[Leica] An overdue appreciation of Gilles Peress (long)

[pmjensen <pmjensen@concentric.net>]

(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.) 

Iąd 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 Iąm 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 Iąve 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.

Iąd 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, łFarewell to Bosnia,˛ łThe Silence˛ (Rwanda), and łThe Graves˛ (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 mankindąs 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 weąre 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 łFarewell to Bosnia˛ 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, łThe Graves˛ 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. 

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

Most of us donąt have the opportunity (nor desire) to tackle such desperate subjects, but we can take from Peressąs 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 Peressąs 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 Peressąs 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.  Heąs been getting progressively closer to his subjects, and that proximity packs an emotional or psychological punch that canąt be duplicated with the artificial proximity of a telephoto (apologies to you folks from the dailies).

Once again, (mea culpa) Iąm 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 stuffąs way over my head. 

- ---Peter
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