked for Madrid France Press office)

Around 17:45 h in the evening.

Another area of the aforementioned lounge with a lot of guests chatting in a relaxed atmosphere. The event was a full-fledged meeting of John G. Morris´s friends and venue of a number of exceedingly interesting conversations.

There can be seen among others Jane Evelyn Atwood, a legendary photographer and one of the foremost embodiments of the development of long-term works focused on in-depth involvement with the human beings captured with the camera after a painstaking previous selection of the tackled projects.

Archetype of highly passionate concerned photographer and a woman featuring tremendous courage, mental strength and uncommon talent to get a rapport with the persons she photographs often in the most dangerous countries and contexts, her impressive 10 year project (1989-1999) Too Much Time on women in prison is one of the historical pinnacles in the scope of a reportage made throught many years exhausting up to the last drop of stamina, along with the project Minamata (1971-1975) by Eugene Smith.

Roughly 17:50 h in the evening.

The abundant quantity of guests arrived to celebrate John G. Morris´s 100th Birthday Party made that space for people had to be distributed before the lounge of the house and the legendary library.

Here we can see among others the photographer, videographer and writer Maya Vidon-White (working for U.S media and the Agence France-Press and featuring an experience of more than twenty years as a photojournalist who has covered different events like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the first intifada in late eighties, the Somalia famine in 1992, the Hong-Kong handover to China in 1997, the riots in Jakarta and clashes in East Timor because of the economical crisis in 1997 and many others), Cheryl Ann Bolden ( American artist and curator, driving force of the itinerant Precious Cargo travelling museum devoted to the African Diaspora and the historical and social aftermath of slavery) and the Dublin based photojournalist Dragana Jurisic (author of The Lost Country, an excellent quickly sold out 112 pages photobook in 130 x 210 mm format, delving into the sequels of exile and displacement on memory and indentity from the viewpoint of an exile after the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991).

John Morris, John G. Morris´s son with the famous book Get the Picture written by his father and which has been published by the University of Chicago Press since 1998.

Albeit the book hasn´t been published yet, there are scads of hints clearly suggesting that John G. Morris and his assistant Riccardo Fisichella have made a herculean endeavour during 2015 and 2016 and have begotten a masterpiece work boasting more than 600 pages and including a very comprehensive assortment of the cream of XX Century pictures together with extensively detailed texts oozing very valuable information of all kind on plenty of subjects and the most preeminent photojournalist of the halcyon days of photojournalism, in addition to featuring new material not unveiled hitherto.

Jane Evelyn Atwood chatting with two guests. She has won plenty of prestigious international photographic awards like the W. Eugene Smith Award (1980), the World Press Foundation Press (Amsterdam, 1987), the Grand Prix Paris Match du Photojournalisme (1990), the Grand Prix du Portfolio de la Société Civile des Auteurs Multimédia (SCAM) in 1990, the Ernst Haas Award (1994), twice recipient of the Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation Grant (1994 and 2003), the Oskar Barnack Award, Leica Camera (1997), the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award Columbia University/Life Magazine (1998), Trophée d´Honneur presented by the SAIF (Society of Visual Arts and Still Photo Authors of France) in 2013, the Charles Flint Kellog Award in Arts and Letters from Bard College, USA (2015) and others.

Her all-out efforts to utterly grasp the personality of her subjects, her relationship to them and the resulting mutual interaction irrespective of the necessary years to acomplish it, do beat in intensity Salvador Dali´s unswerving attempts throughout his lifetime to paint the electron and Werner Heisenberg´s Uncertainty Principle on canvas, and the extraordinary images of her project The Blind with which she attained the W. Eugene Smith Award in 1980 (and many of which were published in the book Extérierur Nuit in 1998) are probably the reference-class work of all time in this sphere together with René Burri´s reportage made at the Zurich-Morgenthal School for Deaf-Mute Children, and of which two of its images appeared on pages 302 and 303 in the July 1956 number of the legendary Swiss illustrated publication Camera magazine, one year after appearing in Life magazine with the title Touch of Music for the Deaf.

