What is an album?

A photo album refers to a printed matter originally edited from several photos taken according to a certain concept, which is usually limited to publications rather than personal production. With the development of digital technology, there are also photo albums included in CDs or appearing in other electronic media.

The Chinese etymology of the word "photo album" comes from the Japanese name for photos (photo, from the word "photo" in ancient China). According to the original intention of Japanese, the theme of an album can be people, animals and plants, buildings, landscapes, gems or celestial bodies, and so on. However, as the word photo album was introduced to Hong Kong in the1980s, only Hong Kong actresses Wang Xiaofeng and Kara Wai had taken nude photos and published photo albums, so the photo album at that time was only a "nude photo album" representing women in Hong Kong, even no different from ordinary pornographic publications.

Because Hong Kong and Taiwan are deeply influenced by Japanese culture, many female artists in Hong Kong and Taiwan have published photo albums with nude photos in 1990s. Over time, the definition of the word photo album in Chinese has gradually become an "photo album" with artists as models, whether nude or not. However, among the subjects other than the artist's portrait, the printed matter containing photos of other photographic subjects is still called "album", "album" or "album"; Unlike Japan, it is collectively referred to as an album.

The meaning of the word portrait of China:

Human image

In the Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi wrote Hu Jia's Eighteen Beats Eight: "Life and death are difficult, but I turn around. I can't bear to look back at that old photo. When I arrived at the dynasty, the color changed and the weather was always gloomy. "

Painting image

The acrobatics contained in Yan Jiaxun by Yan Zhitui in the Northern Qi Dynasty: "Prince Wu Lie prefers to take pictures, and he can dye them as appropriate when sitting in a guest, that is, several people."

In Volume 14 of Records of Local Conditions, the portrait is true: "The portrait of our ancestors today is true, and the remains are described as photographs."

Truthfully describe

In the Southern Dynasties, Liu Xie wrote "Wen Xin Diao Long", in which there was such a feeling: "To offer portraits for lovers is annoying for writers."

The meaning of the word photo in Japanese;

Take pictures of ...

photograph

Because the definition of photo album is very broad, it is difficult to study the origin. If the premise is to "compile plural photos and copy them into publications", then the first photo album in history is the pencil of nature; (British William Henry Fox Talbot made it in 1844 with his Carlo method). Temporary translation). Natural handwriting from 1844 to 1846 was published in six volumes with 24 photos. Because the sales situation at that time was not ideal, there were only six copies. There are about fifteen complete "natural handwriting".

During 1938, the solo exhibition of American photographer Walker Evans was held in new york Museum of Modern Art, which was the first solo exhibition held in a museum in history. At that time, "Walker Evans: American Photography" included all the photos in the photography exhibition and edited and published them, which was regarded as the beginning of "modern photo album".

1952, French photographer Henri Cartier-Bre's photo collection "Images à la sauvette" (translated as "decisive moment" in English) was published, which included 126 photos taken by Henry Cartier all over the world.

In 1955, edward steichen held a conference called "Human Family; At the Museum of Modern Art in new york, USA. 503 photos of 273 photographers from 68 countries are on display. Later, carl sandburg, Steichen's brother-in-law, edited the photos on display into an album with the same name as the photo exhibition, and the editing method had a great influence on the production of the album in the future.

Photo albums are generally translated into English Photobook；; Japan adopts the English word Gravure (the abbreviation of English Photogravure, which is often used in the printing method of magazines and "photo albums"). The photo album model is also commonly known as Guradoru (Japanese: ぐらどる), and the word Guradoru comes from the English intaglio idol (Japanese :グラビァィドル).

An album (an album with artists as models, the same below) is not a climate in the west; Except for Sex released by American female singer Madonna 1992, no other western photo album is more eye-catching. Although there are many photo albums with portrait photography as the theme in the western market, based on the deep-rooted traditional reading culture in the west, people are more inclined to buy special magazines with pictures and texts and rich information. Many western female artists take photos for magazines and even take nude photos for adult magazine. Therefore, from the standpoint of consumers, buying magazines with lower prices is killing two birds with one stone. Therefore, there is no photo album market in the west, and its development is far less than that in Japan.

But the photo album can be said to be derived from the magazine, just extracting the contents of the magazine and compiling a certain number of photos. Its nature is basically the same as that of a magazine, but it saves a lot of human resources (at least it doesn't need to edit the text). It can be seen that the cost of publishing photo albums is not necessarily much higher than that of magazines, but the price of photo albums is more than ten times that of magazines, and the profits earned by publishers are relatively doubled. Coupled with fans' admiration for idols, they published photo albums in Japanese, Hongkong and Taiwan Province provinces.