Author Description

Leonard Freed is one of the twentieth century's most prominent documentary photographers. His photographs have graced the covers of major newspapers and magazines around the world on numerous occasions. A member of the Magnum cooperative, his work is considered a milestone in what has been aptly called "concerned photography". This book spans his full fifty-year career, including his coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the American civil rights movement, the period of post-war German reconstruction, and the Romanian revolution. Among other highlights is a selection of work from his famous project on the police, which culminated in a landmark publication, Police Work. Freed's vision is sharp, insightful and critical, but always deeply sympathetic to his fellow human beings. Freed has made a point of steering clear of easy sentimentality without giving way to its opposite - heartless critique; the often tender moments he observes are thus tinged with life's harsher realities