Such is her interest and passion for photography, particularly the one dealing with the concept of exclusion: surviving women of abuse, the immigration phenomenon, AIDS, the devastation of landmines in Angola, Mozambique, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Cambodia, death rows in penitentiaries and jails, aftermath of earthquakes, prostitutes and others, always managing to penetrate hidden environments often ignored or unknown by vast majority of society.

Her presence at the John G. Morris 100th Birthday Party in Paris was fairly meaningful.

As a matter of fact, she met John G. Morris in 1980, when she was awarded the first Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, knows him well and four days before the December 11, 2016 John G.Morris 100th Birthday party in the French capital, she published an insightful article in L´Oeil de la Photographie titled John G. Morris at 100: Jane E. Atwood Tribute in which she underscored not only the virtues of John G. Morris as a great picture editor but his love for photographers, whom he has defended to his utmost being always loyal to them, the tragedies regarding his most beloved persons died from illness or killed in war that have steadily haunted his existence from his very beginnings in photojournalislm and his boundless humanity which has resulted in the true love and affection professed to him for those who have had the chance to meet him and be witness to his élan and verve on every conceivable aspect related to photography and photographers, his lifetime professional core.

Mort Rosenblum, a towering figure of the international journalism, featuring an amazing background of 50 years as a reporter, writer and educator.

Among the major prizes bestowed to him are: the Overseas Press Club Award for coverage of Romania and Czechoslovakia (1989), the Associated Press Managing Editors Annual Award for coverage of Africa (1990), the Associated Press Managing Editors Annual Award for coverage of water matters (2001), the Harry Chapin Media Award for coverage of water affairs (2001), the Associated Press Managing Editors Award for coverage of world water topics (2001) and eight Pulitzer Prize nominations.

After being a reporter for the Arizona Daily Star newspaper in Tucson between 1964 and 1965, his international career began working as an AP Central Africa correspondent in Kinshasha 1967-1968, two years after he joined Associated Press) when he was sent to cover the mercenary wars in Congo brought about by the secession of Katanga province, subsequently becoming AP West Africa correspondent in Lagos, Nigeria (1968-1970), AP Chief of Bureau in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysa (1970-1973), AP Chief of Bureau in Argentina (1973-1976), Edward R. Murrow fellow in the New York Council  of Foreign Relations (1976-1977), Chief of Bureau of Associated Press in Paris (1977-1979, Executive Editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris (1979-1981) and Chief International Correspondent of the Associated Press (1981-2004), as well as having been a professor at the University of Arizona Journalism Department since 2005 and editor of Dispatches, an international affairs journal, since 2008.

Amalie R. Rothschild in conversation with a guest.

A renowned award winning filmmaker and photographer, Amalie R. Rothschild started her almost fifty years career in 1968 working as a freelance photographer in the musical field, making a sensation with her pictures being published  in The New York Times, Newsweek, Time-Life Books, Life Magazine, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, After Dark and many others, until in 1969 she became a member of the Joshua Light Show at the Fillmore East Theatre in New York as an expert in special effects photography, slides, graphics, films and film loops used during performances, and that same year she was on staff at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.

Her love for her trade, innate gift for capturing the gist of what happened on stage and backstage, huge talent and working ability to spare launched her meteoric progression, subsequently photographing the most important music events on the East Coast, including the 1969 Newport Festival, the Isle of Wight Festival and the 1969 and 1970 Tanglewood Festival, as well as the Who´s United States premiere of their rock opera Tommy, the Rolling Stones at the Madison Square Garden in November of 1969 and the six week Bob Dylan and The Band 1974 tour throughout January and February, getting pictures of them in 21 cities and 40 concerts with her Nikon F camera and Nikkor high speed primes.

