The Wonderful World of Albert Kahn is a 9-episode BBC series exploring what must be the world’s most ambitious photography project. Conceived and funded by French financier Albert Kahn, the plan was to send photographers to capture everyday life in every corner of the planet. This was at the turn of the 20th century when travel wasn’t so easy, when there weren’t yet any airports, hardly any trunk roads, and no Hilton Hotels, Starbucks, or Lonely Planet guides. More ambitious still, the project was to document local cultures using both motion camera and the world’s first reliable still color camera, the autochrome. The series writers make it sound as if Kahn, whose Paris home served as repository for the collection (and is now a museum housing the same), was prescient in his understanding of how profoundly the world was changing and wished to document disappearing ways of life. Could anyone at the turn of the century understand the radical upheavals just around the corner? Several of the interviewees say as much about the people captured in Kahn’s collection, how innocent they appear in light of the catastrophes that would soon befall them.
Showing posts with label Albert Kahn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Albert Kahn. Show all posts
Friday, February 8, 2013
Review: The Wonderful World of Albert Kahn, BBC, 2007
The Wonderful World of Albert Kahn is a 9-episode BBC series exploring what must be the world’s most ambitious photography project. Conceived and funded by French financier Albert Kahn, the plan was to send photographers to capture everyday life in every corner of the planet. This was at the turn of the 20th century when travel wasn’t so easy, when there weren’t yet any airports, hardly any trunk roads, and no Hilton Hotels, Starbucks, or Lonely Planet guides. More ambitious still, the project was to document local cultures using both motion camera and the world’s first reliable still color camera, the autochrome. The series writers make it sound as if Kahn, whose Paris home served as repository for the collection (and is now a museum housing the same), was prescient in his understanding of how profoundly the world was changing and wished to document disappearing ways of life. Could anyone at the turn of the century understand the radical upheavals just around the corner? Several of the interviewees say as much about the people captured in Kahn’s collection, how innocent they appear in light of the catastrophes that would soon befall them. 
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