On the Line: The New Color Photojournalism 9781512819946

Citation preview

On T h e Line: The New Color Photojournalism

David B u r n e t t Michel Folco Harry Gruyaert Jeff Jacobson M a r y Ellen M a r k Susan Meiselas Yan Morvan Gilles Peress Rio B r a n c o Jean-Marie Simon A l e x Webb Alfred Yaghobzadeh

On The Line: The New Color Photojournalism

Adam D. Weinberg

with a Foreword by Gloria Emerson

FINE AftYS

Walker A r t Center, Minneapolis

The presentation and National tour of On The Line: The New Color Photojournalism have been organized by Walker A r t Center with major support from the National Endowment for the Arts, and additional support from the Gelco Foundation. Further support was provided by the Bush Foundation, the Minnesota State A r t s Board, the McKnight Foundation, General Mills and the Dayton Hudson Foundation for B. Dalton Bookseller, Dayton's and Target Stores. © W a l k e r A r t Center 1986 All rights reserved under International and Pan-American copyright conventions. Unless otherwise noted, illustrations © the photographers. N o part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Walker A r t Center, Vineland Place, Minneapolis M N 55403. Printed in the U.S.A. L C 85-052072 I S B N 0-935640-20-7 W a l k e r A r t Center (pbk) I S B N 0-8122-8028-8 University of Pennsylvania Press (hbk)

Cover Gilles Peress The eve of the Passion Play Zunil, Quezaltenango, Guatemala, 1977

Frontispiece Alfred Yaghobzadeh Moslem militiaman in Moslem-held suburbs of Beirut Beirut, Lebanon, February 1984

Contents

8

Foreword b y Gloria Emerson

16

On The Line: The N e w C o l o r P h o t o j o u r n a l i s m by A d a m D. Weinberg

70

Checklist of the Exhibition

73

Biographies

79

Acknowledgments

80

Credits

S u s a n Meiselas Country club Managua, Nicaragua, 1978

Susan Meiselas Street fighter Managua, Nicaragua, 1979

Foreword

Gloria Emerson

On the seventh floor of the Klingenstein Pavilion, which sits in the sovereign state of Mount Sinai Hospital, a world quite apart from the city of New York, a good reproduction of a contemporary painting hangs in each of the private rooms. Held in the stern whiteness of their high beds the patients have something new to see which does not always delight. A young woman with tubes in her nose, yearning for food, said the Dubuffet in her room made her nervous, it was too busy. When my own friend slept, or was taken to the basement for radiation treatments, I would walk the halls of K-7, as people call it, inspecting but not always seeing the posters hung for the pleasure—an O'Keeffe, a Hopper, a Lichtenstein were what I sometimes had instead of dinner. A t night when ordinary visitors were home and only those of us with a desperate claim on the dying were still around, a sorrowful and restless bunch, the posters gave consolation. On a very quiet night, when no one was crying out, one of the nurses, who was quite accustomed to my walks, showed me the poster she most preferred. It was a photograph taken sixty years ago. The World of Atget: Old France, it said, announcing an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art. It hung in a small corridor on the other side of the elevators where I had not yet stalked. Together she and I stood so close to the photograph I could see hundreds of leaves, the great curl of a vine, the weight of a branch, the old bricks in the high wall, how much dust was on the road, and knew what you would have smelled that summer day. The photograph by Atget has a proper name: Ballainvilliers, entrée du village, Juin 1925. W e approach but never enter. There are no people to be seen—they are in the fields or working, perhaps women are starting to make dinner. It is an unexceptional day possessing the perfection we so rarely note. Surely by that June in that year a monument has been erected in the village bearing the names of the men and boys of Ballainvilliers used up in

the war of 1914-1918 which would bear the invocation: hAorts Pour La France o r Aborts Pour La Patrie. But the village is not ours t o explore, only to imagine; just the t o w e r of the church is revealed. T h e village is private and out of reach just as France always chooses t o conceal so much of herself to outsiders. That night in the hospital it seemed a dreadful thing that I had never learned the names of the trees in France that A t g e t kept photographing for so many years and perhaps this is what great photographs sometimes do. They remind us of what w e did not bother to see ourselves and w e r e t o o busy t o love. It is the photographs of Atget, and the pictures taken by all those sharing his splendid obsession of what the camera can be made to do, that every so often gives us yet another chance t o understand what it means t o be human. In the hospital I went back t o Ballainvilliers again and again, standing where A t g e t stood, understanding at last w h y the photograph, with its clarity of detail, is a marvel. It was Berenice Abbott, herself a great photographer, w h o first saw A t g e t ' s photographs in the studio of Man Ray in Paris, 1925, and never forgot. "Their impact was immediate and t r e m e n d o u s — t h e shock of realism unadorned. T h e subjects w e r e not sensational, but nevertheless shocking in their very familiarity. T h e real world, seen with w o n d e r m e n t and surprise, was mirrored in each print. W h a t e v e r means A t g e t used to project the image did not intrude between subject and observer." 1 There was another photograph to be found o n the seventh floor and for a few minutes I smuggled it into the r o o m of my friend w h o had begun to leave us, her illness taking all her attention. I wanted to s h o w her something that was familiar and yet astonishing, something of the w o r l d she could love. It was Edward Steichen's Heavy Roses, Voulangis, photographed in 1914 in France. H e r hospital r o o m was full of real flowers, all charming and lovable, but nothing that could compare to Steichen's fat roses, w e t with rain o r dew, each petal close t o our o w n faces. Lying in bed, she stared up at the roses, lifted a hand t o feel them, then said the roses w e r e yellow as if that much could be k n o w n from a black and white photograph. Afterwards when the r o o m was not hers, the floor full of strangers, I went back to thank the nurses and to say goodbye t o Ballainvilliers and the roses of Voulangis. But the Steichen poster was gone from the hall; it n o w hung in the r o o m of a patient in quarantine w h o s e visitors w o r e face masks. It had not ever occurred t o me that the photographs might be shifted and taken away. S o I must remember then, some photographs demand this. They d o not exist for us t o only look once and to then become forgetful. Photographs do not rush by us like film, they have a permanence and a claim on us that cannot be cheapened o r diminished. O n a recent Sunday morning C B S television program, the photographs of Robert Capa appeared on my tiny, old s e t — o n c e more I saw the four blind men of Y e m e n holding each other's

8 9

hands and being led by a child, the elderly British couple in the air raid shelter in London, the soldiers and people of Spain during the Civil War. None of the terrible power of Capa's work is weakened, the blind men, the British couple, the Spaniards are not lost to me. It is them that I remember not the factual accounts or the historians' analyses of that era. This is what the best photographers are able to achieve. They take voyages and pull us with them, even when we are not willing so we may observe and honor pain and generosity, turmoil and dignity, despair and the wonderful look of a man hoping to steady a woman who is braced for a bombing. The teacups are before them on a white napkin placed over a makeshift table. Sometimes there are photographs of triumph and joy, photographs of the simplest of human responses or the grace that we all possess. Perhaps as you look at the photographs in On The Line there is one that will oblige you to stand very still and the information it imparts, and the sensation it induces, might be lovely or puzzling or ghastly. Photographs have a mystery: they cannot give us the beginning or end of the story, the reasons for an event, any explanation at all. They do not reveal what will come next. And yet nothing is new, what we see is familiar: the man with the gun, the gussied-up blonde woman refusing the defeat of age, the wearied baseball players seen in On the Line are not strange. What is startling, and often oddly shocking, is our own understanding of them, the sudden intimacy, the great and terrible contrasts between their lives and our own. The best photographers are, of course, spies who do not always know it. They intrude, they observe, they snoop, they come back to present us with secrets, but not with malevolent intent. Spying is not a word they would choose themselves for their work and the ferocious demands it entails. But it is they who go into unmarked zones and see what no one else is seeing. Because our eyes are often glazed from watching television or from glancing at photographs that have no purpose at all except to confirm a reporter's story—heads of state shaking hands, politicians during a campaign, a participant at a press conference—there is a need to be more alert when a picture of passionate insistence comes before us. It need not be of an earth-shaking event, or a picture of slaughter or valor. One of the most wonderful photographs I have ever seen is of a small black boy singing and playing the piano, his head back and his mouth opened very wide. He is clearly not a rich child for his country is South Africa, the shirt he wears appears to have been worn by others before him. This hardly matters as he performs for his music teacher, a black woman of distinction, by his side. It is the child's intensity, the woman's joy, the improbability of such a boy learning to play and to sing in such a country that makes this photograph by Peter Mugabane so startling.

W e should celebrate their spying and urge the best of them on. Observing without being observed, going where they are not wanted, needing patience and stubbornness and a natural talent, photographers provide memory when our o w n is not good enough. In her tribute to Eugene Atget, Berenice Abbott reminds that during his lifetime "photography developed from the single-copy daguerreotype to the muliple-orginal photograph." He was buried in August 1927. "His was not the day of the ubiquitous photographer," she wrote. "People were suspicious of him and may even thought him a spy. He must have appeared mysterious and a suspicious figure with his big camera swathed in a voluminous dark cloth." She notes that with a load of glass plates—twelve plates alone weighed forty to fifty pounds—the large view camera—which could have weighed from forty to fifty p o u n d s — a tripod, the holders and other objects, his burden was considerable but this load he carried everywhere, to the end of his life. Photographers are not suspicious or strange figures anymore with their light, smaller cameras and wonderful lenses that can be easily packed. But in many countries they are seen as dangerous during a crisis, an enemy of sorts who must be stopped or dispelled. But the sight of them at w o r k is ordinary for we live in a time when millions of people share a charming conceit and believe that by owning and operating a camera they are taking photographs. Cameras are slung around the necks of the uninitiated as expensive necklaces might be worn by the members of a good-natured tribe. People are fooled into thinking the lenses will do the work; they do not remember that the eye must be exceptional. Again, Berenice Abbott on the art of Atget and what all photographers surely know: "The act of seeing sharpens the eye to an unprecedented acuteness. He often sees swiftly an entire scene that most people would pass unnoticed. A s he scans the subject he sees as the lens sees, which differs from human vision." A few years ago, walking across Fifty-Seventh Street with Susan Meiselas, one of the twelve photographers whose w o r k is shown in On The Line, she mumbled something about a crane. " W h e r e ? " I said, looking up, seeing nothing or not much. True, I saw a crane, a man, the scaffolding on a building but it was ordinary, of no interest at all. While what she saw, her own peculiar vision, made her break stride and slow down for a second. The odd thing is that when some photographers are at work they seem blind to all else, impervious to their surroundings, except what they believe they are about to capture. Once in El Salvador watching Meiselas at work, oblivious to all else except what she and her camera wanted, it struck me that in this state the photographer is always in peril. There is no way of explaining the wonderful and peculiar wiring between his brain and his eye.

During the war in Vietnam, observing David Burnett, then a very young man and new at it, I suspected that some photographers have sight where the rest of us do not: a third eye, perhaps, in the back of the head, or ears that signal them. What all surely possess is a stubborn patience, some conviction that permits them t o wait until what they suspect might happen does indeed. They know where they must be. Mary Ellen Mark, for example, who thinks of herself not as a photojournalist but rather a documentary photographer, once lived in a maximum security ward in a state mental hospital for t w o months for one project and for three months in Bombay, visiting the same six brothels on one street, so she could photograph the prostitutes and their clients as no else ever has. Yet there is not really much time on their side. Desperate o r frightened people do not pose. Look at the photographs of Michel Folco in Houston, the place he calls the captial of crime. Behind the dead man on the floor, t w o men and a woman sit on a couch (p 64). The television set is on although they do not look at it. They cannot concentrate. Did the dead man play the guitar we see propped against the wall? His blood has leaked all the way over t o the instrument. What happened? Some photographs do not attempt t o answer our questions while others give answers t o questions we do not normally raise. So the armed policeman crosses a small fence at night (p 63), a slight woman officer, her eyes very wide, looks out from a doorway in an apartment whose flowered wallpaper is stained and ruined. A t her feet is a corpse with a chest wound. Knowing nothing of the case histories we still know that what we see in Folco's photographs is not an artistic invention, but the confirmation of what is widely known: the availability of guns in the United States, the sickness of so many American lives and the rage, the murders so commonplace that newspapers do not report all the deaths, and our increasing refusal t o be appalled. The Americans w h o m Jeff Jacobson has photographed seem sinister and conniving at a convention in Texas while others appear affably foolish o r only bizarre in a culture that sometimes calls for a degree of rapt lunacy. His photograph of a man's face—aghast and agitated—and other members of a vigil protesting the execution of a woman in Raleigh, N o r t h Carolina in 1984 is taped t o a wall in front of me as I write. Photographs, o r their copies, are meant t o haunt us and disturb the peace we hold so dear. In this exhibition the places we are taken are often both horrible and splendid, and secretive as well: the Guatemala known t o the photographer Jean-Marie Simon, a country whose war is so weakly reported; the Nicaraguan revolution t o o v e r t h r o w Somoza documented by Susan Meiselas; the community of the Maciel in Salvador, Bahia, in Brazil seen by Rio Branco; a religious celebration of the holiest significance among the Tzutuhil Indians living in a t o w n in the Guatemalan highlands photographed

by Gilles Peress, and Mexico photographed by Alex Webb. Although Mexico is a country I believed I knew well, Webb's photographs, with their brilliant blackness and streaks of light, make it impossible to keep up such a pretense. The Miami discovered by Mary Ellen Mark is not a comforting or serene place but rather one that arouses pity, and the fear of what awaits the rest of us when we, too, are old. Harry Gruyaert's elegant and intelligent photographs from Belgium prove that when nothing seems to be happening a great deal sometimes is. In David Burnett's photographs of the Gastonia Cardinals, a fledgling farm team in minor league baseball who play by night in town after town, the young players longing to be picked for the big-time, we see a peculiarly poignant American struggle and the faint promise of failure. Among all these photographs some are memorable and some taken at too great a cost. Both Yan Morvan, born in France, and Alfred Yaghobzadeh, an Iranian citizen, have photographed the war in Lebanon without trivializing the misery or glorifying the horror. These are photographs that hold us to account, that make it impossible to say we do not understand because the various religious opponents are too complicated to fathom. Attention must be paid. Yaghobzadeh's photographs of men in the Shiite Moslem Amal movement, and his picture of a man, alone, waiting to fire, one eye covered by a thick, fresh bandage (p. 2), are so important we cannot dismiss these Lebanese fanatics, madmen or men beyond our comprehension. Twenty-six years old, this photographer disappeared in West Beirut last June, according to a little UPI story in The New York Times. His friends were contacting the leaders of Beirut's various warring factions in an effort to locate the photographer, the story said. It is not known whether they may have succeeded or given up. No word has come.2

Notes 1 All quotations in this essay by Berenice Abbott come from her book The World of Atget (New York: Putnam Publishing Group, Paragon Books, 1979). 2 Alfred Yaghobzadeh was released on 16 August 1985 after having been held captive for fifty days.

