Philip Jones Griffiths, the Magnum photographer whose images of the Vietnam War helped turn the tide of public opinion in the US, died at home in London on Wednesday (19 March), following a long illness from cancer.
His 1971 book, Vietnam Inc, included harrowing images of a blackened burn victim, a woman's frail body splattered with blood and a South Vietnamese boy in army fatigues, showing the brutal and devastating effects of the war on the Vietnamese people and culture. But it also captured rural life and village collectivism away from the war zones, in an attempt to show why America's campaign was bound to fail.
'All journalists share two concerns: first, for the truth; second for the suffering of innocents,' he stated in aninterview earlier this year. 'No man can see what I've seen and not be moved to tell others about it.'
Griffiths was born in Rhuddlan, Wales in 1936, and became a photographer after a short career in pharmacy. He started working for The Guardian whilst working nights at a London chemist, becoming a full-time freelance for The Observer in 1961. 'When I look back on my work there, more than half the articles were projects I suggested myself,' he told BJP in May 2007. 'There is nothing an editor likes better than a photographer coming in and saying, "I've got these pics" or "I've got this idea".'
Influenced early on by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Griffiths became an associate member of Magnum Photos in 1966 and a full member in 1971. In 1980 he moved to New York to become president of the agency, a post he held for a record five years.
In his latter years he criticised the 'triviality' which he believed had crept into Magnum, but he remained committed to photojournalism to the end. 'I am not depressed by the state of photojournalism today,' he told BJP in May 2007. 'It is obvious that photography is more powerful than ever before. The Abu Graib pictures, for example, did enormous damage to America's intentions in Iraq.'
In one of his last interviews, for The Independent this January, he added: 'Journalism is about obliterating distances, bringing far away things closer home and impressing it on peoples' senses. You excite your humanity every time you take a photo; lose your humanity and you stop being able to judge, to know, to see.'
Griffiths is survived by two daughters, Katherine Holden of London and Fenella Ferrato of New York and Damascus. He never married, reportedly because he 'would never let bourgeois society dictate my behaviour'.
For more info on Griffiths and examples of his work: www.magnumphotos.com
Terry O'Neill Award 2008
World Photography Competition
Photographers are asked to submit images relating to potatoes and potato production to highlight the vegetable's role as a source of food, employment and income in developing countries. The competition is being run by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and Nikon.
Photographers can enter separate professional and amateur categories and submit single digital images or photo stories of four to eight related images, in black-and-white or colour. Participants can submit files by uploading them directly via internet or sending them by normal post on a CD.
The winning photographs will be chosen by a judging panel including Lucy Conticello, Adrian Evans, Steve McCurry, Maria Wood and Francesco Zizola. Winners in the professional and amateur categories will be awarded cash prizes of up to £2000.
The deadline for entries is 01 September.
For more information and to enter the competition, visit www.potato2008.org/en/photocontest
Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Scrapbook exhibition contains over 300 exquisite, small photographs taken by Cartier-Bresson between 1932 – 46.
The photographs, some of the last that he printed himself, represent the most richly creative period in his career and the exhibition contains some of his most familiar and enduring images.
For more info click here.
