Colección Pretérito Imperfecto. Buenos Aires. 2020.

Quarto (24 x 17 cm), 328 pp. Paperback publisher binding. Unused copy. Edit. ArtexArte of the Alfonso y Luz Castillo Foundation. Pretéritos imperfectos Collection. Buenos Aires. 2020.

Photojournalism in Argentina aims to reconstruct the history of this profession in Argentina in the period from the emergence of the magazine Siete Días Ilustrados in 1965 to the creation in 1975 of the SIGLA agency, the country's first photographic press agency. This is a decade in which photojournalism acquired an unprecedented importance in the political and media history of the country, new reporters joined the profession, there was a generational change that gave a fight for professional hierarchy and media emerged that promoted a 'militant' photograph.

The book also analyzes the antecedents of the profession, covering what happened to press photography during the first half of the 20th century. Popular mobilizations, coups d'état, wars, scientific advances, simple and spectacular events, stories of men and women throughout Argentina and the world were photographed and reached different audiences through the eyes of dozens of photographers -mostly anonymous- and the use that the media gave to their photos.

However, both photojournalism as a profession and press photographs as a product of it have been scarcely addressed until today as an object of study. Gamarnik intends to historicize it, study its singularities, listen to the voice of the photographers and, at the same time, think about the historical, cultural and political implications of his photographs. In contrast to the habitual use that uses photos as illustrations, this book asks about the modes of their production, about the paradigmatic images from different periods of Argentine history, and about the views that were on those images. It proposes to look at the photographs, but not in an isolated way but, on the contrary, inscribed in their historical time.