Rio Branco Woman of Moael Bahia, Brazil, 1979

Rio

Branco

Pilar

Church

Bahia, B r a z i l ,

1984

On The Line: The New Color Photojournalism

A d a m D. Weinberg

"When art people look at my work they say, 'Oh, he's a photojournalist'; and when photojournalists look at my work, they say, 'Oh, he's an art photographer.'"—Jeff Jacobson The twelve photographers in this exhibition do not comprise a "school" or a single aesthetic. They do not have only one identity—artist or photojournalist. They are not just North Americans, but come from other countries as well—France, Belgium, Iran and Brazil. Their educational backgrounds are diverse, ranging from law and philosophy t o education and literature. Some are motivated primarily by political concerns, others more by journalistic or aesthetic concerns. Some use black-and-white film and color film equally while others use mainly one or the other. Some of the photographs were made on assignments, others on self-generated projects. Some were published; many were not. One might ask then, what do these twelve photographers have in common other than the fact that their pictures are available to the press through commercial photography agencies? What unites this generation of photographers, now in their 30s and 40s, is not simply their use of color photography but their position vis-a-vis the fields of art photography and photojournalism. They are "on the line" between t w o worlds. Not easily classified as simply art photographers or photojournalists, these are among a significant number of hybrid photographers whose work defies strict categorization and points to the inadequacy of labels used in the history of photography.1

Gilles Peress La Burriquita Ramos

(Palm

or Processione

de Palmas

on Domingo

de

Sunday)

Antigua, Guatemala, 1977 Antigua, Guatemala, was the capital until destroyed by earthquake in 1841 Its Holy Week processions— lasting 15 hours or more and involving thousands of penitents—are the most important in Latin America

A C o n f u s i o n Of T e r m s

A r t photography as it was conceived by Alfred Stieglitz, the prime mover of Photo Secession in the early years of this century, was inwardly focused and initially based on the model of painting and sculpture. A r t photographers in the spirit of Stieglitz were primarily concerned with self-expression; information was secondary to their vision. The continuity of art photography in the twentieth century was assured by a generation of younger photographers including Charles Sheeler, Paul Strand and members of the Californiabased "Group f/64" which included Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham and Ansel Adams. This tradition was clearly distinct from the workaday, outwardly focused concerns of photojournalism. Photojournalists were primarily interested in recording news events. In short, for twentieth-century artists form was more important than content, and for journalists the converse was true. There are other basic differences between art photography and photojournalism. Images for magazines are produced by photographers who usually work with deadlines and frequently photograph under the restriction of assignment. They generally take pictures in enormous quantities and many do not process and print their own work. Such photographs, as reproduced on the pages of magazines, are rarely considered to be finely crafted or of great monetary value. O n occasion the works of photojournalists are considered sufficiently meaningful to be produced in book form. O n the other hand, art photographers select their subjects guided completely by their own predilections. They usually process and print their own work or carefully supervise those who are doing so to achieve the "fine print" aesthetic. Their work, if successful, is presented on the walls of galleries and museums as well as in tasteful book reproductions. Moreover, it may have considerable monetary value. These are paradigmatic, textbook descriptions of the art photographer and the photojournalist. Y e t many photographers, including those in this exhibition, do not fit neatly into these categories. This character of being "on the line" is not a recent occurrence, nor is it by any means unique to color photographers of the current generation. Important photographers of the previous generation, including Henri CartierBresson, Margaret Bourke-White and W . Eugene Smith, have also been regarded as artists as well as photojournalists. The relationship between art and photojournalism has been acknowledged by photographers for many years. In the past, some photojournalists felt it important to establish their artistic identities. Life magazine photographer Eliot Elisofon, renowned for his color photography, said, "I'd not be happy if I felt I couldn't be considered an artist as well as a photographer." 2 Some felt the necessity to define the relationship. Life photographer Gjon Mili believed, "Photojournalism is halfway between art and journalism."3 While

others thought that art and photojournalism were two opposing forces which

should be reconciled. W . Eugene Smith, several years before his death,

acknowledged the split between his two selves—the artist and the photojournalist—but asserted their complementary nature. "I would like to make

clear... that I have no conflict between journalism and my artist self. A t one time I did, but then I realized to be a good photojournalist I needed to be the finest artist that I could possibly be."4 Still others, such as photographer

Larry Burrows, were "not comfortable with the labels war correspondent

or photojournalist or any title that suggested he was only one kind of photo-

grapher."5 Walker Evans left it up to the viewer. "The material of the

assignment is here, but no one says, This picture is art, it belongs in a museum. This picture is journalism, it belongs in a wastebasket.' The viewer

can decide."6

If the relationship between photojournalism and art photography has

been an issue for so long, why does it continue to be of importance? In recent years, much of art photography has become impoverished. Art photo-

graphers working in both black and white and color have increasingly con-

cerned themselves with narrowly conceived issues of form and style and

frequently have focused on abstract or esoteric subject matter of little or

no extrinsic significance. To the extent that images by these photographers

address concerns beyond their own self-referentiality, they are half-hearted in their suggestion of social, historical and political meanings. As John Szar-

kowski said, "Whatever else a photograph may be about, it is inevitably about photography, the container and the vehicle of all its meanings."7 And in the latest photography, created in a modernist vein, the vehicle is frequently

riderless. Style often overpowers meaning; or, curators, historians and critics

such as Szarkowski have chosen to interpret photographs in such a way that the "look" has come to outweigh that which is looked at.

Postmodern photographers, in a departure from their modernist

forebears, are currently doing their share to reinvest art photography with meaning and to undermine traditional notions of formalist aesthetics.8 How-

ever, as writer Sally Eauclaire has pointed out, "Postmodernist artistic direc-

tion has certainly allowed a return of content, yet its moral center is most

often a joke; sardonic allusions, double entendres about medium and process

of throw-away visual references seem to 'legitimize' concerns that seem

trivial, self-serving and irrevelant in the context of life's broader, deeper

scope."' While the concerns of some postmodern photographers are trivial, other photographers deal with issues so complex and far reaching—from linguistics and the critique of modern mass media to sexual politics and Marxist aesthetics—that the meanings are frequently inaccessible to all but

the initiated.10 Furthermore, in regards to postmodern photography, critic

Harry

Gruyaert

March Waterloo, Belgium, 1976

Linda Andre has astutely observed that, " N o art can be politically effective if it limits its audience to a tiny elite already in sympathy with its message, while remaining deliberately difficult or unpleasurable to look at for others." 11 It is not surprising that postmodern art photographers themselves are appropriating the styles and structures of photojournalism as a method for rediscovering content and meaning.12 In the meantime, those traditionally referred to as photojournalists have not been waiting in the wings; they have had a presence since the mid-1970s. While art photographers have sought new subject matter, the events of the world, mundane and catastrophic, have provided these new photojournalists with all the necessary content for their work. These photojournalists have no need to reinvent content like the postmodern photographer; their work is already invested with content. They have assimilated the aesthetic lessons of art photography and are well-versed in the visual language of color photographic materials. The confusion of these catagories—artist and photojournalist—has become more acute recently in part due to the increased use of color. Their seeming arbitrariness continues to puzzle and frustrate photographers, in particular those represented in the exhibition.13 Susan Meiselas, for example, addressing the issue of categories, says that in contrast to documentary photography, "Photojournalism has the possiblity of being out there. A more public kind of sharing." She goes on to say, however, "I don't think of myself as a photojournalist. I don't do stories." She also states, "I never use the word 'artist' either. I would just say 'photographer' and wouldn't qualify it. It's the edge of interaction that's more important to me."14 Alex Webb, a fellow member of the Magnum photography agency, similarly sidesteps the question, saying that whatever he is reporting on is "seen through a particular aesthetic. I'm first and foremost a photographer. I care more about seeing than anything else. I'm bored by pictures that don't on some level make you think about the world. I don't want to just be able to see my navel in fascinating ways." 15 Jeff Jacobson, a photographer of the Archive agency, equally dissatisfied with the labels of photojournalism and artist, concurs with Webb. "I think most photojournalism is bringing back a picture that tells me the facts of the situation. The who, the what, the how, the why, the when and the where. A lot of what I see as so-called art photography is mainly concerned with aesthetics, with the color, the form, and doesn't have anything to do with the subject matter. I think what I'm trying to do is (use) concerns from both what is traditionally called art and traditionally called journalism. The most interesting photography... is people shooting... real world, real people, real places, doing real things but applying their own aesthetic... and not following the dictates of Time or Fortune or Life magazines."16

While the photographers downplay the importance of categories, their awareness of them does affect their process of working. Gilles Peress, also a member of Magnum, says, for example, "When you are an artist, suddenly there are things that are happening in the process of reportage or photojournalism or journalism that suddenly ought to be dismissed because they are not okay; in the same manner, when you are a photojournalist, there are ways of dealing with reality, or seeing reality, that ought to be dismissed because they are not okay. Which means a lot of things get excluded in the process of creating those identities."17 In other words, the photographer's awareness of categories and how the images might be used—book, magazine, exhibition—dictate the manner in which a subject will be seen beforehand instead of enabling the photographer to explore the subject with an open mind. Having such preconceived notions is likely to guarantee the successful accomplishment of a project, especially magazine assignments; however, the results are also likely to reconfirm both what the photographer and viewer already knew about the subject. How and to what end does one classify a photographer such as Mary Ellen Mark who, although trained as a photojournalist at the Annenberg School and currently a member of the Archive agency, frequently exhibits her work in an art world context such as the Castelli Gallery in New York? O r Rio Branco, who began his career as a painter, has exhibited his photographs at art museums and galleries, has done extensive, long-term documentation of his home—Salvador de Bahia, Brazil—and has been a photographer for Magnum, one of the most prominent photographic agencies representing photographers to the magazine and corporate worlds. When asked what kind of photographer he is, Rio Branco invokes three attitudes: "Photojournalism is the field I run through, the ground where I put my feet before taking off for a flight. From this point of view I begin working in a subject with a photojournalistic and anthropological approach; this can be done in a deep way from which some pictures are going to be published. But it is the editions I make out of the take that will present my creative approach to photography. And this is art."18 This fusion of art photographer and photojournalist is less obvious for some of the photographers represented in the exhibition. At one end of the spectrum, Magnum photographer Harry Gruyaert, who is rarely published in news magazines and whose work is usually seen in photography magazines, art museums and galleries, says of news magazines, "They want some information . . . the personality of the photographer doesn't interest them at all. To me it's important to hang things on walls."" At the other end, David Burnett, a photographer described by his colleagues as "the photojournalist's photojournalist," has been a product of the newspaper photographer world.

Beginning his career after high school working for a weekly paper in his native Salt Lake City, Utah, Burnett has been a contract photographer for Time and Life magazines, has covered stories from the war in Vietnam t o the recent famine in Ethiopia, and has been a regular contributor t o every major international news magazine. He is also a founding member of the Contact agency. In contrast t o Gruyaert, Burnett says, "Photojournalism, I think, has t o remain ever vigilant that the story is the most important thing, it's not the photographer. The situation you're photographing is always more important than who's doing the picture taking." 20 "There are some people doing journalism which I don't," says Harry Gruyaert. Yet what perhaps qualifies him in the broadest sense as a photojournalist are the facts that he is a photographer for Magnum; that subject identifiable by location and date is significant t o understanding his w o r k ; and that he takes a somewhat oppositional attitude t o the inwardly focused concerns of artists. And what perhaps qualifies David Burnett as an art photographer (although he says candidly, "I don't know that what I do is really art") is his ability t o use the stylistic devices of art photography. The photographers in the exhibition successfully play art against journalism, trying t o reap the most from each, honing their perceptual and observational powers in the process. Aesthetics are fused with reportage, creating a tension within the image. This tension is caused, in part, by the inability of the viewer t o easily distinguish the extent t o which an image is art o r journalism. One would think that the inclusion of a title indicating the date and place of the photograph's origin would eliminate the ambiguity; however, a title under an aesthetically contrived picture only seems t o underline the tension. For example, in Harry Gruyaert's March, Waterloo, Belgium, 1976 (p 20) one sees t w o lines of soldiers passing in procession. The Napoleonic red, white and black costumes and the title immediately inform the viewer that this is the reenactment of a historic event. Yet, the composition with the dramatic cropping and shifting scale of the soldiers, the eccentric division of space created by the background architecture and shadows, and the seemingly anachronistic, jarring presence of a green-yellow car in the middle of the scene perplex the viewer. What happens in this picture is not just an event in the photographer's native Belgium nor the complex disposition of color and forms but the coming together of the t w o — f o r m and c o n t e n t — in a competition for the viewer's attention. The tension in such an image also derives from the difficulty of seeing current events, in effect daily life, as art. A compelling image brings the viewer closer t o the subject while the aestheticization of the content distances the viewer. This dynamic is acknowledged by Susan Meiselas. "I frame thinking of f o r m s . . . but I think it's a thin line in which that form communicates the

M a r y Ellen M a r k Harry Hesse/ in his room Miami Beach, Florida, 1980 Mr. Hessel is 104 years old.

M a r y Ellen M a r k Marcellme M Trailler and Marshall Trailler m their living room Miami Beach, Florida, 1979

M a r y Ellen M a r k Pearl Kypmis in her bedroom Miami Beach, Florida, 1980

M

I S

M a r y Ellen M a r k Untitled South Beach, Florida, 1979

content and when it works against it. But I'm no longer connected t o what's happening in the image and so for me I'm working on trying t o understand that process more. And bring the t w o as closely together. There are times that the formal is complementing the content and construction, for example, makes something as complex as you might understand. And there are times that it is a device, and I'm less interested in that. I know e x a c t l y . . . when it's working and when it's n o t . . . it's borderline. A very thin line t o walk."

The N e w Journalism: A Parallel

The balance between personal vision and factual information in these images is highly reminiscent of the N e w Journalism of the mid-1960s in which such writers as Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Hunter Thompson and Truman Capote w r o t e nonfiction using the techniques of fiction. Instead of an attempt at objective reporting, the presence of the author was accepted as part of the reality recorded; the writing itself was therefore considered t o be fundamentally more honest. The N e w Journalism was an anti-authoritarian literary manifestation of the political and social rebellions of the 1960s. As one zealous observer described it, "The so-called Outside Reality you are generally asked t o accept as true is under suspicion today. There is the general conviction we are being lied to, by politicians, by TV, by advertising, by magazines, by mothers and fathers and by professors. All external reality as it's being presented in the multimedia of today seems less and less like reality as we individuals experience it. N o w , what does one do when he finds out that the world does not correspond t o the world as described by authority? He is forced back on his own subjective reactions, for one thing, or he's apt t o be. He may do any number of things. He may just explode, or he may go mad. But as a w r i t e r he's forced inward t o some extent." 21 Similarly, but somewhat later, this questioning of photographic reality occurred with art photographers. It began with Garry Winogrand in the late 1960s, who said that he made photographs " t o find out what something will look like photographed," and continued through the 1970s with the overtly manipulated images by photographers such as Robert Cumming and John Pfahl in which objects were arranged and events staged before the lens.22 This acknowledgment of the photographer's presence carried over t o the world of the photojournalists. In their photographs, the stamp of personal vision overlays the reality recorded. In the past, photojournalism has generally been understood by its practitioners, if not by those who view it, as never being objective since it represents "conscious choice" on the part of the photographer. Nonetheless, the good photojournalist was supposed t o have "the ability t o feel emotion

yet remain objective." 23 And a photograph could remain objective by not implying "the photographer's individual belief or opinion with regard to the subject."2'1 Such a contradictory philosophy implied that photographers should be simultaneously involved and removed from their subjects. The New Journalism freed authors from journalistic conventions—detachment, impersonality—and enabled them to speak the truth, as they saw it. This distinction between truth and objectivity was made again and again by these twelve photographers. "I think no one can be objective," says Mary Ellen Mark. "I think you're always subjective. You have opinions about things and you shoot them. You try and be fair, but it's basically your opinion . . . it's your truth and you believe it's true. Someone else may think you're a liar."25 Jean-Marie Simon, in a similar vein, remarks, "I think often people confuse objectivity with telling the truth. I think you can tell the truth and be subjective. I mean, is a place like Guatemala an objective place? D o the guerillas kill as many people as the army? N o . . . I am not objective because I see something and I think you'd have to be a moron not to draw your own conclusion from what you've seen over an extended period in a place."26 New Journalism in part traces its roots to James Agee and in particular his collaborative work with photographer Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), in which the photographs of sharecroppers, untitled and placed before the text, were understood to be coequal with the text. The following lines, penned by Agee, may be taken as an early manifesto of New Journalism and perhaps of the new photojournalism as well. "George Gudger is a man, et cetera. But obviously, in the effort to tell of him (by example) as truthfully as I can, I am limited. I know him only so far as I know him, and only in those terms in which I know him; and all of that depends as fully on who I am as who he is."27 And reminding us that exploration of subject knows no boundaries, whether it be through writing or image making, he writes, "If complications arise that is because they (the authors) are trying to deal with it not as journalists, sociologists, politicians, entertainers, humanitarians, priests or artists, but seriously."28 Part of the rationalization of permitting subjectivity to surface in the image is the understanding that viewers, themselves, will indeed discover their own meaning within the image. Agee recognized this with Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: "It is an effort in human actuality in which the reader is no less centrally involved than the authors and those of whom they tell."29 Jeff Jacobson wholly concurs with Agee's observation: "People are going to look at them any way they want to look at them. What difference is it going to make, it's ludicrous for me to ultimately expect that I can control the way people look at my pictures. They're not going to come up with the same sort of implications that I come up with. Their cultural baggage isn't

2« 27

Jean-Marie S i m o n Seventeen-year-old girl lifting 100 pounds of coffee Jocotenango, Guatemala, February 1981

The Artistic Stance

the same." While some of the photographers would not agree with this statement, it indicates the context of relativity in which the photographers feel they are operating, a context which implies "my reality is as real as your reality." Other photographers, while acknowledging the difficulty of controlling their subjective impulses, try to fight against them as did the photojournalists of the past. Susan Meiselas, for example, says, "We carry baggage and filters and that frames our reference to the world. On the other hand, I don't find that that's what's most interesting. I just don't value myself in that sense. Though there's obviously Heisenberg's law which it's clear that once one is present it affects the reality. I don't pretend that that's not happening. I just try to minimize (it) as much as I can." The New Journalism was criticized for the degree of the involvement of the writer. Factual errors by writers such as Tom Wolfe were seized upon as examples of the waywardness of the new approach to journalism. Critics were suspect of the egos involved as well as the danger to "hard journalism" itself. As Marshall McLuhan observed, the "unstated corollary to the admonition 'Do your own thing' is 'Others will watch.'"30 Even among this new crop of journalists themselves, there are still suspicions. David Burnett asserts his belief in what he calls the "old pure sense of reporter, which is to report what's going on . . . and not to say this is a story about me and I happen to be involved." For him, "The story remains preeminent." But even Burnett, possibly the most traditional of the photographers under discussion, admits to stylistic conceits and says that the purpose of photojournalism is to report what is going on "and yes, to do it with some style... that you may have as a photographer."