This exceedingly genuine and unforgettable rock and roll tour, maybe the greatest in history (held in full winter of 1974 and with performances all over United States often under freezing temperatures with massive devoted audiences), made a deep impression on Amalie R. Rothschild, fostering even more her enthralment for live concerts and the sphere of rock music.

Not in vain, she had already made with a 24 x 36 mm format Nikon F camera coupled to a 5 elements in 3 groups Non-Ai Nikkor-P 105 mm f/2.5 Auto telephoto lens an excellent black and white head and right shoulder picture of Bob Dylan on the stage in 1969 in the Isle of Wight which was published in full page in the number 43 of the Rolling Stone magazine of October 4, 1969, and in 1972 Bobbs-Merrill publisher from Indianapolis had dedicated 30 pages to her work in their book The Photography of Rock.

She had previously got a BFA in Graphic Design from Rhode Island School in 1967, studied photography in 1968 with Harry Morey Callahan ( a disciple of Lászlo Mohóly-Nagy, National Medal of Arts in 1966, driven by an innovative impulse, enthusiast of making proof prints of the best negatives and a wizard of the use of chemical emulsions in both small and large formats, different photographic techniques with multiple exposures, creative bokehs and others aimed at enhancing lines, shape, light and darkness, he was a seminal figure in the bringing of photography into the art world) and with Paul Caponigro in 1969 while obtaining her MFA in Film Production from New York University´s Institute of Film and Television.

She was probably along with Jim Marshall the photographer who got pictures of more prominent figures in the golden era of rock and roll, and among the personalities and bands of this field photographed by her stand out Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, James Brown, Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton, Ray Charles, Miles Davies, Bob Dylan, Roberta Flack, Dizzie Gillespie, Jimi Hendrix, Jethro Tull, Mick Jagger, Elton John, B.B.King, John Lennon, Jerry Lee Lewis, Thelonious Monk, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, Santana, Nina Simone, Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, The Who, Neil Young, Frank Zappa and many others, nowadays keeping on making gorgeous prints of them on photographic paper in traditional darkroom.

She was one of the original founders of New Dat Film self-distribution cooperative in 1971 and has received a number of production grants like the American Film Institute Independent Filmmaker grant in 1973; the National Endowment for the Arts 1977, 1978, 1980, 1985 and 1987; the New York State Council on the Arts in 1978 and 1987; the Pinewood Foundation in 1978; the Ohio Joint Program in the Arts and Humanities in 1985, and in 2007 she won an award for its pioneering role in autobiographical cinema at the Biografilm Festival in Bologna (Italy).

And in July 2002, Amalie R. Rothschild´s picture of Tina Turner and Janis Joplin singing together was given as a gift to President Clinton and exhibited in the Music Room of the White House.

Thomas Haley, Barbara Nagelsmith and another guest inside John G. Morris´s famous library during the 100th Birthday Party in Paris.

Barbara Nagelsmith was for twenty-three years photo editor in the Paris Bureau of Time Magazine and also assistant to the French publisher Robert Delpire in the magazine Special Photo and sime photographic projects, in addition to having participated in the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass.

She currently one of the foremost experts in the world in picture editing as well as a recognized writer on photography, organizer of workshops, curator of photographic exhibitions (some of them landmark ones like Murs held in Pont de la Machine, Geneva, Switzerland, between November 9, 2009 and January 31, 2010, with pictures of Larry Towell, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Peter Marlow, Michael Yamashita, Moises Saman, Chris Anderson, Macduff Everton, Henk Kruger, Tony Suau, Ron Haviv, Peter Boer, Shai Kremer, Tomas Muscionico, Frédéric Sautereu, Stéphane Duroy, Sean Hemmerle, Ad van Denderen and Ron Haviv) and editor of photographic books.

A self-made woman featuring a tremendous love for photography, all kind of illustrated books and children´s books, she began her career teaching art in elementary schools, until becoming a picture reasearcher while working for some publishing houses in New York, London and Paris.

