THE WORLD IN MY CAMERA

Images, on and off camera, of the many, many writers and artists Ms. Freund has met and photographed ever since 1933 when she first came to Paris, an impoverished student fleeing the Nazis. Gide, the aesthete, looking ""somewhat like a monk."" Click. G.B. Shaw, the picture of vanity, stroking his silvery beard by moonlight. Click. Malraux, the Minister of Cultural Affairs, whose eyes revealed ""profound despair."" Click. Many of her subjects were ""the avowed enemies of posing"" and had to be coaxed, flattered, or otherwise lured while she searched for that elusive detail, ""the symbolic essence of the individual."" But only on film. . . the verbal snapshots are stilted, hardly more than badly written captions. Between portraits there are some ruminations on the professional hazards of photo-reportage -- ""A photographer was by definition a suspicious character"" and so on. And so on to Argentina and Evita Peron's jewels for Life and Mexico and Diego Rivera's murals and back to Paris to see again ""the ravages of time"" on those old familiar faces. Click. Click.