Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/09/18

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Subject: [Leica] An overdue appreciation of Gilles Peress (long)
From: pmjensen <pmjensen@concentric.net>
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 01 17:30:02 -0700

(I took the day off today, and this is what I ended up doing. After a week of shooting vigils and memorials, rubbing shoulders and elbows with the guys and gals with D1s and deadlines, and maybe I'm feeling the need to reaffirm the value of the personal viewpoint in documentary photography.) 

Iıd like to call the LUG's attention to the work of a very fine Leica photojournalist, Gilles Peress, and in so doing perhaps sort out in my own mind what exactly it is about his work that I find so significant. Unfortunately Iım not very articulate under any circumstances, and talking about visuals always seems inadequate to the experience at best and dangerously misleading or obscure at worst. Here goes anyway.

As Iıve just finished reading the third book of his (unintentional) trilogy and a few new pictures arrived in the New Yorker last week, this seemed a good time to tackle this post. I have absolutely no connection to Peress beyond the substantial aesthetic and journalistic guidance his work has provided me.

Iıd also like to say up front that his work is visually extremely sophisticated and as such may not provide the inspiration to many LUGnuts that that of some other better-known photojournalists does. It would be pointless to argue that any top photojournalist is better than any other top photojournalist, but there is, even at the top, room for picking and choosing our sources of inspiration. All of the work described here is black-and-white.

The trilogy that I alluded to is, in chronological order, ³Farewell to Bosnia,² ³The Silence² (Rwanda), and ³The Graves² (Srebrenica and Vukovar). What ties them together, I think, is their successive documentation of the breakdown of civil societies into genocide and war and its ultimate, inevitable conclusion: mass graves, massive social dislocation, and masses of refugees. Seen together, these books (photographed from 1994 to 1996) ask some very serious questions about mankindıs ultimate nature. (The events of 9/11 are giving us all now a chance to discuss this in various forms.) Two of the three books are nearly devoid of text, so weıre left to our own devices to answer the questions these photographs raise.

The trilogy also demonstrates a master photographer varying his camera work ‹ I hesitate to say style in this instance ‹ and then, by logical extension, his editing and book design, to reinforce the intended message and viewpoint. His loosely composed ³Farewell to Bosnia² is a passive and slowly accumulated group of small moments that, only in sum, take the full measure of destruction experienced by a land and a culture. By contrast, ³The Graves² primarily documents the work of the forensic scientists exhuming mass graves in Srebrenica and Vukovar after the war, and the camera work is precise, tight, clear, and professional, in a sense reflecting the gravity and precision of the work of the scientists. 

³The Silence² covers the immediate aftereffects of the genocidal killing in Rwanda, the following mass migrations to Tanzania, and the subsequent devastating cholera epidemic. Peressıs images are typically complex, and to that extent aestheticized, but always powerfully engaging. They are perhaps more intellectual than Nachtweyıs (as a familiar example), but no less disturbing.
 
If I had to name just one distinguishing characteristic of Peressıs work it would probably be his ³intellectual² eye, if thatıs not too vague. Itıs the visible evidence of an active mind demonstrated through very sophisticated design strategies. (I hope that doesnıt sound like a lot of BS; itıs really the best that I can do.) For my money, itıs the state of the art in photojournalism today, but no one is expected to agree.
 
If anyoneıs interest is piqued but theyıre concerned that these subjects may be just a little too difficult to start with, I would recommend his ³Telex Iran² (1980): an earlier application of contemporary black-and-white street photography to photojournalism. Itıs a fascinating and powerful trip through revolutionary-era Iran. Twenty years on and itıs still cutting edge, and I refer back to it often for ideas and inspiration; really a gorgeous book.

Most of us donıt have the opportunity (nor desire) to tackle such desperate subjects, but we can take from Peressıs work the lesson of fearlessness wherever we carry our Leicas: that if our ideas and our subjects are worthy, then the oftentimes socially difficult act of candid photography of non- or only marginally consenting strangers will be worthwhile. And when we put the cameras to our eyes, we can learn to take chances with our visual design, to better integrate our vision with our perceptions or feelings about the subject at hand. Of course developing a personal viewpoint takes a lot of time and a lot of thought and a lot of film, more of each than many dedicated amateurs have available, but in the meantime perhaps Peressıs work can provide both visual pleasure and the inspiration to try committing to all that necessary work.

It just occurred to me, as I was wondering whether I needed to tie Peress more closely to the use of Leicas and the LUG, that in all of the twenty years of Peressıs work (including Northern Ireland and portfolios in the New Yorker) that I have at hand, there are hardly any examples of prominent bo-kay, and not a single frame from a Noctilux or any other exotic glass ‹ just Summicrons, Elmarits, and one hell of an eye. He has gone from primarily 35/50mm in the eighties to 28mm in the nineties, and some of the latest work looks wider.  Heıs been getting progressively closer to his subjects, and that proximity packs an emotional or psychological punch that canıt be duplicated with the artificial proximity of a telephoto (apologies to you folks from the dailies).

Once again, (mea culpa) Iım sorry where my words or ideas are incomprehensible, and I admire all who made it all the way to the bottom of this very long post. Thanks. And maybe last of all, NONE of this was meant as political commentary; that stuffıs way over my head. 

- ---Peter
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Replies: Reply from Phil Stiles <stiles@metrocast.net> (Re: [Leica] An overdue appreciation of Gilles Peress (long))