Time Exposure

Cecil Beaton. With Commentary and Captions by Peter Quennell.

Charles Scribner's Sons & B. T. Batsford, Ltd. New York & London. 1946. Second, revised edition. First published in 1941. Hardback, large octavo; maroon cloth-bound boards, dust jacket. viii, 136 pages. Illustrated profusely with black and white photographs. Englsih. 230 x 180mm. 0.5kg. . Very good, in good dust jacket; light shelf wear to jacket, small 1cm area of loss at base of spine, rubbing and small holes along fore-edges of jacket, toning to spine, not price-clipped; some very occasional spotting to first and last pages, no inscriptions.

Time Exposure is the first retrospective of Beaton's photographs. The book is filled with over 300 of Beaton's photographs, taken between 1923 and 1940. There are portraits, fashion photographs and travel shots, several of which are rarely reproduced elsewhere. Peter Quennell, the writer and critic, provides the commentary and captions. In his text, he observes a vanished world, one full of artifice and posture that is mirrored in Beaton's work. The final chapter acknowledges the new outlook brought in by the War. Beaton's portraits of political leaders, and photographs of London's bomb damage, evacuees and the RAF are an abrupt change from the society portraits of the twenties and reflect the new concerns of both the people and the photographer. Five years after the first edition, and following the end of the War, Time Exposure  was published in a second edition with 'over 50 new photographs, bringing the story down to 1945.'