Photography
One of Riboud's best known images is Eiffel Tower Painter, taken in Paris in 1953. It depicts a man painting the tower, posed like a dancer, perched between the metal armature of the tower. Below him, Paris emerges out of the photographic haze. Lone figures appear frequently in Riboud's images. In Ankara, a central figure is silhouetted against an industrial background, whereas in France, a man lies in a field. The vertical composition emphasizes the landscape, the trees, sky, water and blowing grass, all of which surround but do not overpower the human element.
An image taken by Riboud on October 21, 1967, is among the most celebrated anti-war pictures. Shot in Washington, D.C. where thousands of anti-war activists had gathered in front of the Pentagon to protest against America’s involvement in Vietnam, the picture shows a young girl, Jan Rose Kasmir, with a flower in her hands and a kindly gaze in her eyes, standing in front of several rifle-wielding soldiers stationed to block the protesters. Riboud said of the photo, “She was just talking, trying to catch the eye of the soldiers, maybe trying to have a dialogue with them. I had the feeling the soldiers were more afraid of her than she was of the bayonets.”
In contrast to the images in his photo essay, A Journey to North Vietnam (1969), Riboud says in the accompanying interview: "My impression is that the country's leaders will not allow the slightest relaxation of the population at large it is almost as if they are anxious to forestall the great unknown - peace." In the same Newsweek article, he expanded further in his observations on life in North Vietnam:
"I was astonished, for example, at the decidedly gay atmosphere in Hanoi's Reunification Park on a Sunday afternoon I honestly did not have the impression they were discussing socialism or the 'American aggressors' I saw quite a few patriotic posters crudely 'improved' with erotic graffiti and sketches."
There is a divide between what is photographed (or published) and what Riboud had to say by way of his interview. Commenting on this in 1970, the author Geoffrey Wolff wrote:
"Riboud's photographs illustrate the proposition. The French photographer has been to North Vietnam twice and he is most friendly, on the evidence of his pictures, to the people and the institutions he found there. His photographs are of happy faces, An Air Force ace illustrates how he shot the American "air pirates" from the sky Who knows the truth about these places?"
Read more about this topic: Marc Riboud
Famous quotes containing the word photography:
“If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely thanks to the natural support it will find in the stupidity of the multitude. It must return to its real task, which is to be the servant of the sciences and the arts, but the very humble servant, like printing and shorthand which have neither created nor supplanted literature.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“Too many photographers try too hard. They try to lift photography into the realm of Art, because they have an inferiority complex about their Craft. You and I would see more interesting photography if they would stop worrying, and instead, apply horse-sense to the problem of recording the look and feel of their own era.”
—Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942)