The New Journalism needed the magazine and book form to exist because it was not considered hard news and the length of the writing usually exceeded the capabilities of newspapers. The new color photojournalism also relies on magazines and increasingly on the book form as its vehicles. Magazines provide higher quality reproduction than newspapers. They also offer the potential for extended essays. The new photojournalists, much like their predecessors, want their work to be seen and have an effect on mass audiences. However, most denounce the limitations imposed on them by magazines and declare that few, especially in the United States, will take risks or present opportunities for open-ended assignments.31 The expressed attitude on the part of many of the photographers is, "I could consider myself a photojournalist but not

28 29

Jean-Marie Simon Soldier dancing with Indian girl at Independence Day dance Nebaj, Quiche, Guatemala, S e p t e m b e r 1982

as it is currently defined." "Most photojournalism," says Jeff Jacobson, "enhances the status quo instead of being subversive." And as Harry Gruyaert observed, "I'm afraid, especially for magazines, things are getting narrower and narrower."32 The degree of editorial and technical control presented by books and the durability of the book over the magazine is attractive to these photographers. The ability to slow down the time clock of the journalistic enterprise, see connections between bodies of work and continuity of ideas over time, play with sequencing—formally and in terms of content—and examine the potential of the book form, is a luxury that most photojournalists cannot afford. Yet five of the photographers under discussion have published books and three have plans to do so. Alex Webb associates the production of photographic books with an art-world orientation. Webb, long-time member and currently Vice President of Magnum, New York, goes out on a limb by saying, "The photojournalistic vision of narrative picture stories has not been the chief direction of my life. I've always thought in terms of books." The new photojournalism may be seen as a critique of the traditional photojournalistic mode and as a personalizing and humanizing of the mass media. It is inspired in part by the need to distinguish oneself from the mass media. These photographers are largely disenchanted with the strictures of narrative photo stories in the tradition of Life magazine that begin with the obligatory establishing shot and led to the obvious and logical conclusion. They do not want more limitations but new options. As Meiselas says, "I'm not interested in a kind of photojournalism which is perceiving the world as a story." These photographers also believe that the artist has more freedom than the photojournalist in our society and thus, in a sense, that the artistic stance is a strategy, not an identity. Meiselas feels that, "Art in w a y . . . gives you a license to free yourself from the confines of a magazine, the confines of a story, the confines of having to do things in certain ways. In a way it gives you that edge to be able to free yourself from all of that, but if you end up too much in the art world, then you get drawn into the box of being an artist." By renouncing objectivity, the photojournalist is in danger of fabricating events instead of interpretively transcribing them. The artist-photojournalists also leave themselves open to charges of conflict of interest, as they do not necessarily have a significant commitment to either the people or events they are photographing but rather to the work itself and their own selfinterested pursuits. Also, as the images they produce are created not only to inform on a short-term basis, as in a magazine, but to be contemplated in books or exhibitions, these photographers could be accused of building reputations on the hardships of others.

Critic and photographer Martha Rosier has also pointed out that, "The confusion between journalism and art and the increasing speed of the conversion from one t o the o t h e r . . . characterizes our age." She attempts to redefine photojournalism and art photography and t o substantiate the ethical conflicts when the t w o are confused. Photojournalism, according to Rosier, is "concerned with the illuminated presentation of social and historical situations and events" in which the marks of the creator are secondary t o the information itself. On the other hand, art photography that deals with subject matter similar t o that of the photojournalist is "centrally concerned with the photographer's sensibility." In her view, it is "idiosyncratic," "self-reflexive," and reminds the photographers "of their own social privilege in contrast t o the subjects photographed." Such work, she states, "leans toward the self-congratulatory and the cathartic and invites projection and puts the viewer into a voyeuristic position t o the depicted."33 Her assertions ring true and many of the photographers would no doubt agree with them. Nevertheless, the way t o interpret these images seems not t o be in reestablishing boundaries, which at best are difficult t o articulate and in practice impossible to enforce, but to locate their meaning by understanding the images themselves—the stylistic and formal characteristics as well as the intrinsic meanings of the content—learning about the photographers and their intentions, and comprehending the cultural, historical and ideological contexts in which the photographs were taken, and later viewed. It is also of particular importance to understand the special role of color in these hybrid images, how it heightens the tension between aesthetic and reportorial concerns and also may create ethical problems for these photographers.

The New Color in Perspective

W i t h few exceptions, the new photojournalists were trained in black-andwhite photography. Until recently, it was the lingua franca of both serious photojournalism and art photography, considered technically more malleable, visually more graphic, and thus better suited t o making political and aesthetic statements of greater impact than color. The stylistic language of black and white had been developed and tested for more than half a century before color came into common usage in the mid-1960s. While color reproduction had been introduced t o most of the general interest magazines in the 1930s—Fortune in 1933, Time in 1934, Newsweek in 1935, and Life in 1 9 3 6 — i t was used almost exclusively for advertising for almost thirty years. Color, costly, complex and time-consuming t o produce

30 31

Alfred Yaghobzadeh

Amal militiaman clearing the streets after several days of fighting between Christian and Moslem militiamen West Beirut, Lebanon, February 1984

Alfred Yaghobzadeh

Two Amal Shute militiamen praying in battle dress South Beirut, Lebanon, February 1984

32 33

Alfred Yaghobzadeh People carrying wounded and dead to safety after heavy shelling by Christians W e s t Beirut, Lebanon, February 1984

and therefore, by and large, only practicable and accessible to well-heeled advertisers. Color, as numerous historians have pointed out, became synonymous with selling.34 It was not until 1965 that color began to be used extensively for editorial purposes.35 By this time the standard labels of photography history—photojournalism, art photography, documentary photography—were already stretched to the limits of usefulness. Photographers, particularly photojournalists, were pressed to learn a new language almost overnight as the demand for color news photography dramatically increased. Concurrently, the interest in color on the part of art photographers took hold. Photographers of all persuasions began to explore the aesthetics of color. In the last twenty-five years or so, photographers working in color have recapitulated, in a less than systematic fashion, an astounding array of styles, most of which parallel black-and-white styles explored by art photographers in the fifty years preceeding: a pictorial style imitative of painting, a "straight" formalistic style, a "social landscape" mode, a "fabricated-to-be-photographed" style and, most recently, a postmodern approach as well as other styles perhaps unique to color photography itself. Recent color photojournalism, to the extent that it is still a distinct category, has drawn from most of these modes to varying degrees. In part, that is what distinguishes it from the work of the past—the liberal and liberating use of art photography styles as they best suit the subject in contrast to the slavish imitation of them as used by their predecessors. In the 1950s few photojournalists, no less art photographers, made frequent use of color. Given color's commercial roots, it is not surprising that two photographers who pioneered the use of color photography came from the magazine world: Eliot Elisofon and Ernst Haas. They, in a fashion similar to the photographers presently under examination, both considered themselves artists cum photojournalists. However, Eliosofon and Haas viewed their photographs as "art" in the painterly tradition. It is against the backdrop of their work that we can begin to understand the images by the current generation.36 Repeating the initiatives of the black-and-white pictorial photographers of a half century before, Elisofon and Haas turned to painting for inspiration and education. Elisofon wrote, "Photographers can make use of color as painters do, and indeed painting and photography (in the truly artistic use of it) are so closely related that their influences often overlap."37 Haas, although obviously a product of photojournalism, later in his career went so far as to deride the thought that he was a "photo-reporter" at all. In the introduction to In Germany (1976), he said facetiously, "Isn't a reporter someone in a trench coat, collar niftily turned up, chasing after events, aspiring

to record facts, so-called reality? Quite frankly, I am somewhat uninterested in facts. My problems are artistic; they are more or less the ones of a painter. I feel like a painter who lacks the patience for paintings and therefore, turns to photography."38 This is not to say that they were totally naive about their dual identities. Elisofon, aware of the contradictions of art photography and photojournalism, as well as the implication color has for an understanding of work that combines these two impulses, states: "In photo-journalism a primary consideration has always been: Where does originality begin and reporting end? This does not mean that mechanical perfection is necessarily honest. It is well established that a color photograph can be different from the human eye's impression of the same scene. The question of which is more real—actuality or a pointing up of actuality to make the subject more understandable to the spectator—is a problem which must be resolved by the doer himself."39 In other words, does the realism of color photography leave less room for creativity? From the numerous and long-term color investigations of both photographers, one would not think so. In many respects their work is dissimilar. However, both Haas and Elisofon frequently rely on painterly sources and a potpourri of stylistic devices and techniques in making their images. Some of their images use color in a very literal, matter-of-fact manner, straightforwardly describing a color subject in midday light. Other, more experimental images attempt to employ different effects: early morning and late afternoon light is utilized to heighten or subdue the overall color; unusual atmospheric conditions such as fog or rain are exploited to provide a chromatic effect; blurred elements are used to create a more diffuse sense of color and the orchestration of elements with repeated colors are marshalled to produce a rhythmic compositional unity. These devices, often used in conjunction with one another, are just a few in the repertoire of both photographers. They are sometimes deftly and authoritatively used and other times they are utilized capriciously. Both photographers believed in restraint in the use of color. Elisofon, for example, advised, "Don't overload your picture with color just because you have paid for color. A lot of color does not necessarily make a good color picture."40 But in fact, color itself frequently overpowers their ostensibly photojournalistic or documentary subject matter, and some pictures by these two photographers become mere studies of color for its own sake. In other images, the color seems to add little to the subject. Elisofon and Haas today are treated perfunctorily by most photography historians and photographers alike. The five Magnum photographers represented in On The Line did not mention Haas as an influence—even though he has been a member of the agency for close to forty years. This is not for

34 3s

Yan Morvan Walid Jumblatt, Druze warlord, being received and welcomed by Druze D|ebel D r u z e , Lebanon, 1983

sheiks

Yan Morvan A Palestinian refugee camp to Tripoli Badawi, Lebanon, 1983

close

36 37

Yan Morvan Car bomb W e s t Beirut, Lebanon, December 1983

lack of respect, but because color usage has achieved new levels of sophistication. These photographers are less interested in color itself than, as Jeff Jacobson sa/s, in "wedding an aesthetic (of) color t o the subject matter in a very new way." Even though the new photojournalists may be unaware of Elisofon's and Haas's w o r k , they have more in common with these predecessors than they may realize. Another predecessor, Larry Burrows, the Life photographer who covered the Vietnam W a r from 1962 until 1971, when the helicopter he was riding in was shot down over Laos, was also interested in the history of painting. He had many opportunities t o study old master paintings as one of Life's foremost photographers of art objects. As Frank McCulloch, the Time magazine Saigon bureau chief, recalled, "What he loved t o do best was study the paintings of the old masters and then try t o capture all their richness and subtlety on film. And what he learned from the old masters about composition, color, contrast and human nature he applied t o every picture story he shot." 41 A news bureau chief is an unlikely judge of art; nevertheless, it is possible t o see the influence of old master paintings on Burrows's w o r k , especially in the essays he produced between stints in Vietnam. These essays— the Taj Mahal, Angkor W a t and the birds of N e w G u i n e a — a r e related more t o the color explorations of Elisofon and Haas than the w o r k of the recent photojournalists. It is with his war photographs that his use of color is most innovative and subsequently most influential on the current generation of color photojournalists. 42 Burrows's understanding of color t o o k a radically new form when in Vietnam. Combat was not picturesque. The color of the Vietnamese countryside was predominantly green as were the uniforms and equipment of the soldiers. The sky, the smoke of battle, the mud and the thatched huts were muted tones of gray, blue and brown. Phosphorous bomb blasts, napalm strikes and rocket and tracer fire were brilliant orange, yellow and gold. Bandages were white. Blood was red. So, in part, were the Viet Cong and American flags. Although Burrows sometimes made drawings of subjects he envisioned photographing on the battlefield, he had t o move quickly while in action. The subjects would not wait for a return visit and danger was always near. He believed in Robert Capa's dictum, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough," and Burrows traveled with the soldiers throughout South Vietnam and in helicopters, transport planes and bombers above it. What separates Burrows's w o r k from the more sentimental and mundane images of Haas and Elisofon and allies it more with the w o r k of the new photojournalists is its sense of urgency and involvement with the subject. Like the new photojournalists, Burrows's w o r k does not appear t o provide

quite the balance between objectivity and subjectivity that photojournalists of the previous generation strove so hard to achieve. A s Ralph Graves, former Managing Editor of Life magazine put it, "Larry was British and he would sometimes pretend that he wasn't really involved in the Vietnam War, that he was just some kind of neutral observer doing a workmanlike job. He was never a neutral observer about anything."43 While Graves probably based his observation on the standard and cliché Life magazine approach to involvement with subject, Burrows was in fact among the first photojournalists to exploit the new subjectivity in color. Returning to Robert Capa's dictum for a moment, closeness for Capa meant achieving a oneness with the subject at hand. It also meant providing the look and feel of closeness. In 1944 Capa swam ashore with the first American troops during the D - D a y invasion. A t this time he made his now famous out-of-focus photographs of the soldiers landing. A s the well-known story goes, "The excited darkroom assistant, while drying the negatives, had turned on too much heat and the emulsions had melted."44 The importance of these photographs to Capa and his subsequent titling of his book Slightly Out of Focus, is explicit acknowledgment that photographic effects, even accidentally achieved, are acceptable for displaying the photojournalist's personal reaction to a subject.45 Larry Burrows, following in Capa's footsteps, also established a personal presence in the image by sheer closeness to the subject and through formal manipulations of the imagery. In his photographs, Burrows used such devices as dramatic cropping of subjects in which, for example, people who are pictured in the extreme foreground and consequently out of focus, are sliced in half by the camera frame. This can be seen in numerous photographs including Murdered Vietnamese woman, 1968 (p 40) or Jeremiah Purdie wounded is led to helicopter after fighting south of DMZ,

1966, (p 40). In the latter

photograph, among others, Burrows used the monochromatic tones of this depressing battlefield scene to his advantage. In such pictures, only the white of bandages, the red of flags or blood visually accent the image. Blood, though used dramatically in his photographs, appears to contemporary eyes accustomed to gorier depictions, to be restrained. Another device utilized by Burrows is the creation of complex, seemingly random compositions which complicate the notion of a central focus of action. In such a photograph as Napalm strike Over Vietnam, 1966, (p 40), the major elements of the photograph vie for primary attention—the pilot, the airplanes, the explosion and the landscape. Such visual confusion ultimately makes the situation, as Susan Meiselas said, "as complex as you might understand." These and other devices are picked up and in some cases carried further or in different directions by the new color photojournalists.

Larry Burrows Jeremiah Purdie wounded is led to helicopter after fighting South of DMZ 1966 Larry Burrows Life © 1971 Time Inc.

Larry Burrows Napalm Strike Over Vietnam 1966 Larry Burrows Life © 1966 Time Inc.

