内容简介

It's simple question,but there's no simple answer-indeed,each of the 280 photographs in this wonderful book offers its own,unique answer,distilling subject,setting,and cerative skill into a single arresting moment that cap-tures the viewer's imagination.And though we may find this elusive quality hard to define,we recognze is imme-diately and instinctively.
William Albert Allard,one of the essayists in the book,writes,A fine portrait has the potential to tell something about the spirit of the subject that can be sensed by someone half a world and a different language away.something universal and simple:This is another person in our world and I'd like you to meet him or her.
Culled from National Geographic's extraordinary archive,this collection spans more than a century and explores every cornetr of the globe and every aspect of the portraitist's art.The pictures here represent both the special visions of some of the world's finest photographers and the universal appeal of our shared humanity in all its many moods.