Abdul Rashid's Blog

10th June 2009, Wednesday -- I am a fan of Reuter’s photojournalistic photos. I have “Reuters: The State of the World” book in my collection, which I bought a few years ago. The book showcases images taken by Reuters’s photojournalists in the first 5 years of the 21^st century. I get some of the inspiration of taking events photos from their photos. Eventough I am their fan, I may not necessarily like all of their photos. (My related article on “Reuters: The State of The World” is HERE).

By Abdul Rashid Haji Tahir.

One purpose of photography, especially photojournalism or news photography or documentary photography, is to record an event that will become history. In relation to this, Reuters does a good job by presenting us the history in their latest book, OUR WORLD NOW (paperback).

OUR WORLD NOW is published by Thames and Hudson (First release on 20 May 2008), which is also the publisher of THE STATE OF THE WORLD (in 2006). The book has 352 pages with full of color photographs from Reuters photographer.

OUR WORLD NOW is about a year in the life of our world , that is, YEAR 2007 which is remembered in over 350 photos. The photos are selected from 500,000 photos that Reuters photographers a.k.a photojournalists produced (?) (taken) in 2007.

OUR WORLD NOW covers a range of news photography themes, that is: politics, commerce, conflict, the environment, accidents and disasters, faith and festivities, entertainment, celebrity, and lifestyle. This is similar to THE STATE OF THE WORLD book which covers about the range of themes, but in terms of time it covers from Year 2000 to Year 2005. OUR WORLD NOW, however, is about things that happened in Year 2007 only.

OUR WORLD NOW presents photographs that “encompass the fantastic diversity of trends, moods, and stories that defined 2007”.

OUR WORLD NOW is available at Amazon.Com. List price is USD24.95. Amazon price is USD16.47 (not including the delivery charge). Price may change from time to time. For further details, click the link below:



p/s:

1. I include this book in my wishlist and I intend to buy one in the near future for my reference and collection.

2. I find out about this book from the News Photographer magazine June 2008 issue which I received this morning. (Too bad for me, I still have not receive my May issue which should arrive earlier. I still do not know what really happen to my magazines).

Reuters’ THE STATE OF THE WORLD is first published by Thames and Hudson Inc. (Website: http://www.thamesandhudsonusa.com/) in 2006. The book has 384 pages (including the index). It has 537 color illustrations in the form of photos from Reuters (Website: http://www.reuters.com/).

THE STATE OF THE WORLD is about “The story of our new century told through these extraordinary photographs from Reuters”. The story is about “the moments that changed the world, the trends that touch all our lives, and challenges will shape the future”. (The quotations are from the book’s jacket)

THE STATE OF THE WORLD features images by 277 Reuters photographers of almost seventy nationalities and written by nine Reuters journalists. It is dedicated to journalists killed in the course of reporting news in the first six years of the 21st century, and nine of them are from Reuters.

THE STATE OF THE WORLD is divided into 11 sections: (1) Introduction, (2) Big Issues, (3) Science and Technology, (4) Pattern of Belief, (5) Power Politics, (6) War and Conflict, (7) The Global Economy, (8) Culture in the Digital Age, (9) Ways of Living, (10) Looking Forward, Looking Back, and (11) World Timeline of the Twenty-First Century.

My comments
THE STATE OF THE WORLD is a good book to understand what the world have gone through since the turn of the 21st Century. In terms of photography, it gives ideas and understanding what photojournalism photographs are. Photojournalism photography is about telling the thruth about an event or issue (the journalism aspect) through captivating photos, if possible, to attract the viewer to stop and think (the photography aspect).

The topic of each section can give you some ideas what sort of photojournalism photos that you can take. However, you have to keep in mind that taking photojournalism is not merely about taking photo for the sake of photography. It is a responsibility that is being burden to each photojournalist. And, in carrying out such responsibility, many photojournalists killed, kidnapped, threatened, or sent to jail. (As such, you can opt to play safe. You have choice).


Availability
The listed or cover price is USD50.00. It is available at a discounted price, if any, at Amazon.Com (delivery charge is applied).

If you want to have one, you can buy from Amazon.Com by clicking the following link:



A book review by Abdul Rashid Haji Tahir. This review is done on 14 June 2008 by using the copy that I have. I buy it from the Amazon.Com in March 2007 for USD31.50 (for the book) and the shipping and handling costs me USD13.38. The total cost is USD44.88. The price may change from time to time. Visit Amazon.Com (by clicking the above link) for futher details.