The O p t i o n of C o l o r

Most of the photographers in this exhibition would consider themselves bilingual in their ability to use black and white and color photographic media. Some feel that the choice of one over the other is determined by the subject and the photographer's response to it. Rio Branco philosophically wrote, "I work in black and white and in color and don't think that one is better than the other. It all depends on what one wants to say. There are no rules. Just openings." David Burnett states, "You tend to see differently and shoot differently in black and white than in c o l o r . . . a black-and-white picture wouldn't necessarily be a color picture and vice versa. Your mind would switch from one to the other. Or, you'd see something and you'd react to it and just instinctively either pick up a black-and-white camera or a color camera." Susan Meiselas seems to concur. "I shot black and white and color in Nicaragua until it just seemed right to be shooting in color there. It's not a commitment to color more than black and white. People have asked why the El Salvador book is in black and white and the Nicaragua (book) is in color. It's just something about how you see and feel and want to express a culture. Color was consistent with that because of who they were." But Meiselas's understanding of the two is more involved than it appears on the surface. "When the war started (in Nicaragua), it was like every frame counted. It was just so hard to work and I just decided early on that black and white was kind of a reference to the color. I made black-and-white images to literally have that reference. But all my energy went into the color. So if I was shooting with three cameras, two were of color and one was of black and white as a kind of code." Gilles Peress says, "I've shot more black and white than I've shot color. It's two very, very different things. Black and white is more abstract, more conceptual, more ideological. Color is sensual." He goes on to say that you choose one or the other based on two factors. "One is subject. The subject wants it. It's also, well, your art's (part of your) life cycle. I'm sure you've gone through cycles where you were more inside your head and others where you were more inside your body. That plus the dictation (by) your subject makes the decision." This visceral association of color was echoed by other photographers. Harry Gruyaert remarks, "But it's more a physical attraction. Something's really in my stomach, which makes me start to work in color." Rio Branco wrote, "To do it 'with' color, one has to be able to let the surrounding colors mature within, so they can be used in a way to get the right relationship to light, to time, to action, to the people. Maybe we are able to express our feelings of a subject, or ourselves, not 'in' color, but 'with' color." Some photographers such as Gruyaert express a clear preference for color photography. " C o l o r . . . is still much more open than black and white,

40 41

and black and white already has a past which is kind of heavy. In my opinion, in color very interesting things haven't been done." Jeff Jacobson expresses a missionary zeal in regard to his use of color but also recognizes that it is tempered by economic factors. "I'm trying to change the way people look at color because I'm trying to get my way." And Alex Webb, candid about his use of color, says, "I think my color is much more interesting than (my) black and white." He also sees his preference for color as linked to the subjects he favors. "I do shoot color in northern places now but I think I have a special color relationship with the tropical world." Other photographers, such as Mary Ellen Mark, feel that black and white is her native tongue and her use of color has been largely determined by the market. "The times that I get a black-and-white assignment are so few compared to the times I get color now. But I'm always happy when I get a black-and-white assignment because I always feel that I can kind of do it more my way. I prefer black and white." Jean-Marie Simon, while now expressing a love for color, says, "I hated giving up black and w h i t e . . . I felt like someone was burying black and white and giving it a funeral all of a sudden, five years ago." Whatever their motivations, these photographers have achieved fluency with color. For some of these photographers, color has come easily. As Simon says, "Color reflects the way I'm seeing things. I don't see in black and white. I see in color." Jacobson feels the same way. "I just found that I saw (in) color... (with) black and white you already (have) to make a sort of generational step... an abstraction in your head." For Gruyaert, color never really excited him; however, when photographing in Belgium, color came as a gradual discovery. "For nearly two years I worked in black and white. Because I didn't see any color. And then I started to use color film once in a while. Then I worked kind of parallel for a while in color and black and white. Then I dropped the black and white altogether because color became something much more." The technical complexities have also challenged the new color photojournalists. "It's a lot easier to make a good photograph in black and w h i t e . . . if you don't have good light. I defy you to make a good photograph in color at twelve noon," says Jacobson. Simon completely agrees. "Oh, black and white is so much more flexible. So much more forgiving. You don't have to worry about low light. You can get away with all kinds of things." And Mark reflects the same point of view. Color "has many more surprises in it to me than black and white. I think it's technically much more difficult... the range of the film is different. You can't correct your mistakes in printing. You have a little smaller space to condense... what the film will hold, what the film will understand." Once the photographers freed themselves from the difficul-

ties of color, they mobilized its technical eccentricities and began to forge a new color vocabulary. The charge has often been leveled that color aestheticizes and overwhelms content in documentary photographs. According to David Burnett, "Color can sap a picture instead of add things to it." This was frequently the case with the photographs of Elisofon and Haas but not so with the war images of Burrows. This balance of color and content is also a crucial issue for these twelve photographers; the strength of their images depends as much on this relationship as on the stylistic devices utilized to achieve it. Jeff Jacobson says, "I take a lot of lousy pictures because I'm attracted to color. When I think of things to shoot, I think definitely in terms of subject matter but I also think, well, is it going to be interesting in color?" He goes on to say, "Subject matter is my paramount concern. But, once I get within that subject matter... color attracts me." Color is an integral aspect of the images in this exhibition, not something added on. Jean-Marie Simon says, "Guatemala to me is a color country. Guatemala is a beautiful country and part of the story that needs to be told about Guatemala is that you have this co-existing beauty and tragedy." But photographers such as Susan Meiselas are wary of color's potential prettification of a subject. "It's very hard to work against... beauty in color. I felt that in the case of Nicaragua, the way they expressed themselves, whether it be the painting of the houses or their clothes... something felt right about color." Alex Webb says, "Colors are out there. You go into a country like Haiti. It is poor. Shockingly poor. There's tremendous repression. Yet the walls are bright pink and bright green and it's incredibly beautiful. The complexity of that kind of response that one can have in color interests me. The colors in Haiti do transform the experience." Gilles Peress believes it is a matter of intention. "Whether it's Guatemala or the streets of New York or Beirut, one always has to ask: Am I doing something because it's beautiful, simply because this red is matching this red of this and that? Or, am I doing something that really tries to understand what's happening, both in terms of subject and in terms of how it can be looked at?" Rio Branco vehemently states, "When color is just seen as a tool for formal intentions in a dramatic situation it can be obscene, useless." In the work of the On The Line photographers, content clearly never exists for the sole purpose of creating a beautiful composition of colors. The photographers are emotionally, and in many cases politically, involved with their subjects. For them, subject matter matters. Color itself is not the subject. The questions remain. How do the photographers make use of color? How do they use style to amplify content?

Rio Branco Itapoa Bahia, Brazil, 1978

A N e w Language of C o l o r

Each of these photographers has developed, albeit unconsciously, a signature style of color photography. Like Larry B u r r o w s before them, the stamp of a personal photographic style enables the viewer to sense the photographer's presence within the frame; the boundary of supposed objectivity is thus crossed. These styles c o m e about through a gradual testing and intuitive understanding of color materials in relation to the subject at hand, rather than the need t o develop an identity in the editorial market. Besides, a style that is t o o arty o r complex is not tailored t o the simplistic specifications of the news magazines. W h i l e the discussion of stylistic devices is based o n the photographer's use of color, color is inseparable from style and style cannot be distilled from subject. Therefore, any discussion of color must necessarily treat all three. A l t h o u g h a signature style can be revealed for each photographer, the stylistic tools each uses are not unique but are shared in varying degrees by all of them. S o m e of the photographers use color in what may be termed a non-stylistic manner. M a r y Ellen Mark, for example, says, " I don't think that there's anything distinctive about my use of color. I think that what is distinctive in my w o r k is maybe my content. In the Miami p i c t u r e s . . . color is about the reality and I try to use it in that sense." T h e style is transparent and unaffected as it is in the w o r k of art photographers such as William Eggleston and

44

Stephen Shore. Except, for her, content is of primary importance; formal

4S

concerns are a close second. M a r k uses color in such a literal sense that it seems t o be naturalistic. Subjects are bathed in even light, usually from a single source. C o l o r is found color. Sometimes it is found in subtle doses as in Harry Hessel in his room, Miami Beach, Florida, 1980 (p 24), with cooking pot in hand. T h e lukewarm tones of his clothing and the food in the pot are surrounded by paler, cooler tones. T h e subdued quality of the colors is matched by the lonely and sad M r . Hessel w h o is framed by the coffin-like refrigerator. T h e only touch of bright color is a solitary red coffee jar in the refrigerator. In other images, color, although subdued, is found in great profusion, as in the picture of Marcelline

M . Trailler and Marshall

Trailler in

their living room, Miami Beach, Florida, 1979 (p 24). T h e image shimmers with metallic h u e s — b l u e s , silvers, golds and bronzes. T h e glint of reds across the p h o t o g r a p h — l i p s , fingernails, hat decorations and r i n g — a c c e n t s the ornately patterned image. T h e richness of the color created by the affectionate couple's festive Miami finery, elaborate jewelry, plush cushions and gay N e w Year's hats contrasts with the disposition of the subject itself—the tautness of their pose, their resigned but happy expressions and the plastic covers o n the surrounding cushions. Jean-Marie Simon believes that the best images are made by "always, always looking at what's around you and then being very close to it." W h i l e

Simon is close t o her subjects, her use of color is not intrusive. Hence, her reluctance t o use a strobe when photographing people. She most often photographs in the full clarity of daylight and dislikes the feeling of looking through a "veil of color." In her image of a seventeen-year-old girl crushed under the weight of 100 pounds of coffee (p 28), the color is "true t o life." The sky is blue, the clouds are white, the trees are green. This depressing sight is happening t o a real person, in a real place, described by "real color." Even in her photograph Soldier dancing with Indian girl at Independence Day dance, Nebaj, Quiche, Guatemala, September 1982 (p 29), the use of the strobe is not flashy; it seems t o simply and directly describe the sad facts of the Guatemalan military dictatorship. Alfred Yaghobzadeh's use of color is also purely descriptive. For example, in the photograph of the Amal Shiite militiaman, with the rocket launcher in West Beirut (p 32), the color and the compositional treatment seem t o state: This is what the scene looked like and felt like, nothing more, nothing less. The color is as essential t o making this matter-of-fact point as the tones of black and white were for Walker Evans. In the image of the Amal Shiite militiamen praying (p 32), color seems t o be almost incidental. One is tempted t o think that this image could have been made in black and white. However, imagine it without the slight touches of color and the subject would most certainly disappear among a profusion of monochromatic details. Another related use of color takes this approach a step further, reducing color t o one o r t w o hues which suffuse the image, usually with the aid of smoke, fog or haze. This effect can be seen in t w o photographs by Sipa agency photographer Yan Morvan. In one general view of Badawi, Lebanon, a heavy storm-laden sky emits an eerie yellow light which pervades the image. In another, the tragic image of a man appears from the suffocating smoke of a bomb blast carrying a dead child in one hand high above his head. In both pictures it is as if a scrim has been lowered from which the subject matter appears. However, in the former picture the use of such an effect seems studied while in the latter it appears t o have been happenstance. This monochromatic quality is as often achieved through light as through atmospheric conditions. In Meiselas's photograph Motorcycle Brigade (p 48), members of one of the Nicaraguan opposition parties return from self-exile in July 1977 t o a gathering of 120,000 people in the t o w n of Monimbo. The exuberance of the occasion is reflected by the steamy, yellow glare of the blurred headlights. Similarly, in David Burnett's picture of Players with wives and girlfriends in the parking lot, Charleston, South Carolina, 1981 (p 51), the artificial light is yellow-green in its overall effect. The light overrides the other colors in the image. He says, "I just enjoy what color can be when it's turned way down instead of turned way up."

This method of controlling color is not novel. Eliot Elisofon, in his book Color Photography, (1961), stated that the "color photographs I like best are often almost monochromatic." 46 In 1952 Wilson Hicks, former Executive Editor of Life magazine, observed that some photographers "obtain their best pictures on gray days, in flat light o r in an early morning mist, o r at twilight, or even after dark." 47 For Elisofon and others of his generation, however, this device was used specifically t o evoke painterly images and picturesque subjects. A single, dominant, bright color also may serve t o compositionally unify an image. In a picture such as Rio Branco's Itapoa, Bahia, Brazil, 1978 (p 44), there is little ostensible subject matter other than the elongated trunk of a palm tree, a patch of billowy smoke, an abrubtly cropped sign and strings of electric and telephone wires transecting the frame. The brilliant blue color, revealing little more than the hue of the Brazilian sky and an aspect of the landscape, itself appears t o be the subject. The intensity of the sunlight in tropical environments lays everything bare for examination but it also has its other side, the deep shadow which obscures all that it touches. Several of the photographers working in Latin America use heavy black shadows as a sculptor might use negative space. The absence of subject provides a presence. In Meiselas's image Guard patrol, Masaya, Nicaragua, 1978 (p49) the depiction of the soldiers as menacing silhouettes deprives them of individuality but confers power. A similar effect is achieved in Jean-Marie Simon's photograph, Civil patrollers and army, Panajxit, Quiche, Guatemala, April 1983 (p53). Alex Webb is a master of the shadow. He uses it as an antidote t o the intensity of the reds, blues and yellows in the Mexican urban landscape. It is as if t o o much of the sun-drenched hues would blind us; the shadows are the squinting of the sun; they enable the viewer t o better see the subject even though there is less of the subject t o see. These photographs of darkness are ambiguous. In pictures such as those made in Cuernavaca, 1982 (p 55), Oaxaca, 1982 (p 54) and Tehuantepec, 1984, the shadows conceal the subjects and t o some extent their meaning. Webb says about photographing in Mexico: "I realize . . . there will be a photojournalistic push on some level sometimes, but really it's very much about just going in and exploring with a camera and letting experience wash over one. There's not time t o mull over the meaning. The meaning is what it is right then. That's it." The light as it flickers over the semi-nascent figures in these images reveal a people w h o are physical, passionate and impenetrable and "a world where life is lived, not entirely, but very much, on the street or in the doorways." The black of these images is not hard and cold. In fact, Webb's vision of Mexico is of a soft culture with a fondness for children. Black is the

li

•

fi

I

ï

M

S

*

m •

m

Susan Meiselas Motorcycle brigade Monimbo, Nicaragua, 5 July 1978 The brigade, followed by a crowd of one hundred thousand people, led Los Doce (The Twelve) into the city.

Susan Meiselas Guard Patrol

David Burnett Watching a foul ball Charleston, South Carolina, 1981

David Burnett Night baseball game Gastonla, N o r t h Carolina, 1981

David Burnett Players with wives and girlfriends in the parking lot Charleston, S o u t h Carolina, 1981

admixture of all colors. This is especially apparent in color photography and particularly in the photographs of W e b b where black is rarely pure black but blue-black, green-black or orange-black. Like many photographers of his generation, Elisofon was suspicious of color and believed it was important not to overload an image with it. There are among the new photojournalists those who do not fear the intense prettiness and potential garishness of color photography. Color overload is in fact their strategy. But for them, unlike Haas, color is never without significant content. Gilles Peress says, "I'm interested in the moment where both (form and content) are brought to the maximum of their potential. W h e r e content is as strong as it can be and form is as strong as it can be. (It is like) the struggle of the Titans and the victory or defeat (is) an epic." His images of the Indians in Guatemala are evidence of these convictions. For example, in the photograph A drunken man at the Faria del Verano, Coatepeque, Quezaltenango, Guatemala, 1977 (p 57), half of the image abounds with the color crimson—the tarpaulin in the right middleground and the heads and shoulders of the Indians in the foreground. The top edge of the frame is bordered by another sun-bleached red tarpaulin, while the building in the background is turquoise blue. In short, the image is saturated with high intensity hues. The subject, however, is of equal intensity. The central figure is an adolescent boy w h o appears to have passed out, while in the foreground one sees the backs of the Indian onlookers in their traditionally adorned costumes. The main event is theatrical, enigmatic and passion-filled. Other elements cram the rest of the photograph, among them: a white hand-carved wooden horse, more onlookers including a large Caucasian man with a white hat, white tarpaulins and the turquoise building, all adding density to the image's meaning. The viewer sees neither the color nor the subject first but both simultaneously; and upon further examination both continue to be of interest. However, as Peress says, " Y o u always have to make a choice somewhere because one is going to win and you have to decide which one. I'm always interested when content wins." A n d content does prevail in his pictures of the Tzutuhil Indians of Guatemala. They are not merely alluring images of exotic people but a chronicle of the gradually disappearing rites of the Mayan descendants. Harry Gruyaert's photographs also explore how color reinforces content. In his work, color does not so much compete with content as it seems to define it. Images such as Fairground, Brussels, Belgium, 1980, (p 58) or Dog show, Brussels, Belgium, 1979 (p 58) seem to exist as subjects only by virture of the fact that the images are in color. These pictures would have little, if any, impact in black and white. Gruyaert often finds that he is attracted to light first and then color. In many of his images, for example Casino, Ostende,

Jean-Marie S i m o n Civil patrolers and army Panajxit, Quiché, Guatemala, Aprii 1983

Alex Webb Untitled Oaxaca, Mexico, 1982

dOMTHIBUVENTES 'USlisaiOSDE «CÜAPOTAB DEL tSTAHO ,i.t.

Alex Webb Untitled Cuernavaca, Mexico, 1982

54 55

Alex Webb Untitled Menda, Mexico, 1983

Gilles Peress The eve of the Passion Play Zunil, Quezaltenango, Guatemala, 1977 T h e Jews plan the arrest of Jesus; a bonfire is lit before the church.

Gilles Peress A drunken man at the Fan a dal Verano Coatepeque, Quezaltenango, Guatemala, 1977

H a r r y Gruyaert Fairground Brussels, Belgium, 1980

H a r r y Gruyaert Dog

Show

Brussels, Belgium, 1979

Harry Gruyaert Casino Ostende, Belgium, 1979

Jeff Jacobson Christmas bazaar Westerly, Rhode Island, 1981

Jeff Jacobson bathroom, Inaugural Ball Washington, D.C., 1985

Michel Folco Saturday, 25 August 1979 Houston, Texas Sergeant Eddie C r o w s o n and a friend have |ust arrested a man convicted of first degree m u r d e r and armed robbery.

