The amateur snap now seems to have achieved lift-off for some publishers who have issued books of them in the last few years. Amazon lists several and I've bought two or three and now this one which I found in a close-out book store. As it was drastically reduced (and still shrink-wrapped) I guess German publisher Hatje Cantz needs room in their distribution center.
The hundred traffic oriented snaps in the book come from the collection of Austrian collector Christian Skrein. Allegedly his collection is the world's largest. The hundred photos include: Cars; Planes; Prams; Ships; Trains; Bikes; Zeppelins and Other vehicles. Including prams seems a rather elastic interpretation of the word traffic.
The problem with the book is that they are snaps and less than ten merit a second look but isn't this only to be expected. Those that include people are obviously personal and heart-warming to the folk who took them but to anyone else the image remains a mystery. There is also the technical problem of composition, light and shade, texture and other considerations that a professional photographer automatically considers. None of this matters with snaps and looking through the images in these pages it shows.
The book is nicely produced with the photos printed in four colours to create the sepia look for some of them, the rest are four color black with a 200 screen. To give the images a bit of extra credence the publisher's have an introduction from Christian Skrein and a rather elitist essay from Bodo von Dewitz, who says in part: `Here the subjects of the photograph seem to be closer to madness than normality, abysses open up in the relations of man and machine, hopeless obsessions are revealed, and hollow dignity alternates with involuntary tensions and collective hysterias'. Hmmm, I thought this was a book of transport snaps.
A proper book of such photos is 'On the move: great transport photographs from Life' (ISBN 0821226223). Ninety-six stunning duotones covering the same contents as 'Traffic', no prams, though.