If you read here now and again, you’ll know that we have a strong love for photographic projects that gives us an insight into the human condition.
Sometimes it’s on a comparative basis between cultures, sometimes it’s a common footprint, and sometimes it’s just a matter of seeing what is there.
From Family of Man, to Paris-New York-Shanghai, photography can give us a not just a record, but an insight into how we live our lives.
The book of the 1955 exhibition, Family of Man, was seminal in my visual growth, as you are treated to over 250 photographers’ interpretations of the human condition, from birth to death, on a global basis.
The Paris-New York-Shanghai collection showed us 3 phases of our cultural history as it stands today; with the people of a old city, a current city, and a city of our probable future. Not architecturally, but as determined by the populous. And how, with the globalization of goods available, have become a blend of assimilation.

The books we have for you this week are “Material World: A Global Family Portrait” and “Hungry Planet: What the World Eats”, by Peter Menzel, 2 photo books, that are part of our collection and are always within easy reach.
[photopress:51733usb15L._SS500_.jpg.jpeg,full,centered]
“In honor of the United Nations-sponsored International Year of the Family in 1994, award-winning photojournalist Peter Menzel brought together 16 of the world’s leading photographers to create a visual portrait of life in 30 nations. Material World tackles its wide subject by zooming in, allowing one household to represent an entire nation. Photographers spent one week living with a “statistically average” family in each country, learning about their work, their attitudes toward their possessions, and their hopes for the future. Then a “big picture” shot of the family was taken outside the dwelling, surrounded by all their (many or few) material goods.”

“The age-old practice of sitting down to a family meal is undergoing unprecedented change as rising world affluence and trade, along with the spread of global food conglomerates, transform eating habits worldwide. HUNGRY PLANET profiles 30 families from around the world–including Bosnia, Chad, Egypt, Greenland, Japan, the United States, and France–and offers detailed descriptions of weekly food purchases; photographs of the families at home, at market, and in their communities; and a portrait of each family surrounded by a week’s worth of groceries. Featuring photo-essays on international street food, meat markets, fast food, and cookery, this captivating chronicle offers a riveting look at what the world really eats. ”

[photopress:n608888964_1290186_4416.jpg,full,centered] Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide
Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07 © Peter Menzel

As we all experience this global economic shift, it’s a good time to look both inward at how we each live our material and nutritional lives, and outward, to understand the what the rest of this small plant may be doing.

In times of stress we look for comfort, whether it is in a food that conjures warm memories, or an object that becomes a touch point to aid our lives, or become that bit of “buying a little happy” to make it all OK.

Peter Menzel and his editor Faith D’Alusio have brought us an impressive look at ourselves, inside and out.

For over 18 years, I have been photographing lunch, and it is sometimes in reviewing these images that I realize what the heck I’ve been putting in my body. Yeah, I know, “can’t you remember ?” you may ask.
But when the shots are all laid out, it’s a full reality.
Eating more salads now.
I’m just saying.

Details on getting this set of books for free, are right here:

1. Check you email inbox and make sure you have the NEWSLETTER from us ([email protected])
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Reply #50 is getting the official set this week.