One of the pictures in The New York Times Magazine Photographs (Aperture, $75) is a shot by Reza that shows two women in a refugee camp studying pictures on makeshift stands as they try to identify the children they are looking for. This is only one example of the powerful, poignant images included in this vast collection. Compiled by Kathy Ryan, the Magazine’s photography director, this album represents work by all the great photographers, including Friedlander, Close, Leibovitz, LaChappelle, Sidbe and many others. What makes this volume unique, however, are the commentaries adjoining the images, offering the photographers’ thoughts on their work. One of my favorite pictures is a portrait of Orson Welles, about which Michael O’Neill writes that Welles “loved my camera—I was using a gigantic Deardorff—and he decided that he had to direct me and tell me where to put the light.” Photographs is an amazing collection.