Thomas Haley was one of the flagship photojournalists of the legendary Sipa Press Agency (founded by Göksin Sipahioglu in Paris in 1973) throughout 27 years, between 1983 and 2011.

A highly experienced photographer who has travelled worldwide while doing his assignments, he features a stunning background of almost forty years both as a photojournalist and documentary film maker since he worked as a photo researcher for Magnum Agency New York and Paris between 1979 and 1982, subsequently becoming a photographer for Visions Photo Agency, after which he met Göksin Sipahioglu (Legion d´Honneur France 2007, one of the most important figures in the History of Photojournalism, father and mentor of many great current photojournalists and a great enthusiast of basketball who founded the Efes Pilsen team and created the groundwork for the future thriving Turkish basketball churning out franchise players like Hidayet Türkoglu, Ibrahim Kutluay, Ersan Ilyasova, Mehmet Okur, Enes Kanter, Ömer Asik and others), beginning his relationship with Sipa Press Agency covering international news, which would last until Le Grand Turc´s death on October 5, 2011.

On the other hand, Thomas Haley was commissioned in 1997 by the United Nations Drug Control Program to make the photographic project Drug Abuse in South Asia, after which was hired by Danone in 2008-2009 to implement Danone Annual Reports and give birth to the eleven minutes multimedia production Believe in Your Dreams, following in 2012 with the start of his collaboration with Mediapart aimed at the realization of multimedia content.

During his long photojournalistic career, Thomas Haley has regularly worked with the most important news magazines (GEO, Life, Figaro Magazine and many others) which have published a number of photographs taken by him.

In addition, he has shot a lot of documentary movies.

A man sporting a broad photographic and artistic education (he studied photography at Oregon University between 1971 and 1973, at the Université de París-Sorbonne in 1974, Art History at the American College in Paris during 1975-1976 and New York University Film School), Thomas Haley has received a number of awards during his extensive professional career: Pictures of the Year Award (POY) 1982 for British Butler School published in GEO magazine, 1984 World Press Award for Bhopal Victim published in Newsweek, 1987 Picture of the Year Award for Seoul Demonstration published in Time, 2006 Pris Special dy Jury, Prix Paris Match for Bosnie + 10, 2010 Grant from CNC for the web documentary project Facts on the Ground, 2013 First Prize for his short documentary American Dreamer at the Visions du Réel Film Festival, Nyon.

Thomas Haley has been one of the standard-bearers of a philosophy brought into being by the genius photojournalist Göksin Sipahioglu (in a time when Sipa, Gamma and Sigma, three Paris-based agencies, were the spearhead of the best international photojournalism during seventies, eighties and nineties), a visionary who had a unique nose for the news, an outstanding knowledge of the photographic market circumstances and helped to launch the starting careers of great photojournalists like Abbas, Maggie Steber, Reza, Luc Delahaye, Patrick Chauvel, Nina Berman (World Press Photo Award Winning photographer of the 2005 and 2007 photo contest) , Olivier Jobard and others, as well as managing to attract top-of-the-line photojournalists excelling in the coverage of wars, disasters and turmoil milieus all over the world and whose labour was strengthened with the hiring of gifted photo editors like Geoffrey Hiller, Jim Colton, Sue Brisk and Robert Dannin (the latter would be director of Magnum Photos Inc between 1985 and 1990),

Detail of a section of John G. Morris´s famous library showing a shelf with books on Robert Doisneau, Leonard Free, Robert Capa and Martine Franck.

John G. Morris´s knowledge on the History of Photography, photojournalism and the traits of all and each one of the photographers with whom he worked was truly tremendous, in the same way as his prodigious memory enabling him to remember everything since mid twenties hitherto down to the very last detail.

" He really knew the personality of each photographer, he knew what each assignment would entail, so he always chose the best photographer to do things "  Bobbi Baker Burrows (Photo Editor for Life magazine throughout more than 30 years and presently Life Books Photo Editor and Member of the Board of Directors of the Eddie Adams Workshop).

