Photography book review: Kodachrome, By Luigi Ghirri

Kodachrome by Luigi Ghirri on iPad

In 1978, Luigi Ghirri self-published his first book, an avant-garde manifesto for the medium of photography and a landmark in his own remarkable oeuvre.

Kodachrome has long been out of print and on the 20th anniversary of Ghirri's death, MAPP publishes the first digital edition of the book. This is a facsimile of the original, adopting the its design, text layout, and image sequence, but it uses new image files scanned from Ghirri's original film to take advantage of modern technology. Also included is an essay by Francesco Zanot, which offers a contemporary perspective on the historical impact of Kodachrome, alongside French and German translations of the original texts from the book (first published in English and Italian).

Ghirri said: "I am trying to render through my work ... a verification of how it is still possible ... finally to distinguish the precise identity of man, things, life, from the image of man, things, and life."