Michel Folco Saturday, 4 August

1979

Houston, Texas Nobody was found in the house. The police agreed to stage the approach and search of the house for the benefit of the film crew

M i c h e l Folco Friday, 31 August

¡979,

10.30 pm

Houston, Texas A family quarrel ¡n the Mexican area. A young man shot his stepfather with a Winchester, declaring, "I wanted to scare him. I didn't know it was loaded."

mmm

Michel Folco Friday, 31 August 1979, 11:30 pm Houston, Texas He shot himself while showing-off to his friends. He had |ust bought a double barrelled shotgun with his first salary. He was 22 years old. When I checked the lifeline of his left hand, it was so long that he should have lived 120 more years.

Belgium, 1979 (p 59) color and illumination are of equal importance. In the past the use of artificial light in combination with natural light or various types of artificial light—flash, incandescent and f l u o r e s c e n t — w i t h each other was considered taboo. Photographers such as Jeff Jacobson, Michel Folco and David Burnett freely orchestrate light sources unimpeded by the cries of artificiality and gimmickry. These photographers believe that all of these devices are characteristics of the materials; therefore, why not use them? Even a member of the old guard, Wilson Hicks, believed that "the photographer seriously interested in experimenting with color film prefers t o begin with known factors and, going from there, presses his medium while still trying t o keep it under as much control as he can. He tries t o make it perform in ways it's not supposed t o perform, t o make it do the impossible and he begins by violating the manufacturer's instructions." 48 Hicks, however, would problably be aghast at some of the results these photographers achieve, and would think they were out of control. Almost any picture by Jeff Jacobson would appear incomplete without the inventive manipulation of a combination of light sources. His hyper-use of color is not artifice but a spontaneously generated response and tailored t o his interpretation of the subjects he photographs. The use of hot color created by the strobe makes the viewer aware of the photographer's presence. The searing light also dramatically focuses the viewer on the essential action of the image, be it a Christmas bazaar in Westerly, Rhode Island in 1981 (p 60), or the removal of lint from a dinner jacket in a bathroom during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas (p 60). Jacobson, trained as a civil rights lawyer, usually photographs events in flux—conventions, ceremonies, parties, protests—taken at "situations that are extremes." While photographs such as the one taken at the Republican National Convention of the woman wearing a Reagan button (p 61 ), may offer political readings, Jacobson does not see himself as primarily political. Politics for him "is the result o f . . . control, power and sex." He sees himself as a "provocateur of the unconscious," a role usually related more t o that of the art photographer than of the photojournalist. There is no denying that Jacobson's photographs, equally—if not more so than the rest of the photographers—adapt the black-and-white stroboscope "party" styles of photographers such as Garry Winogrand and Larry Fink; and the use of combination lighting is prefigured by the w o r k of art photographers such as Mark Cohen and Richard Misrach. Jacobson, however, is more intrinsically interested in the subject. Uneasy with both the terms photojournalism and art photography, Jacobson feels that his w o r k is a more complex understanding of these modes. The subjects he chose t o include in this exhibition are taken from a variety of events throughout the United

States. W h a t links them is that they are "situations where emotional states are visual. W h e r e people are revealed." Commercial transmission of color television was introduced in 1953. H o w e v e r , it was not until the mid-1960s that it became a standard fixture in the American home. A t this juncture color television began t o have its impact o n the production of color photography which was s o o n evidenced in the Vietnam photographs of Larry Burrows. ( A n d Vietnam, in fact, was the first nightly televised war.) Increasingly since the 1970s, color T V has become one of the most pervasive influences on young photojournalists. This influence is visually manifested in part through the sophisticated use of artificial illumination. O n e cannot look at the troubling images by Michel Folco without thinking of the ubiquitous television police programs. T h e title of the series itself, " H o u s t o n , Texas, Capital of C r i m e , " reminds one of a television series title. Folco did in fact make a number of the images while accompanying a French film c r e w on a shoot. 49 T h e series of three images made o n the evening of Saturday, 4 A u g u s t

1 9 7 9 — f a t h e r and son waiting for the police, police

checking the house and police staging a search of the empty house for the film c r e w (p 63) all have a heightened theatrical look although only the last one was actually staged for the filmmakers. T h e intensity of such light freezes and isolates the central subject and enables the viewer t o see the subject clearly. H o w e v e r , its harshness eliminates many visual nuances. Consequently, light which is supposed t o be revelatory, ironically distances the viewer from the subject. T h e light of the "sun g u n " itself, especially in combination with an existing light source such as the porch light, creates a yellowish-green hue which adds t o the surreality of the images. Folco's incredible image Friday, 31 August

1979, 11:30 pm (p 64), of a

young man w h o shot himself while showing off to his friends, grotesquely makes the point that television has transformed our lives and created a dualistic view of reality. T h e r e is the reality one lives and the reality one watches; and the reality one watches is frequently consumed with violence. In this image the t w o realities have tragically collided. This photograph is particularly shocking not just because of the subject itself but for its style and use of color. A s Folco revealed, " W h e n the H o u s t o n (series) was published even 'friends' from G a m m a (photography agency) said that it was 'crude bad taste' t o use color and fashion photographer tricks on a subject like urban violence. Their criticisms implied that the detachment needed for taking aesthetical pictures w h e n confronted with heavy human distress was suspect and only t o be found in a cynical, heartless and definitely unfrequentable fellow." Similar photographs taken by the r e n o w n e d news photographer W e e g e e thirty years earlier are less upsetting t o the viewer

because they are in black and white. Folco asks, " H o w can you tell if he is bleeding if it's black and white?" 50 David Burnett's series on minor league baseball was made in response t o the commercialization of professional sports. To convey the mood of small t o w n baseball he made many of the images at night. Photographing at night lends a focus and a mystery t o the work. "The pyramids always look better at night because you don't see all the crap that's around the pyramids. You just see these shapes that leave your imagination t o fill in the blanks." In contrast with Folco's images, the light in the baseball pictures emits a softer, warmer glow, like the light from a television in a dark room. Made mostly using a tripod with available artificial light, the subjects are more intimate. The poses of the people in such photographs as Watching a foul ball, Charleston, South Carolina, 1981 (p 50) and the image of the players with wives and girlfriends (p 51) are reminiscent of classic Life magazine photography as well as of sentimental scenes from television soap operas. Paradoxically, one simultaneously experiences the subject as a live event covered by a photographer and as a television rendition of the event. In addition t o the new photojournalism's use of television's visual vocabulary, it also bears a superficial resemblance t o that recent television invention, the docudrama, in which fact and fiction are combined in unequal proportions. The t w o forms, however, depart from opposite presumptions. The docudrama is a total fabrication theoretically based on fact and the ultimate result is l o w b r o w entertainment. The new photojournalism, on the other hand, is based on fact, borrows from the language of "high" art and ultimately reveals "hard information" as much as personal inflection. In considering the docudrama, critic Michael Arlen reached the following conclusions. " W h a t is happening, one imagines, is that we are restless with fiction and fearful of fact. W e toy, we fiddle, we poke around with the real, sometimes enhancing it but often dishonoring it with modish carelessness. The other day, a w r i t e r of docu-dramas gravely observed that there is no such thing as 'absolute truth.' One wonders what had led him t o consider such an abstraction in the first place. The point about truth, one always thought, was trying t o get close t o it." 51 And the new photojournalists do attempt t o get close t o it by exploring the fringes of fact and its boundaries with personal vision.

1 Historically, labels such as documentary and photojournalism have also been confused and used carelessly. Though the t e r m documentary may have been formally invoked t o describe a genre of film and shortly thereafter a style of photography spawned by the photographers of the Historical Section of the U.S. Farm Security Administration in the 1930s, it appears that the ideas of documentary and photojournalism have been inextricably linked f r o m the beginning. [See Beaumont Newhall, " A Backward Glance at Documentary" in Observations: Essays on Documentary Photography, ed. David Featherstone, Untitled 35 (The Friends of Photography, 1984), p. I.] For example, Lewis W . Hine, whose photographs are considered precursors of documentary photography, made photographs exposing the exploitation of child labor that w e r e published as "human documents." Hine has also been considered the originator of the p h o t o - s t o r y — a key vehicle of modern photojournalism—and his pictures w e r e often reproduced in newspapers, magazines and journals. Conversely, German photojournalist Erich Salomon's image of the "Six great statesmen" at the Hague Conference in 1929 was published in the Berliner lllustrirte Zeitung w i t h the caption " A unique document!" T i m Gidal, also a photojournalist w o r k i n g in Germany in the 1920s, m o r e recently used the terms concurrently in the opening statement of his book Modern Photojournalism (1973): "Unlike the area of art, photo-reportage is not the expression of an inner vision but a documentary r e p o r t on reality." [See T i m Gidal, Modern Photojournalism: Origin and Evolution, 1910-1933, ( N e w Y o r k : Collier Books, 1973), p. 5.] 2 Wilson Hicks, Words and Pictures: An Introduction to Photojournalism ( N e w Y o r k : Harper & Brothers Publisher, 1952), p. 100. 3 Ibid., p. 101.

4 Eugenia Parry Janis and W e n d y MacNeil, eds., Photography Within the Humanities (Danbury, N e w Hampshire: Addison House Publishers, 1977), p. 108. 5 Markjohnstone, "The Photographs of Larry Burrows: Human Qualities in a Document," in Observations, p. 93. 6 Lesley K. Baier, Walker Evans at "Fortune" 1964-1965 (Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley College Museum, 1977), p. 5. 7 John Szarkowski, William Eggleston's Cuide ( N e w York: The Museum of Modern A r t ; distributed by The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1976) p. 6. 8 The t e r m postmodern is being used here in the sense that Douglas C r i m p defined it in "The Photographic A c t i v i t y of Postmodernism, " October 15 ( W i n t e r 1980), p. 98, t o describe the w o r k of such artists as Sherrie Levine, Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince. " A group of young artists w o r k i n g w i t h photography have addressed photography's claim t o originality, showing these claims for the fiction they are, showing photography t o be always a representation, always-already-seen. Their images are purloined, confiscated, appropriated, stolen. In their w o r k the original cannot be located, is always deferred; even the self which might have generated an original is shown t o be itself a copy." 9 Sally Eauclaire, The New Color Photography ( N e w Y o r k : Abbeville Press, 1981), p. 161. 10 Abigail Solomon-Godeau's essay "Photography A f t e r A r t Photography" in Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation, ed. Brian Wallis ( N e w York: The N e w Museum of Contemporary A r t in association w i t h David R. Godine, Publisher, Boston, 1984) offers a thoughtful discussion of the m o r e serious concerns of postmodern photography. 11 Linda Andre, "The Politics of Postmodernism," Afterimage ( O c t o b e r 1985), p. 15.

12 Sarah Charlesworth, for example, reinterprets the newspaper photographs published in connection w i t h the assassination of Italian Prime Minister A l d o M o r o in " A p r i l 21, 1978," California Museum of Photography Bulletin, Vol. 3, no. 5 (1984). Barbara Kruger, at one t i m e a designer f o r Condé Nast, appropriates imagery and t e x t that suggest the graphic style of black-and-white news photography. 13 Photographers Alfred Yaghobzadeh and Yan Morvan w e r e on assignment in Beirut, Lebanon, at the time this essay was w r i t t e n . Thus, interviews w e r e not conducted w i t h these photographers. 14 Susan Meiselas, interview w i t h the author, N e w Y o r k , N Y , 4 July 1985. A.D. Coleman attempts t o make some distinctions between documentary, photojournalism and press photography in "Most Photojournalism Isn't" Lens on Campus (March 1985), pp. 6-9. Using Susan Meiselas as an example, he also discusses some of the difficulties of classification. "Susan Meiselas is only occasionally allowed t o be a documentarían, even less frequently a photojournalist. For the most part, the way in which her w o r k is publicly presented, what she is—actually though, I think not at all by her o w n choice—is a press photographer." He summarizes that Meiselas and her entire generation of photojournalists are being relentlessly marginalized, turned into image-mongers, converted t o press photography by virtue of what happens t o their images between the camera and the page. 15 A l e x W e b b , interview w i t h author, N e w Y o r k , N Y , 2 July 1985. All quotations in this essay by W e b b are taken f r o m this interview. 16 Jeff Jacobson, interview w i t h author: N e w Y o r k , N Y , 31 May 1985. All quotations in this essay by Jacobson are taken f r o m this interview. 17 Gilíes Peress, interview w i t h author, N e w Y o r k , N Y , I July 1985. All quotations in this essay by Peress are taken f r o m this interview.

18 Rio Branco, statement for author, 4 August 1985. All quotations by Rio Branco are taken from this written statement. 19 Harry Gruyaert, interview with author, N e w York, N Y , 3 July 1985. All quotations In this essay by Gruyaert are taken from this Interview. 20 David Burnett, interview with author, N e w York, N Y , I July 1985. All quotations In this essay by Burnett are taken from this interview. 21 Ronald W e b e r ed., The Reporter os Artist: A Look at the New Journalism Controversy ( N e w York: Hastings House Publishers, Communication Arts Books, 1974), p. 66. 22 "Monkeys Make the Problem More Difficult: A Collective Interview with Garry Winogrand," Image, Vol. 15, no. 2 (|uly I972), p. 4. 23 Arthur Rothstein, Photojournalism: Pictures for Magazines and Newspapers ( N e w York: American Photographic Book Publishing Co., 1956), p. 12. 24 Hicks, Words, p. 14. 25 Mary Ellen Mark, telephone interview with author, 5 August 1985. All quotations in this essay by Mark are taken from this interview. 26 Jean-Marie Simon, interview with author, N e w York, N Y , 25 January 1985. All quotations in this essay by Simon are taken from this interview. 27 Weber, The Reporter, p. 19. 28James Agee and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men ( N e w York: First Ballantine Books Edition, 1966), p. X V . 29 Ibid. 30 Weber, The Reporter, p. 22. 31 For example, Gilles Peress said, "I must say... we've all experienced the Incredible disappointment in the development of magazines over the last twenty years. Ideally a good magazine would be ... a fantastic place to put work in front of the public." 32 Based on a count of general interest magazines in Ulrich's International Periodical Directory the number of magazines In the United States reached a peak In 1980 of 31 3

titles. (This is almost double the number of magazines available in 1960.) In France, W e s t Germany and Great Britain the greatest number of periodicals published occurred between 1976 and 1980. Since 1980 there has been a steady decl ine in the number of magazines in the United States ( 252 titles in 1984) and the number has remained virtually constant abroad. Life magazine is now only a shadow of its former glory. (When it closed in 1972 it was a weekly with 8 million subscribers. N o w it is a monthly with less than 1.5 million subscribers). GEO, considered by most of the exhibition photographers to have been one of the few remaining magazines to offer assignments with minimal restrictions and the possibility of publishing extended essays, opened In 1976 and ceased publication in 1985. The New York Times Magazine is now considered to be one of the last existing showcases for the serious photojournalism The photographers are somewhat more optimistic about the magazine market in Europe — G E O (Germany), GEO (France), Paris Match, Stern and others offer more venues for publishing work. 33 Remarks made during the lecture "The Look of W a r Photography" at Walker Art Center, 16 November 1981. 34 Sally Stein, " F S A Color: The Forgotten Document," Modern Photography (January 1979), p. 90. 35 Stephen R. Milanowski has pointed out that hundreds of imperfect color processes were Invented between 1880 and 1920 and the modern three-layer color films introduced by Agfa and Kodak in 1935-36 were used primarily for commercial purposes. Because of aesthetic biases and technical obstacles "large scale acceptance of color did not occur until 1965." "Factors Influencing the Neglect of Color Photography" (Masters of Science in Visual Studies thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1982).

