Yesterday, I had a memorable trip down memory lane and was jolted back into an age when I was albeit very young but  aware of world events about me from by virtue of daily and Sunday papers. We had the wireless to listen to of course but it was images in newspaper articles or out of date magazines that I could get hold of at our local newsagent in Crosby that showed me the horrors of the Vietnam war and the social deprivations and injustices of man versus mankind in both North America and South Africa.

How all these memories came flooding back at the Barbican yesterday. This is a huge exhibition and an emotionally draining one at that. The messages were very clear and the presentation superlative. Who could not be moved by viewing the Freedom March images made by Bruce Davidson if only for their intrinsic value in terms of quality of reproduction as well as the social injustices and strength of spirit that they conveyed. This body of work coupled with Larry Burrows and Li Zhensheng made it for me.

Aspects of presentation either drew me  in or weakened my resolve to study the pictures on display. The choice of blue in some of the ‘rooms’ was to my mind an excellent choice of gallery wall covering but when moving from Bruce Davidson to Graciela Iturbide my attention was lost owing to a paler insignificant wall colour and in my view innappropriate white frames that drew my eyes and my mind away from the images themselves.

With so much to take in, I felt I had to buy a copy of the catalogue and this  I must take issue with. The quality of reproduction the catalogue is poor compared to the actual exhibition and at £40 is pretty poor show Barbican.  How can you display images of such quality on your walls, yet sell such a mediocre facsimile to the faithful hoards of photographers making a pilgrimage to this shrine of representation of hugely important periods  and events of the last century? It does an injustice to those photographers whose work is on display and cheapens your attitude to paying visitors.

You need to up your game, or get a better publisher.