| Photo by S. Beth Atkin |
Gilles Peress Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by S. Beth Atkin |
Page 2 of 8
What photographers have influenced you, especially in this early period that we're talking about?
None. I mean, at that time in France there were no schools, very few books, there was not a really terrific education. So I started out of my own need and not out of looking at other people's work. It was not about photography, the primary reason why I did it was not about photography anyway.
So photography was much more than just a job for you. Obviously it became that, but even in the beginning.
I wish it had been a job at the beginning. No, it's a real tool and vehicle for the relationship to the world. It's an essential thing, like eating. It's about surviving, it's about making sense of what's out there and what's in there.
Are you a "photographer" or a "photojournalist"?
I'm really "neither/nor." Some people ask me if I'm an artist, some ask me if I'm a photojournalist or photographer, or whatever. I always try to escape categories because where those categories are attached, predictable forms, they really have very much to do with market, or where to market the pictures. I'm interested in what's unpredictable, and I'm interested in what happens in the no-man's-land between known categories. I'm interested in what happens in a no-man's-land, say, between "art" and "photojournalism," or between "photography" and "literature," or between "photography" and "cinema." And I'm interested in investigating what's in that gray area. So it's very hard to put a category on me that describes what I do. I'm happy with that.
And this no-man's-land that you're interested in, is that partly (I'm going to have trouble with words here since you are disillusioned with words) but is this no-man's-land both a technical no-man's-land and also substantive -- exploring the technical issues in photography, new ways to take pictures, but also exploring the no-man's-land where all is disorder, where all is anarchy?
Here you're talking about content; no it's not technical. I always work very, very hard at making photography extremely transparent. I work upstream of the process to work out all the aspects of the process, from the developers to the printed page. I truly understand all that so it has become transparent and ceases to exist. No, the no-man's-land has to do with the structure of a language. It has to do with narrative forms. It has to do with figuring out forms to tell stories, to formulate what is reality other than what I've seen before. The issue of content is a separate issue, in terms of the kind of subject matter I address myself to.
Are you a witness to what you're seeing as you go to places like Bosnia and Rwanda?
Yes, very much. I see myself as an individual who goes to those places to understand what's happening, in some way beyond the media. We talked about where I come from, education and so on. My generation was extremely suspicious of the media, and when I started with photography I had no illusions as to where the media, magazines and so on, were in terms of describing reality. So for me to go places like Bosnia or Rwanda, it's very much as an individual who's trying to understand for himself what's really happening, and is trying to take the time and in some way escape the habits and the paths of journalism as it's normally conceived.
One of the striking things about your images is the extent to which they shake up middle-class complacency and the kind of numbing that comes from the avalanche of essentially commercial images, images that are meant to sell products and so on. Is that a goal?
Do you mean waking up?
Waking up, yes. Pricking the moral conscience of especially the international community and, I think, the individual also.
It's not the primary goal, it's a by-product.
My primary goal is to understand what is happening out there. My primary goal is to make up my own mind as an individual as to what's out there. The by-product could be something that has this effect. And it's true that, especially in the cases of Bosnia and Rwanda, there is a high level of moral outrage. And yes, I want to communicate that. Yes.
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