36 Elisofon began his professional career as a free-lance photographer illustrating the shopping column for Mademoiselle and subsequently became a staff photographer for Life in 1942. His book Color Photography (1962) was one of the first volumes to address the aesthetics rather than the techniques of color photography. Elisofon, a dilettante watercolorist, was a frequent color consultant for Hollywood films. Ernst Haas, ten years younger than Elisofon, was Invited by Robert Capa in 1949 to join the Magnum agency. In 1950, Life magazine published Haas's essay " N e w York," a previously unheard of twenty-four pages of color photographs, and since that time he has worked for most of the major picture magazines including Look, Esquire, Paris-Match and Holiday. In 1951, he was the first photographer to have a one-man exhibition of color photographs at The Museum of Modern Art. 37 Eliot Elisofon, Color Photography ( N e w York: The Viking Press, A Studio Book, 1961), pp. 10-11. 38 Ernst Haas, In Germany ( N e w York: The Viking Press, A Studio Book, 1976), p. 9. 39 Elisofon, Color, p. 10. 40 Ibid., p. 149. 41 The Editors of Life, Larry Burrows: Compassionate Photographer (Time Inc., 1972). 42 [Ibid.J O n his non-combat assignments, Burrows had the opportunity to work deliberately and reflectively. "For the entire first week at Angkor, Burrows spent each day from first light until darkness stalking the temples without taking a single picture. A t times he stood for as much as an hour in front of a single sculptured figure, watching the light patterns slowly change and charting with a navigator's skill just when the figure would be perfectly Illuminated for shooting and he would not take a picture until he had first personally observed the shadows' progress through the entire day." The photographs themselves, artistically conceived, are occasionally remarkable. More

often than not they are stilted and self-conscious. 43 Ibid. 44 Robert Capa, Slightly Out of Focus ( N e w York: Henry Holt and Company, 1947), p. 151. 45 Philip Knlghtley related another example of Capa's use of accidental effects—the 'story' as told to him by the author John Hersey is that Capa's best known Image, "Moment of Death," made during the Spanish Civil W a r in 1936, was taken randomly, without looking through the viewfinder. The First Casualty: From the Crimea to Vietnam: The War Correspondent as Hero Propagandist and Myth Maker ( N e w York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovlch, 1975), p. 209-212. 46 Elisofon, Color, p. 12. 47 Hicks, Photojournalism, p. 142. 48 Ibid. 49 Some of the pictures were made by Folco while accompanying the film crew of French director Francois Relchenbach. Reichenbach is known for his "short films for which he was his own cameraman. O n e of the early exponents of C I N É M A - V É R I T É , he brought back from the United States some disturbing pictures of American life." (The Oxford Companion to Film, 1976, S.V. Relchenbach, Francois.) The rest of the photographs were made while accompanying a paramedic unit. 50 Michel Folco, in a statement for author, July 1985. 51 Michael J. Arlen, The Camera Age: Essays on Television ( N e w York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1981 ), p. 284.

®8 ¿9

Checklist of the Exhibition

and search of the house for the benefit of the film crew.

David Burnett Night

baseball

game *

Gastonia, N o r t h Carolina, 1981 On the

bench

Gastonia, N o r t h Carolina, 1981 All prints for the exhibition are Cibachrome, pearl surface. The photographs by Rio Branco, Michel Folco, Harry Gruyaert, Yan Morvan and Alfred Yaghobzadeh were printed by Charles Goosens. Photographs by all other photographers were printed by Michael Wilder. All of the pictures are in the collections of the photographers. Titles and captions were provided by the photographers.

Relief pitcher

Tom

Epple

Gastonia, N o r t h Carolina, 1981

Charleston, South Carolina, 1981 Watching

a foul ball *

Charleston, South Carolina, 1981 Kenny Spears, practicing the

1979,

l:0Sam

cuts

before

Saturday,

25 August

1979 *

Houston, Texas Sergeant Eddie Crowson and a friend have just arrested a man convicted of first degree murder and armed robbery.

Baseball

fan

Charleston, South Carolina, 1981 Players with wives and girlfriends parking

in the

lot *

Charleston, South Carolina, 1981 Dressing

room

in the

Friday, 17 August 1979, /1 pm Houston, Texas Death of Charles Henry Baker, 51. "County man shot and killed in the line of duty," said the newspaper the next morning. His murderer Charles Bass was arrested and sentenced t o death. His execution was postponed at the last minute.

stands

Friday,

17 August

1979,

II

Friday, 31 August

Michel Folco Saturday, 4 August 1979 Houston, Texas A father and son called the police because they think that a burglar is inside their home. 1979

Houston, Texas The police entered the house t o check for the burglars. The light created by afilm crew freaked them out. "You want t o get killed! Turn it off!" Saturday,

4 August

Carnival

Ostende, Belgium, 1980 Dog Show *

Brussels, Belgium, 1979

Festival

of Gilles

de

Binche

pm

Houston, Texas Death of Charles Henry Baker.

March

1979 *

Houston, Texas Nobody was found in the house. The police agreed t o stage the approach

1979,

10:30

*

Waterloo, Belgium, 1976

Gastonia, N o r t h Carolina, 1981

4 August

Ostende, Belgium, 1979

La Louviere, Belgium, 1979

Gastonia, N o r t h Carolina, 1981

Saturday,

Harry Gruyaert Casino *

game

Old-timers

* Indicates photographs illustrated in the catalog.

I September

Houston, Texas A gunfight in a Mexican joint. The owner, behind the bar, did the killing. "It was in self-defense. They tried t o rob me and they had knives." I read later that it was in fact a heroin deal that had turned sour.

Strikeout

South Carolina, 1981 Photographs by Harry Gruyaert, Susan Meiselas, Gilles Peress, Rio Branco and Alex Webb courtesy of Magnum Photos Inc.; Jeff Jacobson and Mary Ellen Mark courtesy of Archive Pictures, Inc.; Yan Morvan and Alfred Yaghobzadeh courtesy of Sipa/Special Features; David Burnett courtesy of Contact Press Images; Jean-Marie Simon courtesy of Visions.

Saturday,

celebrate my birthday, so I t o o k a shower and picked up t w o whores in a bar. I was in bed w i t h one, when I saw that the other was searching my clothes. I was strongly opposed t o this but the one in the bed drew a gun from under a pillow and shot at me. She missed. I ran away, she shot again and hit me in the neck." " D o n ' t forget t o search him!" someone from a passing car yelled t o the cop.

pm*

Houston, Texas A family quarrel in the Mexican area. A young man shot his stepfather with a Winchester, declaring, "I wanted to scare him. I didn't know it was loaded."

Fairground

*

Brussels, Belgium, 1980 Train

Brussels, Belgium, 1981 Friday, 31 August

1979,

11:30

pm *

Houston, Texas He shot himself while showing-off t o his friends. He had just bought a double-barrelled shotgun w i t h his first salary. He was 22 years old. When I checked the lifeline of his left hand, it was so long that he should have lived 120 more years.

Cafe

Brussels, Belgium, 1981 Carnival

Antwerp, Belgium, 1982 Laundromat

Antwerp, Belgium, 1984 Saturday,

I September

1979, 3 am

Houston, Texas The man was a "wetback" and could not speak English. W h e n the police found him he had a rough time explaining his situation. "I wanted t o

Jeff Jacobson Bathroom, Inaugural Ball * Washington, D.C., 1985 Halloween party N e w York, N e w York, 1982 Grandfather and grandson Naples, Florida, 1982 Christmas bazaar * Westerly, Rhode Island, 1981 Pritikin Diet Center Miami Beach, Florida, 1985

Mr. Horowitz with his artwork in his apartment Miami Beach, Florida, 1979 Untitled * South Beach, Florida, 1979 Pearl Kypmis in her bedroom * Miami Beach, Florida, 1980 Ocean Drive Community Center South Beach, Florida, 1979 Sylvia and Bernard Creenbaum Miami Beach, 1979 Mrs. Greenbaum's hobby is sewing; they have over 100 matching outfits.

Congressional Medal of Honor ceremony (posthumous) Chesterfield, Massachusetts, 1983 Vigil, execution of Velma Barfield Raleigh, N o r t h Carolina, 1984 Party at Nieman-Marcus Republican convention, Dallas, Texas, 1984 Republican National Convention * Dallas, Texas, 1984 Party, Republican Convention Dallas, Texas, 1984

Mary Ellen Mark Community center swim group Miami Beach, Florida, 1979 Marcelline M. Trailler and Marshall Traiiler in their living room * Miami Beach, Florida, 1979 Harry Hessel in his room * Miami Beach, Florida, 1980 Mr. Hessel is 104 years old. Condominium Miami Beach, Florida, 1980 Senior citizens, late afternoon singing, two songs only Ocean Drive, South Beach, Florida, 1979

Guard Patrol * Masaya, Nicaragua, 1978 The National Guard were beginning a house-to-house search for Sandinistas.

Gilles Peress

Street fighter * Managua, Nicaragua, 1979

Procession during Holy Week Zunil, Quezaltenango, Guatemala, 1977

Body of National Guardsman Jinotepe, Nicaragua, 1979 A guardsman killed during the taking of Jinotepe, being burned with the official state portrait of President Somoza.

Y a n Morvan Susan Meiselas Country club * Managua, Nicaragua, 1978 Marketplace Diriamba, Nicaragua, 1978 "Cuesta de Plomo" Managua, Nicaragua, 1978 A well-known site of many assassinations carried out by the National Guard. People searched here daily for missing persons. Wall graffiti Monimbo, Nicaragua, 1978 The graffiti on a Somoza supporter's house that was burned. It asks, " W h e r e is Norman Gonzalez? The dictatorship must answer." Muchacho withdrawing from commercial district after three days of bombing Masaya, Nicaragua, 1978 Motorcycle brigade * Monimbo, Nicaragua, 5 July 1978 The brigade, followed by a crowd of one hundred thousand people, led Los Doce (The Twelve) into the city. A funeral procession for assassinated student leaders, Jinotepe, Nicaragua, 1978

Druze burial Beirut, Lebanon, 1984 Beirut under Israeli bombing Beirut, Lebanon, 1982 Results of Israeli bombings Beirut, Lebanon, September 1982 Car bomb * W e s t Beirut, Lebanon, December 1983

The cemetery on the Day of the Dead San Juan Sacatepequez, Guatemala, 1977

The eve of the Passion Play * Zunil, Quezaltenango, Guatemala, 1977 The Jews plan the arrest of Jesus; a bonfire is lit before the church. The hanging of Judas Zunil, Quezaltenango, Guatemala, 1977 In the re-enactment of the Passion Play during the Lenten period before Easter, the character of Judas is also believed to be Maximon, an old Mayan god. The Romans arrive to arrest Jesus Zunil, Quezaltenango, Guatemala, 1977 A Procession on Good Friday during Holy Week Zunil, Quezaltenango, Guatemala, 1977

A Palestinian refugee camp close to Tripoli * Badawi, Lebanon, 1983

All the men in the village repairing a bridge Todos Santos, Huehuetenango, Guatemala, 1977

A journey with the Phalangists going to the south front Lebanon, 1983

Photographer's shop San Pedro Necto, Guatemala, 1977

PLO fighter, fighting against the Syrians Badawi, Lebanon, 1983 Walid Jumblatt, Druze warlord, being received and welcomed by Druze sheiks * Djebel Druze, Lebanon, 1983 Home of dead Christian soldier Lebanon, 1983 Young Druze scouts during a ceremony Djebel Druze, Lebanon, 1983

A drunken man at the Faria dal Verano * Coatepeque, Quezaltenango, Guatemala, 1977 La Burriquita or Processione de Palmas on Domingo de Ramos (Palm Sunday) * Antigua, Guatemala, 1977 Antigua, Guatemala, was the capital until destroyed by earthquake in 1841. Its Holy W e e k processions— lasting 15 hours or more and involving thousands of penitents— are the most important in Latin America.

Rio Branco Woman of Maciel * Bahia, Brazil, 1979 Itapoa * Bahia, Brazil, 1978 Garbage Dump, Toca do Leas Bahia, Brazil, 1979 Pilar Church * Bahia, Brazil, 1984 Woman of Maciel Bahia, Brazil, 1979

Soldier dancing with Indian girl at Independence Day dance * Nebaj, Quiche, Guatemala, September 1982

Alfred Yaghobzadeh

Magazines

Israeli tank destroys a Lebanese house Tyre, Lebanon, May 1985

"Images of a Magic C i t y " Photographs by Ernst Haas, Life, 14 September 1953

Seventeen-year-old girl lifting 100 pounds of coffee * Jocotenango, Guatemala, February 1981

Army fighting with Christian militiamen Saida, Lebanon, April 1985

Army occupation of La Perla Farm Ircan, Quiche, Guatemala, September 1982 Civil patrolers and army * Panajxlt, Quiche, Guatemala, April 1983

Maciel Bahia, Brazil, 1979 Maciel

Guerilla protecting civilians southern coast, Suchitepequez, Guatemala, March 1982

Bahia, Brazil, 1979 Bahiana Bahia, Brazil, 1979 lemanja Festival Bahia, Brazil, 1984

Alex Webb

Terreiro de Jesus Bahia, Brazil, 1979

Oaxaca, Mexico, 1982

Untitled *

Untitled Ocotlan, Mexico, 1982

Jean-Marie S i m o n

Untitled *

Verbena Morgue Guatemala City, Guatemala, N o v e m b e r 1983

Cuernavaca, Mexico, 1982

Army float. Independence Day Nebaj, Quiche, Guatemala, September 1982

Oaxaca, Mexico, 1982

Refugee, victim of aerial bombardment Nebaj, Quiche, Guatemala, April 1983

Merida, Mexico, 1983

Mirrors on 18th Street Guatemala City, Guatemala, January 1981

Oaxaca, Mexico, 1983

Guatemalan guerillas celebrating with local population northwestern Guatemala, April 1983

Boquillas, Mexico, 1979

Untitled

Untitled *

Untitled

Untitled

Untitled Veracruz, Mexico, 1983 Untitled Tehuantepec, Mexico, 1984 Untitled Patzcuaro, Mexico, 1984

A bomb exploded in Maarakes Mosque, Shiite headquarters Maarakes, Lebanon, March 1985 Destroyed house with woman lamenting Tripoli, Lebanon, N o v e m b e r 1983 Moslem militiaman in Moslem-held suburbs of Beirut * Beirut, Lebanon, February 1984 Two Amal Shiite militiamen praying in battle dress * South Beirut, Lebanon, February 1984 Amal militiaman clearing the streets after several days of fighting between Christian and Moslem militiamen * W e s t Beirut, Lebanon, February 1984 Red Cross evacuating the dead bodies from the streets Tripoli, Lebanon, December 1983 People trying to cross the streets to avoid snipers Tripoli, Lebanon, December 1983 People carrying wounded and dead to safety after heavy shelling by Christians W e s t Beirut, Lebanon, February* 1984

"Japan's Dazzle After D a r k " Photographs by Eliot Elisofon, Life, 23 February 1962 "The Air W a r " Photographs by Larry Burrows, Life, 9 September 1966 "Vietnam: A Compassionate Vision" Photographs by Larry Burrows, Life, 26 February 1971 Loan of Rob Silberman " T h e Pious Pagan Soul of Guatemala" Photographs by Gilles Peress, Geo, O c t o b e r 1979 "Nicaragua: A People Aflame" Photographs by Susan Melselas, Geo, Charter Issue "National Mutiny in Nicaragua" Photographs by Susan Meiselas, The New York Times Magazine, 30 July 1978 Loan of Minneapolis Public Library "Nicaragua" Photographs by Susan Meiselas, Savvy, August 1982 "Guatamala, Le martyre d'un peuple" Photographs by Jean-Marie Simon, Geo, May 1982 "Small T o w n Baseball, Big League Dreams" Photographs by David Burnett, Geo, May 1982

Biographies

Compiled by Stephanie J. Ross and Elizabeth M. W r i g h t

David Burnett B o r n 7 September 1946 Salt Lake City, Utah Education B.A., C o l o r a d o College, C o l o r a d o Springs, C o l o r a d o Major in Political Science, 1968 Professional Experience Apprentice photographer with Time, summer 1967; Contract photographer with Time, Washington, D.C. and Caribbean bureau in Miami, 1968-1970; Free-lance photographer for Time, Life and The New York Times in Vietnam, 1970-1972; Contract photographer with Life in Vietnam and N e w York, 1972; Photographer with Gamma-Liaison, 1973-1975; Co-founded Contact Press Images, N e w York, 1975; M e m b e r of Contact Press Images, 1975-present; M e m b e r of American Society of Magazine Photographers; M e m b e r of The National Press Photographers Association Recognitions/Awards Robert Capa Gold Medal, The Overseas Press C l u b of America, 1973; Grand Award, W o r l d Press Foundation, 1979; The Overseas Press C l u b of America A w a r d for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad, 1979; Magazine Photographer of the Year, The National Press Photographers Association and University of Missouri, 1979; Best Magazine N e w s Photograph, The National Press Photographers Association and University of Missouri, 1979; Press Photo of the Year Award, W o r l d Press Photo Foundation, 1980; Three W o r l d Press Photography Prizes, 1985; Picture of the Year Magazine Photographer of the Y e a r — R u n n e r - u p , 1985 Bibliography Articles in which exhibition photographs appear: "Small T o w n Baseball, Big League Dreams," J.E. Maslow, GEO, May 1982, pp. 76-85