Another detail of a different section of John G. Morris´s library showing a shelf with some books on Magnum stories and the birth of the prestigious photographic agency (founded by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour Chim, Georg Rodger and William Vandivert in 1947 as a photographic cooperative owned by its photographer members and with a powerful individual vision ), of which he was executive director between 1952 and 1961.

" Testimony and creation were the starting principles of the agency, and their claim by creating Magnum Agency was to stay free, to be able to act as an author " Andrea Holzherr (Magnum Exibition Manager).

Detail of a further section of John G. Morris library with a shelf containing books on Gordon Parks, Man Ray, David Seymour Chim and Eugene Smith.

Irene Walsh, Board Member of The Collection Trust (the professional association for collections management established in 1977 and which since then has worked worldwide with museums, galleries and archives to improve the management and use of their collections) writing some words of encouragement to John G. Morris in the guests book, while Peter Brooks (Sterling Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Yale University, who has been teaching at Princeton University Center for Human Values and the Department of Comparative Literature since 2008 as an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Scholar) introduces two other guests who are shaking hands.

Irene Walsh is an experienced financial advisor to governments and corporates in the development of infrastructure projects, who based in New York and London over the last thirty years, has held senior positions at J.P.Morgan, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), KPMG Corporate Finance, USB and Deloitte Corporate Finance.

She holds degrees from Harvard University´s Kennedy School of Government and George Washington University, also being a great enthusiast of art and photography who is presently earning an MA in Beaux and Decorative Art from the London Sotheby´s Institute of Art and her labour throughout the last three decades has been instrumental in the development, promotion, maintaining and improving the standards of collections and information management in museums, art galleries, heritage organizations and other collecting institutions, providing know-how and pioneering new ideas, as well as bringing experts together.

Daphné Anglès, European Picture Coordinator and Bureau Manager of the New York Times in Paris.

She was Secretary of the Annual World Press Photo Jury between 2009 and 2013 and has been a member of photojournalism juries such as Visa pour L´Image, Bayeux Award for War Correspondents, Yves Rocher Foundation Photo Award, Canon Award for Female Photojournalists, Prix Lucas Dolega de la Ville de Paris, the International Red Cross Committee Award, Czech Press Photo, Bulgarian Press Photo, Belarus Press Photo Award, Estaçao Imagem, Humanitarian Visa d´Or ICRC, International Sportsfolio Award, AFD Photo Contest and others, also being a portfolio reviewer at Les Rencontres d´Arles, Visa pour L´Image, Hamburg Trienale, Lens Culture FotoFest and others, in addition to having developed an intensive activity as curator of photography exhibitions at Galerie Dupont in Paris and as a teacher of the Editing and Visual Storytelling masterclass at the Lucca Photolux Festival (Tuscany, Italy).

The filmmaker, movie cameraman and editor Gabriel Moscovitz from Atlanta, United States (in the lower right area of the image) talking to some guests.

In spite of his youth (he is only 36 years old), he´s gleaned a lot of experience through taking part in the shooting of films like the impressive Outcast Forever, directed by DeVaughn Hughson. produced by Jason Staten and with a great direction of photography by De Vaughn Hughson and himself, enhancing the power and impact of the footage with high contrast black and white gorgeous images.

He is also the director of BTS ATL, a movie making firm in Atlanta (Georgia) specialized in the genesis of documentary films and reality based creative content, working wirh highly experienced professionals in the sphere of sound, editing, camera handling, special effects, etc, which has made hitherto short commercials for Adidas Training and RGIII, Celebrity Solstice cruiser, American singer Usher Confessions fourth studio album, Festival Flea Market in Miami, the Joint Snelville place aiming at improving quality of life through routine chiropractice care, and others.

Joan Z. Shore, a Paris-based journalist, author and lecturer, currently a columnist of the Huffington Post, providing it with more than a hundred articles until now.

