影像臺灣百年行旅

推薦序/前言
 

影像的大歷史敘事 
徐宗懋

在臺灣出版界，百年臺灣的影像紀錄始終是熱門的題材，過去類似題目的畫冊已出過好幾本，因此這本畫冊問世前，必然會面對讀者一個基本的疑問，相對於既有的臺灣影像畫冊，這本有什麼不一樣呢？

其實這個問題也是我們編輯這本畫冊時，首先要回答的，如果只有清楚地知道答案，才有可能交出一本成功的畫冊。首先，既然是畫冊，就應以影像為主，文字為輔，或者說把影像當成主要的歷史敘事工具，這個原理看似簡單，其實不容易，其條件在於事先擁有極其龐大的臺灣史影像收藏。事實上，大部分的臺灣畫冊的編輯方式，仍然事先決定題目，再請專家寫大綱和內文，然後再請美編根據內文尋找圖片，實際上還是文字思考模式，圖跟文走，自然難以突破既有的成果。這本畫冊的編輯則是相反的，是先有圖再決定文字，先從將近兩萬張臺灣史的相關圖片中，挑出兩百張，決定其組合方式，最後為了避免困於瑣碎的文字敘述，決定了三大主題：「時代演變」、「庶民生活」、「城鄉景觀」。再者，畫冊中有一半以上為第一次使用之照片，若非首次，也是製作於畫質優良的原版圖片，因此平均素質遠優於現有的臺灣畫冊。

由於採取影像的大歷史敘事，文字也就盡量精簡、準確。工作同仁們付出龐大的心力，運用圖片鋪陳出百年臺灣走過的路。在路途上，有各種奮鬥、挫敗、躍起和沉淪等等，而到了最後，臺灣總是抱著勇氣和希望，持續地克服挑戰，不斷地重新站起。當讀者展讀畫冊時，感覺這種澎湃和溫馨，也就是影像臺灣成功的一刻了。

影像的大歷史敘事 英文翻譯:

A Great Historical Narrative in Images

In Taiwan's publishing community, the island's century captured on camera has been a very popular subject, and many books on this subject have been published in the past. As a result, even before publication of this photo collection, we are ready to address a basic question from readers: pitted against existing books containing photographs of Taiwan, what makes this book different?

In fact, we had to tackle this question when we started editing this book, and we felt that we could publish a successful book only if we could come up with a clear answer. First, since it is a photo collection, it should focus on photographs and have texts play a secondary role, or we could say that it should take photographs as its primary historical narrative tool. But although this principle seems simple, it was not that easy to accomplish, and it required that we have access to a vast collection of historical photographs. The editing of most photo collections in Taiwan usually begins with selecting a topic, followed by engaging experts to write an outline and text, and then having art editors find appropriate photographs to accompany the text. This model is still text-based, however, and when the photographs follow the text, it is difficult to go beyond what has been accomplished previously. The editing of this book took the opposite approach: we first selected photographs, and then decided on the text. We chose 200 photos from close to 20,000 relevant historical photographs concerning Taiwan; decided how to organize them; and finally, in order to avoid tedious text descriptions, selected three major topics: "Changing Times," "People's Lives," and "Urban and Rural Landscapes." Secondly, more than half of the photographs in this book were being used for the first time; if they were not used for the first time, they were produced from the superior-quality original photographs. Because of this, the quality of the photographs in this book is far better than that of those in existing photo collections concerning Taiwan.

Because we used photographs to present a great historical narrative, the text was kept as succinct and accurate as possible. Our colleagues put great effort into using photographs to portray Taiwan's journey over the course of a century. Throughout this journey, Taiwan and its people experienced various struggles, setbacks, and moments of transcendence and decline. But invariably Taiwan proved capable of overcoming challenges as it held on to its courage and hope and kept getting back on its feet after every fall. Success of this book, we believe, will be measured at the instant when readers turn its pages and feel the emotion and warmth contained therein.

HSU CHUNG MAO