Articles on David Burnett: "Contact," Y.E. Benedek, American Photographer, December 1979, pp. 56-57; "Photojournalism: It's Back with a N e w Face," A . Grundberg, Modern Photography, June 1980, pp. 94-101; "Insight: David Burnett," H. Shaman, Popular Photography, December 1980, pp. 116-117; "Being T h e r e — D a v i d Burnett," S. Black, Camera Arts, May/June 1981, pp. 64-71; " A Pretty G o o d Year: Burnett W h o ? Getting to K n o w the 1980 Magazine Photographer of the Year," News Photographer 35, April 1980, pp. 9-12; "Photojournal: N o s amis a I'honneaur," Photo (France), March 1980, p. 4 Collections Life Picture Service, Rockefeller Center, N e w Y o r k

Michel Folco

72

Born 29 September 1943 Albi, France

73

Education College Mixte d'Antibes, ended studies in 1962 Professional Experience Free-lance photographer, 1969-present; selected photo essays distributed by Black Star, 1970; photographer with Gamma-Liaison, 1977-1981 Exhibitions SIPA Special Features, Espace Canon, 1984 Bibliography Books with work by Michel Folco: Isles Marquises, with text by Marc Bastard (Paris: Editions du Pacifique, 1973) Cuisine Tahitienne, with text by Michel Swartvagher (Paris: Editions du Pacifique, 1975) Ile Maurice, with text by Pierre Renaud (Paris: Editions du Pacifique, 1976)

Ile de la Reunion, with text by Robert R. Salvat (Paris: Editions du Pacifique, 1976) Cuisine Antillaise, with text by Dr. Negre (Paris: Editions du Pacifique, 1977) Articles in which exhibition photographs appear: "Houston," Actuel (Switzerland), November 1979; "Michel Folco a Vien dans le Centre de Tri des Condamnes," Photo (France), February, 1981 Articles by Michel Folco: " A Love Story," Actuel (Switzerland), December 1979; "Garimperos in Amazonia," St op (Yugoslavia), June 1982, pp. 34-45

d'Information Kodak, Paris, France, 1978; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium, March 1979; French Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, January 1980; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium, June-July 1980; Galerie Delpire, Paris, France, March 1981 ; The Photographer's Gallery, London, England, 1984; French Center of Photography, Paris, France, 1986 Bibliography Articles on Harry Gruyaert: "Harry Gruyaert," N. Stevens, Popular Photography, December 1976, pp. I 16-125; "Photography in Belgium," F. Peeters, The Photographic Journal, October 1983, pp. I 16-125; " M o n d e des images: Gruyaert à Stockholm," Le Photographie, January 1980, p. 7

H a r r y Gruyaert Born 25 August 1941 Antwerp, Belgium Education Association Belge de photographie et de Cinematographie, Brussels, Belgium Professional Experience Director of photography, cameraman, Belgium Television, 1963-1967; Free-lance photographer, London and Paris, 1962-1982; Associate of Magnum Photos, 1981-present Recognitions/Awards Kodak Prize, French Photography Critics, 1976; Grant from Paris Audiovisual, 1980; Grant from the French Ministry of Culture, 1983 Exhibitions (Solo and Group) Galerie Delpire, Paris, France, October 1974; Palais de Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium, March 1975; International Center of Photography, N e w York, September 1976; International Cultural Centre, Antwerp, Belgium, January 1978; Galerie Delpire, Paris, France, March 1978; Centre

Jeff Jacobson Born 26 July 1946 Des Moines, Iowa Education B.A., University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma Major in Journalism, 1968 J.D., Georgetown University Law School, Washington, D.C., 1971 Apeiron Photography Workshop, Millerton, N e w York, 1974 Professional Experience Attorney, American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia, 1972-1973; Free-lance photographer, 1976-1979; Photographer, Magnum Photos, 1979-1981 ; Guest lecturer, Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts, 1981 -1985; Member of Archive Pictures, 1981-present; Guest lecturer, State University of N e w Y o r k at N e w Paltz, N e w York, 1984; Guest lecturer, International Center of Photography, N e w York, 1984; Guest lecturer, N e w Y o r k University, N e w York, 1985

Recognitions/Awards Magazine Sports Photography— Second Place, The National Press Photographers Association and University of Missouri, 1983 Exhibitions (Solo and Group) Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, 1975; New England Photographers 1979-1980, Creative Photo Gallery, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1980; The Long Island Project, Hofstra University, Emily Lowe Gallery, Hempstead, N e w York, 1980; The Downwind People, Nexus Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia, 1981 ; Artists on Nuclear War, Nexus Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia, 1983 Bibliography Articles in which exhibition photographs appear: "American Rituals," S. Hager, Camera Arts, April 1983, pp. 24 + Articles on Jeff Jacobson: "Jeff Jacobson: Political Campaign Portfolio," R. Busch, Popular Photography, January 1977, pp. 86-91 ; "Right on Flash," Camera 35, February 1978, pp. 38-42

M a r y Ellen M a r k Born 20 March 1940 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Education B.F.A., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Major in Painting and A r t History, 1962 M.A., Annenberg School of Communications, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Major in Photojournalism, 1964 Selected Professional Experience Member of Magnum Photos, 1976-1981; Member of Archive Picture Press, 1981-present; Numerous photographic workshops including: Apeiron Photography

Workshop, Millerton, N e w York, 1975, 1978; United States Information Agency Photography Workshop, Zagreb, Yugoslavia, 1975; Photography Workshop, Aries, France, 1976, 1979; Ansel Adams Workshop, Carmel, California, 1978-1984; Film in the Cities Workshop, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1983; W o r k s h o p Series, International Center of Photography, N e w York, 1984, 1985; Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, N e w York, 1985; Numerous lectures including: Clarence White, Jr. Lectureship, Ohio University, Columbus, Ohio, 1976; The N e w School, N e w York, 1977; Yale University, N e w Haven, Connecticut, 1977; Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., 1981 ; Princeton University, Princeton, N e w Jersey, 1981; Reedy Memorial Lectures, Rochester, N e w York, 1985 Selected Recognitions/Awards Fulbright Scholarship to photograph in Turkey, 1965-1966; United States Information Agency Grant to lecture and exhibit in Yugoslavia, 1975; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 1977 and 1979, 1980; First Place Feature Picture Story, The National Press Photographers Association and University of Missouri, 1981 ; Robert F. Kennedy A w a r d — F i r s t Prize, 1981, 1985; Lecia Medal of Excellence, 1982; First Place Magazine Published Picture Story, The National Press Photographers Association and University of Missouri, 1983 Selected Exhibitions (Solo) Bars, Photographers Gallery, London, England, 1976; Ward 81 : Fotogalerie Forum Stadtpark, Graz, Austria, 1976-1977; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California, 1977; Port Washington Library, N e w York, 1977; Castelli Graphics, N e w York, 1978; Boise Gallery of Art, Boise, Idaho, 1978; Photography Gallery, Yarra, Australia, 1978-1979; University of O r e g o n Museum of

A r t , Eugene, Oregon, 1979; Gallerie Nagel, Berlin, 1979; D r e w University, Madison, N e w Jersey, 1982; Gallery of Fine Arts, Daytona Beach C o m m u n i t y College, Daytona Beach, Florida, 1983; Falkland Road: Castelli Graphics, N e w York, 1981; Olympus Gallery, London, 1981 ; Senson A r t Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz, California, 1982; California Museum of Photography, Riverside, California, 1982; Mother Teresa and Calcutta: The Friends of Photography, Carmel, California, 1983; Allen Street Gallery, Dallas, Texas, 1985; N o r t h l i g h t Gallery, Tempe, Arizona, 1986 Selected Exhibitions (Group) Portraits, Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, France, 1979; Color as Form, History of C o l o r Photography, Corcoran Gallery of A r t , Washington, D.C. and International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, N e w York, 1982; Faces, United Nations 40th Anniversary Photography Exhibition, Berkeley, California, 1985 Bibliography Books by Mary Ellen Mark: The Photojournalist: Two Women Explore the Modern World and the Emotions of Individuals, w i t h A. Liebovitz (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974) Passport ( N e w Y o r k : Lustrum Press, 1974) Ward 81, w i t h t e x t by Karen Folger Jacobs ( N e w Y o r k : Simon and Schuster, 1979) Falkland Road ( N e w York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981) Mother Teresa: Photographs of Mother Teresa's Missions of Charity in Calcutta, India (Carmel, California: The Friends of Photography Untitled Series, 1985) Streetwise: Runaways and Street Kids Living in Seattle, t o be published in 1985

Books with work by Mary Ellen Mark: America in Crisis, T e x t by Mitchel Levitas ( N e w York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1969) Vision and Expression, Edited by Nathan Lyons (Rochester, N e w Y o r k : Horizon Press w i t h the George Eastman House, 1969) American Images: New Work by Contemporary Photographers, Edited by Renato Danese (Washington, D.C.: Casini Press, 1979) Sx-Seventy Art, Edited by Ralph Gibson ( N e w Y o r k : Lustrum Press, 1979) Contact: Theory, Edited by Ralph Gibson ( N e w Y o r k : Lustrum Press, 1980) Spirit of Sport, G r o u p Project, A Polaroid Book (Boston, Mass.: N e w Y o r k Graphics Society Book, 1985) Articles in which exhibition photographs appear: "Miami Beach," Photo, (France), January 1983; "Miami Beach," Stern (Germany), 15 March 1984 Selected Articles on Mary Ellen Mark "Assignment in T u r k e y by Mary Ellen Mark," edited by T o m Maloney, US Camera Annual, 1968; "Transfiguration/Configuration: Mapplethorpe, Meyerowitz, Mark," P. Smith and A . Porter, Camera (Switzerland), September 1977, pp. 24-32; "Photojournalism: It's Back w i t h a N e w Face," A. Grundberg, Modern Photography, June 1980, pp. 94-101; "Falkland Road: Mary Ellen Mark," American Photographer, A p r i l 1981, pp. 60-68; "Falkland Road: Prostitutes of Bombay," J. Matthews, The British Journal of Photography, 28 August 1981, pp. 894-895; " O f f Camera, O n Film," F. Ritchin, Camera Arts, March 1983, pp. 50-59 Collections Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, France; Australian National Gallery, Canberra, Australia; International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York

Susan Meiselas Born 21 June 1948 Baltimore, Maryland Education B.A., Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, N e w Y o r k , 1970 M.Ed., Harvard University Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971 Professional Experience Assistant Film Editor t o Frederick Wiseman on film "Basic Training," Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1970-1971; Photography advisor in N e w Y o r k City Public Schools w i t h Community Resource Institute, 1971-1973; Artist-in-Residence, South Carolina and Mississippi, 1973-1974; Consultant for The Polaroid Foundation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1974; Photographic Advisor t o mill t o w n of Landò, South Carolina, 1975; Instructor in Photography, Center f o r Understanding Media, The N e w School for Social Research, N e w York, 1975-1976; Free-lance photographer, 1975; Member of Magnum Photos, 1976-present Recognitions/Awards Robert Capa Gold Medal, The Overseas Press Club of America, 1979; Leica A w a r d for Excellence, 1982; Photojournalist of the Year, American Society of Magazine Photographers, 1982; National Endowment f o r the A r t s Grant, 1984; Engelhard Award, Institute of Contemporary A r t , Boston, 1985 Exhibitions (Solo) 218 Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee, 1974; CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, N e w Y o r k , 1975; A.M. Sachs Gallery, N e w Y o r k , 1977; The Wellesley College Museum, Wellesley, Massachusetts, 1976; Images Gallery, N e w Orleans, Louisiana, 1977; F N A C Galerie, Paris, France, 1981 ; Camerawork, London, England, 1982; The Photography Gallery, Lajolla, California, 1983; Museum Folkwang, Essen, W e s t Germany, 1984

Exhibitions (Group) Conference on Visual Anthropology, Temple University Film Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1974; Carnival Strippers, Brockton A r t Center, Brockton, Massachusetts, 1974; International Woman's Art Festival, Fashion Institute of Technology, N e w Y o r k , 1975; Womanview, University of Iowa Museum of A r t , Iowa City, Iowa, 1976; Color Photography, Fogg A r t Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1981; Salvador, Half Moon Gallery, London, England, 1981 ; El Salvador, Chicago Center f o r Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Illinois, 1983; Grave Relics, The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1983; Guatemala, Cayman Gallery, N e w Y o r k , 1983; Inside El Salvador, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California, 1984; Inside El Salvador, International Center of Photography, N e w Y o r k , 1984 Bibliography Books by Susan Meiselas: Learn to See, ed. (Cambridge, Massachussets: The Polaroid Foundation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1974) Carnival Strippers ( N e w Y o r k : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976) Nicaragua: June 1978-July 1979, Edited w i t h Carl Rosenberg ( N e w York: Pantheon Books, 1981 ) El Salvador: Work of Thirty Photographers, Edited w i t h Harry Mattison, Fae Rubenstein, T e x t by Carolyn Forché ( N e w Y o r k : W r i t e r s and Readers Publishing Cooperative, 1983) Selected Articles in which exhibition photographs appear: "National Mutiny in Nicaragua," The New York Times Magazine, 30 July 1978, pp. 12 + "Nicaragua: A People Aflame," GEO Charter Issue, 1979, pp. 32-60 Sowy, August 1982

Articles on Susan Meiselas: " A r t s Review—Susan Meiselas," A. Ellenzweig, Arts, January 1977, pp. 34-35; " N e w Y o r k Reviews— Susan Meiselas," A. SargentW o o s t e r , ArtNews, January 1977, p. 122; "Photographers," P. Rogers, Print, July 1979, pp. 50-51 ; "Susan Meiselas," L. Shames, American Photographer, March 1981, " A n Interview w i t h Richard Elman and Susan Meiselas," M. Levin, Book Digest, September 1981, pp. 98-103; "Nicaragua: June 1978-July 1979," T. Imrie, The British Journal of Photography, 20 N o v e m b e r 1981, pp. 1201 -1203; " C o l o r of W a r : Susan Meiselas in Nicaragua," C. Polemis, Creative Camera, January 1982, pp. 356-358; "The Best and the Brightest," P. Bosworth, Working Woman, September 1982, pp. 170-172; "Susan Meiselas— Photographer," L. Taylor, The British Journal of Photography, 17 December 1982, pp. 1348-1350; "Guatemala: A Testimonial at Cayman," A. Solomon-Godeau, Art in America, January 1984, pp. I 30-1 31 ; "Antigua Guatemala," Creative Camera, January 1984, p. 1215; "Susan Meiselas at W a r , " G. Emerson, Esquire, December 1984, pp. 165 + Collections Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California; Fogg A r t Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts

photographer, Sipa/Special Features, 1980-present; Free-lance photographer for Newsweek in Lebanon, June-September 1982; Free-lance photographer f o r Newsweek in Lebanon, A p r i l 1983 Recognitions/Awards National Headliner A w a r d , Second Prize, The National Press Photographers Association and University of Missouri, 1982; Robert Capa A w a r d , Special Citation for w o r k done in Lebanon, 1983; Third Prize, The National Press Photographers Association and University of Missouri, 1983; Second Prize f o r a N e w s Spot, W o r l d Press Photo Foundation, 1984; T h i r d Prize for a N e w s Series, W o r l d Press Photo Foundation, 1984; Second Prize for Magazine News Documentary, The National Press Photographers Association and University of Missouri, 1984 Exhibitions (Solo and Group) Canon Galerie, Geneva, Switzerland, 1979; F N A C , Galerie Etoile, France, 1982; The Year in Color, SIPA Press, Paris, France, 1984; 10 Years of SIPA Press, Canon Galerie, Paris, France, 1984; Beauborg Galerie, Paris, France, 1985; An Indian Trip, Galerie du chateau d'eau, Paris, France, 1985

Gilles P e r e s s Yan Morvan Born 4 A p r i l 1954 Paris, France Education Université de Nice, Nice, France Major in Mathematics Université Vincennes, Paris, France Major in Cinema Professional Experience First published photograph, Libération, 1975; Staff photographer, Figaro Magazine, Paris, France, 1978; Member of Gamma-Liaison, September 1979-June 1980; Staff

Born 29 December 1946 Neuilly-s-Seine, France Education Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Paris, France, 1966-1968 Université de Vincennes, Vincennes, France, 1968-1971