She is an internationally acclaimed writer born in New York City, though has spent most of her life in Europe and was Paris correspondent for CBS News for a decade during seventies (even doing some television reports on important topics for the Evening News with Walter Cronkite), and has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, Voice of America, CNN, The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, UPI, Conde-Nast publications, Boomer Times & Senior Life Florida and Scotland on Sunday among others.

During her previous ten years living in Belgium she founded ViVART! (a top-notch art curatorial service and was staff writer for The Brussels Times, English language correspondent and commentator for Belgium´s RTB radio and Features Editor of the weekñy magazine Brussels Bulletin.

She is likewise a recognized art critic with solid background in history and architecture (she graduated from Vassar College, New York, majoring in both of them) and a remarkable interior design expert who won the Vogue Prix de Paris and earned a certification from the New York School of Interior Design, as well as a scholarship from the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Often self-defined as a newsperson, Joan Z. Shore is for all intents and purposes a multitalented writer for radio and television, whose activity raison d´etre is mostly hinged on a keynote of inspiration balanced with curiosity aplenty, and a journalist with a very deep discernment on international politics, social subjects, French culture, art in its manifold expressions, economy, as well as an unwavering love for cuisine, proximity to water and becoming spellbound on watching the architecture of Pompidou Centre, etc, besides featuring a great acumen on human psychology.

And throughout her more than forty years of professional career she has interviewed such characters like Leonard Bernstein, François Mitterrand, Valéry Giscard d´Estaign, Jacques Chirac, Nancy Reagan,

She has also written some very interesting books, among them the landmark ones Saging-How to Grow Older and Wiser (2000) dealing on helpful attitudes in life including to avoid doldrums with age and Red Burgundy (2011), a novel presenting the readers with a wealth of information on French language and culture, together with a once in a lifetime culinary experience and an adamant immersion in fabulous wines, intriguing characters, mouthwatering recipes and description of the beautiful French landscapes.

Jim Bitterman (CNN European correspondent) talking to Jeffrey Schaeffer (senior producer of the Paris bureau of Associated Press Television News and columnist on a wide range of topics).

On the left of the image is Talia Moscovitz, John G. Morris´s granddaughter, who made a commendable work throughout the whole party, constantly paying attention to every detail to help the guests and fulfilling a painstaking previous organization of the event along with John G. Morris´s son and his two grandsons.

Talia Moscovitz features a remarkable background as a media artist, curator, photography researcher, visual artist, writer, editor and self publisher of exhibition catalogues, as well as experience in the scopes of galleries management and contemporary documentary photography.

Her work has been displayed in Atlanta, Boston, Accra and Dublin.

She is currently Magnum Photos Consultant for the project management and development of Education activity in the United States, having produced two Magnum Education workshops events in Los Angeles (California) and Austin (Texas), and has exhibited as a curator and photographer in Dublin, Edinburgh and Glasgow, in addition to working professionally for the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, the British Film Institute´s London Film Festival, the Frieza London and New York Art Fairs, among other prominent galleries and arts organizations.

On the other hand, she possesses a distinctive flair and savvy for the development of all kind of artistic projects and edition of exhibitions publications, keeping low budgets without reducing quality and subsequently undertaking foresighted marketing strategies aimed at optimizing profitability.

Talia Moscovitz is a Northeastern University Boston Massachussets B.A in International Affairs and Art (2001-2006) and Edinburgh College of Art at University of Edinburgh MFA with Distinction Honours in Contemporary Art Theory and Visual Culture (2012).

Dimitri Beck, Editor-in-Chief and Director of Photography of Paris-based Polka magazine and member of the International Jury of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award / Newcomer Award.

Having been preceded by the foundation of Polka Gallery in 2007, photojournalistic Polka magazine´s main goal has been to promote photography through a powerful focus on visual storytelling in synergy with the support to photographers when it comes to selling their pictures.