Professional Experience Free-lance photographer, 1970-present; Member of Magnum Photos, 1972-present; Artist-inresidence, A p e i r o n Photography W o r k s h o p , Millerton, N e w Y o r k , 1977; Vice-President of Magnum Photos, N e w Y o r k , 1984-1985 Recognitions/Awards A r t Directors Club A w a r d , 1977; National Endowment f o r the A r t s Grant, 1979; American Institute of Graphic A r t s A w a r d , 1981; The Overseas Press Club A w a r d , 1981 ; Ville de Paris/Kodak Pathé Foundation Prize f o r Best Photography Book, 1981 ; Prix de la Critique Couleur Grant, 1981; Imogen Cunningham A w a r d in Photography, 1983; Foundation Nationale pour la Photographie Grant, 1983; National Endowment f o r t h e A r t s Grant, 1984; W . Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, 1984 Exhibitions (Solo and Croup) Other Eyes, A r t s Council of Great Britain, 1976; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1977; A r t s Council of Great Britain, London, England, 1979; Magnum Paris, Palais du Luxembourg, Paris, France, 1981 ; C e n t r e d'Information Kodak, Paris, France, 1982; The Side Gallery, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England, 1982; Leitz Galerie, Paris, France, 1983; Focus Gallery, San Francisco, California, 1984; Galerie Magnum, Paris, France, 1984; Institute f o r C o n t e m p o r a r y A r t , Boston, Massachusetts, 1984; Musée d ' A r t e Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France, 1984; Institute f o r A r t and Urban Resources, N e w Y o r k , 1984; Musée d ' A r t e t d'Histoire, Fri bourg, Switzerland, 1985; International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, N e w Y o r k , 1985; Corcoran Gallery o f A r t , Washington, D.C., 1985

Bibliography Books by Gilles Peress: Telex: Iran, T e x t by Gholam Hassan Sa'edi (Millerton, N e w Y o r k : A p e r t u r e , 1984) An Eye for an Eye: Northern Ireland 1970-1985, T e x t by Nan Richardson (Millerton, N e w Y o r k : A p e r t u r e , 1986) Articles in which exhibition photographs appear: "The Pious, Pagan Soul of Guatemala," Louis de la Haba, GEO, O c t o b e r 1979, pp. 44-68; "La Passion Selon San Simon," Annick Benoist, GEO (France), May 1980, pp. 136-158 Articles on Gilles Peress: "Pay Guests: Photos, Gilles Peress," P. Pringle, The London Sunday Times Magazine, 26 May 1974, pp. 12-23; "Fern der Heimat: Türkische Fremdarbeiter in Deutschlandaufnahmen von Gilles Peress," Du (Switzerland), August 1974, pp. 68-77; "Still Life w i t h Destruction: Photos by Gilles Peress," L. Garner, The London Sunday Times Magazine, 8 December 1974, pp. 24-36; "Mladi Fotografi u Francuskoj, " C. Naggar, Spot (Yugoslavia), N o . 6, 1975, pp. 7-21; "Four Photographers," J. Scully, Modern Photography, May 1976, pp. 80-93; "Ireland and Iran: Gilles Peress at the Side," Creative Camera, February 1983, p. 824; " N o r t h e r n Ireland," M. Martin, Creative Camera, June 1983, pp. 972-975 Collections Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France; A r t s Council of Great Britain, London, England; International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, N e w Y o r k ; The Minneapolis Institute o f Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota; The Museum of Modern A r t , N e w Y o r k ; Philadelphia Museum of A r t , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; C e n t r e National de la Photographie, Paris, France; Fondation Nationale pour la Photographie, Paris, France

Rio Branco

Born I I December 1946 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands

Education Escola de Artes Visuais, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1968 Professional Experience Began photographing in 1967; Free-lance photographer and cinematographer, 1969; Pursued photojournalism and experimental filmmaking, New York, 1970-1972; Free-lance documentary photographer, Brazil, 1972-1981; Director of photography for twelve short films and five feature films 1972-1981 ; Member of Magnum Photos, 1978-present Recognition/Awards Grand Prize of The Säo Paolo I st Triennale of Photography, Museu de Arte Moderna de Sâo Paolo, Säo Paulo, Brazil, 1980; Best Prize for Cinematography for "Nada," Brasilia Film Festival, 1981 ; Special Prize for "Nada," International Film Critics Award, Lille, France, 1982; Special Prize of the Jury for "Nada," Lille Documentary Film Festival, France; Kodak Color Prize, Paris, France, 1982 Exhibitions (Solo) Anhkerkeller, Bern, Switzerland, 1964; Columbia University, New York, 1966; Galerie Relevo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1967; Veste Sagrada Gallery, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1972; Galeria Grupo B, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1974; Ipanema Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel, 1977; Dirty Negative: School of Visual Arts, Rio de Janeiro, 1978; Museo de Arte de Sâo Paolo, Sâo Paolo, Brazil, 1979; Teatro Casto Alves, Salvador, Brazil, 1979; Fotogaleria, Säo Paolo, Brazil, 1980; Funarte: Fotogaleria, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1980; Galerie Magnum, Paris, France, 1985; Reboucas Cultural Center, Säo Paolo, Brazil, 1985

Exhibitions (Group) Sawdust Gallery, N e w York, 1965; The 9th Säo Paolo Biennale, Museu de Arte Moderna, Säo Paolo, Brazil, 1967; Goeldi Gallery, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1968; Galeria Graffiti, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1977; Camera Incantate,Milan,Italy, 1980;The Ist Säo Paolo Triennale of Photography, Museu de Arte Moderna, Säo Paolo, Brazil, 1980; Contemporary Photographers of Latin America, Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris, France, 1982; Centre d'Information Kodak, Paris, France, 1982; 0 Tempo Do Olhar, Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1983; Museo de Arte de Säo Paolo, Säo Paolo, Brazil, 1983; Arco Gallery, Säo Paolo, Brazil, 1983; The 17th Säo Paolo Biennale, Museu de Arte Moderna de Säo Paolo, Brazil, 1983; The I st Biennale of Cuba, 1984; Galerie Magnum, Paris, France, 1984 Bibliography Books by Rio Branco: Du/ce Sudor Amargo: Rio Branco, Text by Jean-Pierre Nouhaud (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1985) Articles in which exhibition photographs appear: "The Women of Maciel," Aperture, Fall 1983, pp. 48-64 Collections David Rockefeller Collection; Thomas Cohn Collection, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Museo de Arte de Säo Paolo, Säo Paolo, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna, Säo Paolo, Brazil; Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Thomas Farkas Collection, Säo Paolo, Brazil

Jean-Marie Simon

Born 30 May 1954 Staten Island, New Y o r k Education B.S., Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Major in Linguistics, 1976

Professional Experience Free-lance photographer; Lecture, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts; Lecture, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Lecture, Wesleyan University, Middleton, Connecticut; Member of Visions, 1981 -present; Lecture, Center for Communications, New York, 1982; Consultant for Finnish Television (EPIDEM FILMS), Documentary on U.S. involvement in Guatemala, 1982; Consultant for Amnesty International, 1982-1984; Lectured at C E E S T E M Conference, Mexico City, Mexico, 1983; Consultant for Americas Watch Committee, 1983-1984; Lecture, N e w Y o r k University, New York, 1984; Lecture, The New School for Social Research, Focus Workshop, 1984; Lecture, International Center of Photography, New York, 1984; Photographer for "Witness to the Slaughter" slide show, The National Council of Churches, 1984; Consultant for Skylight Productions, "When the Mountains Tremble," 1984; Consultant for British Broadcasting Company, "The Hidden Holocaust," 1984; Correspondent and Contributing Photographer for Time in Guatemala: Member of the Committee to Protect Photojournalists, fact finding tour, April 1982 Recognitions!Awards Fulbright Scholarship in Sociolinguistics, Quito, Ecuador, 1976-1977; A r t Directors Magazine Award, 1982; American International Public Service Advertisement, 1982; W . Eugene Smith Grant—Honorable Mention, 1984

Exhibitions (Solo and Group) Bag Ladies: O.K. Harris Gallery, New York, September-October 1981 ; Impressions Gallery, London, England, June 1982; Parco Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, November 1982; Artist's Call, Central Hall Gallery, New York, 1983; Guatemala: A Testimonial, Cayman Gallery, New York and The Side Gallery, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England, 1983-1984; War Torn, Cooper Union, New York, 1984 Bibliography Books with work by Jean-Marie Simon: War Torn, Susan Vermazen, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984) Articles in which exhibition photographs appear: CEO (Germany), October 1983 GEO (France), February 1984 Nuestro, January-February 1983 Articles on Jean-Marie Simon: "Impressions Gallery," A. Bolt, The British Journal of Photography, 27 August 1982, pp. 916-917

Alex Webb

Born 5 May 1952 San Francisco, California

Education B.A., Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Major in Literature, 1974 Apeiron Photography Workshop, Millerton, New York, 1972 The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1973-1974 Professional Experience Free-lance photographer, 1974; Member of Magnum Photos, 1976-present; Vice-President, Magnum Photos, 1985 Recognitions/Awards The Overseas Press Club of America Award, 1980

Exhibitions (Solo and Group) Contemporary Photographers V, Fogg A r t Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1975; Color Photography, Fogg A r t Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1980; Visions of Reality: Color Photography, Goddard-Riverside Center, N e w York, 1982; Grave Relics, The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1983; Color in the Streets, California Museum of Photography, University of California, Riverside, California, 1983; Hot Light/Half-Made Worlds, Galerie Magnum, Paris, France, 1983; The Photographer's Gallery, London, England, 1984; Amsterdam Photo, Amsterdam, Holland, 1984 Bibliography Books by Alex Webb: Hot Light/Half-Made Worlds ( N e w York: Thames and Hudson, 1986) Articles in which exhibition photographs appear: "In the Heat of the Light," Camera Arts, February 1983, pp. 22-33 Articles on Alex Webb: "Alex Webb: People and Places," Creative Camera, December 1975, p. 401 + ; "Seeing Pictures," Modern Photography, June 1977, pp. 10 + ; "Between the Expresssion and the Document," Modern Photography, March 1979, pp. 78-81; " N e w Faces 80," American Photographer, February 1980, pp. 37-49; "Photojournalism: It's Back with a N e w Face," A. Grundberg, Modern Photography, June 1980, pp. 94-101; Photo Magazine (France), September 1982, pp. 60-73; "The Active Streets," M. Johnstone, ArtWeek, 16 April 1983, p. I I; "Seeing Pictures," Modern Photography, September 1983, pp. 49-54 Collections Fogg A r t Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

A l f r e d Yaghobzadeh Born 2 February 1959 Teheran, Iran Education The A r t University of Teheran Major in Interior Decoration, ended studies in 1979 Professional

Experience

Free-lance photographer for Iranian Newspapers and the Associated Press in Iran, 1979; Photographer with Gamma-Liaison, 1980; Free-lance photographer for Sygma and Newsweek, September 1983-July 1984; Photographer, Sipa/Special Features, January 1985-present; Free-lance photographer for News week in Lebanon, February 1985-May 1985 Exhibitions (Solo and Group) Teheran-Iran 1981-1982, Teheran Museum of Modern Art, Teheran, Iran, 1982; 10 Years ofSipa Press, Canon Galerie, Paris, France, September 1984; Sipa Press Toute une Histoire, Historiches Museum der Stadt Wien, Vienna, Austria, November 1984-January 1985 Bibliography Books by Alfred Yaghobzadeh: War, with Kaveh Golestan (Teheran, Iran: Iranian Government Publication, 1980) Faces of War: A Pictorial Report on the Iraq-Iran War 1980-81 (Teheran, Iran: Teheran Museum of Modern Art, 1983) Articles on Alfred Yaghobzadeh: Photo-Review, June 1982 Photo (France), April 1984 Photo-Reporter, March 1985 Newsweek, August 1985

Acknowledgments

This exhibition began several years ago with the inchoate notion that recent color photojournalism somehow focused many of the key issues regarding contemporary photography. At that time the world of photojournalism was uncharted territory for me. Considering the hundreds of photojournalists working today, such basic questions as how many photographers to include and how to get access to their work seemed an overwhelming task. I could have easily been discouraged at any point during the process had it not been for numerous supporters who guided me along the way. In fact, when I consider the vast number of individuals who assisted in the organization of On The Line: The New Color Photojournalism, it's hard to believe that any work remained for me. I must credit first and foremost Robert Stevens, Time magazine, who generously provided me with innumerable introductions to photography agencies and photographers. Without his knowledge of the field and enthusiam, the exhibition would never have materialized. I am also especially indebted to Fred Ritchin, International Center of Photography, whose thoughts and comments were instrumental in the formation of my ideas. Philip Gefter, formerly at Fortune; Mary Fanette, Time-Life Picture Collection; Susan Kismaric, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Anne Tucker, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Carroll T. Hartwell, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts; and Wendy Watriss also provided initial counsel and encouragement.

Soon after embarking on this exhibition, I discovered that the photography agencies were not merely commercial representatives for the photographers but were also "home" for these peripatetic individuals. During the early stages of the exhibition the agencies opened their files and made research assistance available. Thanks are due to Howard Chapnik and Yukiko Launon, Black Star; Woodfin Camp, Woodfin Camp and Associates; Alain Julien, Alain Julien Agency; Marcel Saba, Gamma-Liaison. I am especially grateful to the agencies with whom I was to develop a close association for the duration of the project. They consistently offered much needed support and advice and patiently acted as emissaries between me and the photographers. I am particularly indebted to Lauren Stockbower, formerly of Archive Pictures, Inc.; Robert Pledge and Francoise Piffard, Contact Press Images; Elizabeth Gallin, Hillary Raskin and Mary Virginia Swanson, Magnum Photos Inc.; Pam Brown, Donna Binder and Pat Brazil, Sipa/Special Features; Andrea Reitmeyer, Sygma; Leslie Goldman, Visions. I greatly appreciate the cooperation of Charles Goosens, Laboratoire N B C Goosens and Michael Wilder who expertly and expeditiously printed the images for the exhibition. Special thanks are due to Martin Friedman, Director, Walker Art Center. Without his confidence in me and in the timeliness of the exhibition, On The Line would never have come to fruition. Other members of the Art Center Staff were particularly helpful in the organization of the exhibition and this catalog: Mildred Friedman, whose advice about the catalog and exhibition was unfailing; Lorraine Ferguson, who skillfully designed the catalog; Sheri Stearns, who ably assisted with the exhibition loans and tour schedule; Ann Kohls, who typed the manuscript and helped with numerous organizational concerns;

Rosemary Furtak and Jane Young, who ceaselessly tracked down research material for preparation of the catalog; Stephanie J. Ross and Elizabeth M. Wright, who both assisted with research and assembled the artist biographies; and Bill Horrigan and Robert Murdock who offered helpful comments on the manuscript. I am also thankful to Mary Trone for her attentive editing of the manuscript. My good friends Rob Silberman, Melinda Ward, Carole Kismaric and Christian Peterson sustained me with their ongoing comments and provided essential feedback on my catalog essay. Anne P. Baker offered her encouragement and constant advice. As always, my parents unstintingly supported me in more ways than I can describe. Most of all, I am grateful to the photographers. ADW 78 79

W a l k e r A r t Center Staff f o r the Exhibition

Curator of the Exhibition Adam D. Weinberg

Budget Supervision Mary Polta

Education Programs Margaret O'Neill-Ligon

Publication Supervision Adam D. Weinberg

Exhibition Assistance Ann Kohls

Publication Editing Mary Trone

Curatorial Assistance Elizabeth M. Wright Stephanie J. Ross

Exhibition Installation Hugh Jacobson Mark Kramer Mary Cutshall Steve Ecklund Joe Janson Cody Riddle John Snyder Mark Nielson Earl Kendall David Dick Bradley Hudson Owen Osten Josita Person David Lee

Publication Design Lorraine Ferguson Publication Distribution and Exhibition Circulation David Galligan Kathy Mustful

Exhibition Registrar Sheri Stearns Public Relations Kevin Martin Karen Statler Lisa Hartwig

Typesetting Lucinda Gardner

W a l k e r A r t Center B o a r d of D i r e c t o r s

Officers Alice E. Wittenberg, Chairman Erwin A. Kelen, President John A. Rollwagen, Vice President Martin Friedman, Secretary Donald C. Borrman, Treasurer H. Brewster Atwater, Jr. Gary Capen Linda S. Coffey Thomas M. Crosby, Jr. Mrs. Julius E. Davis Mrs. Kenneth N. Dayton Dennis E. Evans Clarence G. Frame Martha Gabbert E. Peter Gillette, Jr. Stanley Gregory Mrs. David H. Griffith Roger L. Hale Ann Hatch Wellington S. Henderson, Jr. Geri M. Joseph Kenneth H. Keller David Kruidenier Sarah M. Lebedoff John D. Levine Jeanne Levitt Reid Mac Donald Kenneth A. Macke Colleen Yeates Marsh

Mrs. Malcolm A. McCannel Dr. Franklin Pass Mrs. Michael Roeder Philip Von Blon Adrian Walker Brooks Walker, Jr. Elaine B. Walker John C. Walker Mrs. Dale K. Warner David M. Winton C. Angus Wurtele Ex-Officio Members Judith Farmer Hon. Donald M. Fraser Hon. George Latimer Commissioner Samuel S. Sivanich