Something almost heroic in a current world ruled by the tremendous technological progress and in which the speed of transmission is most times given absolute priority, frequently at the expense of the quality of the images, the accuracy and veracity of the information, the lack of a wise selection of photographs, the absence of good picture editors and their very important relationship with photojournalists and the input of professional photographers often underestimated by some shareholding bosses of the media and newspapers who lack knowledge and experience on image impact, subtleties and messages conveyed, don´t care a bit about photography and good pictures  and are only interested in money, in addition to shameful drops in the payment for the assignments to photojournalists (who are increasingly asked to also do video recordings for the same "price", and if they have a drone of course bought by themselves, far better) risking their lives, as well as the nowadays "fashionable habit" of preferring anybody living in the specific area of the world to get the pictures for misery salaries or even free, sending the photographs through email. WeTransfer or FTP in exchange of their names and their blogs titles appearing in the credits than paying fair prices to professional photographers, something that has regrettably become mainstream in editorial groups of different countries and continents all over the world, always with a common aim: to pay as little as possible to the good photographers or even better to bypass them, to such an extent that during the last ten years a lot of professional photojournalists had to begin their careers putting werewithal of their own to travel abroad and be able to make their assignments under precarious and stressful conditions, though it is true that the interest of people for photobooks and the work of good photographers has had a tremendous surge throughout recent years and is steadily turning into a very interesting economical parallel alternative.

As a matter of fact, by dint of strenuous effort, passion for photography, taking of risks and the creation of a great team integrating highly experienced professionals in the sphere of photographic image, visual communication, printing, image analysis, picture editing and others and a huge effort spanning nine years, Polka magazine has become an international benchmark of quality, preserving its independence, authenticity and fundamental keynote of photography as a haptic entity on paper tooth and nail, with a really top-notch content whose cornerstone are the superb photographic stories, interviews and illustrated articles it features, simultaneously having been successful in the attaining of utter trust by such firms like Cartier, Luois Vuitton, Chanel, Guerlain, Woodford Reserve, Leica, Sony, Nikon, Hermès, HP, Huawei, Lexus, Louis Roederer, Bulgari, Fujifilm, BMW, Panasonic, Asus, Tamron, Sigma, Swarovski Optik, Samsung and others which announce in Polka magazine in full page, double page and even different full pages, knowing the prestige and profitability it delivers.

This is an amazing accomplishment which can be undoubtedly defined as a feat, particularly if we bear in mind that it has been fullfilled in less than ten years, in the midst of very difficult times for the photoreportages, with far-reaching changes in the photojournalistic industry and a more than massive volume of millions and millions of daily images all over the world unleashed by the arrival of digital photography.

The proof is in the pudding: the Life magazine number of November 5, 1945 (in the heydays of photojournalism, when there wasn´t  TV and it had a run of 2 million worldwide copies) with extraordinary cover picture made by Eileen Darby in Central Park capturing unaware, at point blank range from a perpendicular position, using her 2 1/4 x 2 1 /4 medium format Rolleiflex camera with Zeiss Tessar 75 mm f/3.5 lens and Kodak Super-XX black and white film the American sailor Calvin Matthews from the U.S.S Portland returned from the Pacific War, sitting at the table of a coffee shop terrace and drinking soda, featured 39 full page advertisements of different firms, while the number 36 of Polka magazine holds 35 full pages of advertisements of very important firms.

It does confirm that there´s nowadays space for a painstakingly made and top class illustrated photojournalistic publication, a very interesting amount of discerning readers having a penchant for real quality and awesome photographic essays and texts, and that Polka magazine has turned into a highly influential niche in itself and has even been about to reach the figure of full page advertisements made sixty-one years ago by one of the most sold numbers of the legendary Life magazine which also included a 17 page portfolio titled War Photographers with a choice of the best U.S war photographers during the Second World War: Carl Mydans, Robert Capa, George Strock, George Silk, W. Eugene Smith, Vernard Hoffman, J.R.Eyerman, David Scherman, Margaret Bourke-White, William Shrout, Myron Davies, Peter Stackpole, Eliot Elisofon, John Phillips, William Vandivert, John Florea, Ralph Morse, Frank Scherschel, Georg Rodger, Robert Landry and Dmitri Kessel,

First two pages of the article written by Dimitri Beck in number 36 of Polka magazine November/December/January outlining the most significant traits of My Century, a new autobiographic book by John G. Morris containing more than 600 pages and in which his author delivers his vision of modern photojournalism with a work going far beyond the already acclaimed Get the Picture book (published by Chicago Press Library in 1998 and in France by Editions La Martinière in 1999 with images from archives), particularly in two sides: a much higher figure of pictures (many of them among the most important images in the history of photography and reproduced with a top-notch quality), setting up a one of a kind visual diary, telling his life and his profession with photographs and a lot of very interesting stories which took place since he started working as a photo editor for Life in 1938.

In this book, John G. Morris and his assistant the photographer Riccardo Fisichella have made a strenuous effort during 2015 and 2016 to go ahead with this colossal work in which thousands of hours had to be spent on  research, designing of the layouts, selection of the images, choice of the pictures sizes, preparation of the texts, captions of the photographs and many other things.

On the other hand, this superb and historical number 36 of the quarterly Polka magazine (currently among the best five illustrated publications in the world on photography, with nothing less than 236 pages, an excellent quality of paper, dazzling reproduction of the pictures with impressive colour precision and tonal range attained with black and white images and commendable level of detail in both low key and high key areas even in photographs taken with scarce available light, admirable portfolios of noteworthy photographers, surveys on photobooks launched into market, interviews with personalities of the photographic sphere, essays on photographic topics with in-depth texts providing lavish information) also features an extraordinary 40 page portfolio with the cream of the crop pictures made by the colour wizard Joel Meyerowitz throughout his professional career, a gorgeous black and white portfolio titled Retour Vers L´Enfer with an assortment of inedit pictures made by Sebastiao Salgado in Kuwait during the Gulf War of 1991 accompanied by an insightful text by Thierry Grillet, a reportage by Souvid Datta on Calcuta brothels with text by Manon Moreau, a 12 page portfolio with a medley of black and white and colour images created by William Klein in Paris titled Paris Les Terrasses de Klein, a compelling eight page photoreportage made by Deanne Fitzmaurice titled Saleh Coeur de Lion with pictures of the 9 years old Iraqui boy Saleh who was about to be killed by a bomb in 2003 and was sent to United States where ha managed to survive and recover from the terrible wounds he suffered all over his body, and a ten page photoreportage titled Sur Le Chemin Étroit Des Mennonites made by Jordi Busqué to the Mennonnite community in Bolivia with impactful images unveiling the commendable degree of intimacy and empathy attained by the photographer while living with these people.

Cheryl Ann Bolden talking to Amalie R. Rothschild.

Cheryl Ann Bolden is an American independent artist and curator of museums featuring a long experience in the management of cultural institutions.

Her most important task so forth has been the creation and development of the itinerant Precious Cargo Museum, devoted to the African Diaspora and the historical and social aftermath of slavery, and whose trove of more than five hundred works has been exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum of London and the Berlin´s Amerika Haus.

She is a world-class authority regarding the Afro-American culture and heritage who learned Art History working as a guide at the Phillips Collection and the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C, after which she went to China in 1981 to get the knack of ancient medicine, subsequently travelling to Western Australia to acquire proficiency in weaving and textile arts, completing her formation studying at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington, D.C. and opened her first gallery in Charlotteville (Virginia) in 1984, displaying her artistic clothes and jewels for the first time, together with the historical objects he had gathered for years and pictures of her great aunt´s great aunt.

Cover of the book My Century with a picture of John G. Morris made in 1953 by Henri Cartier-Bresson at his apartment in rue de Lisbonne, Paris.

Text and Photos: José Manuel Serrano Esparza