Friday, June 24, 2016

A new hero in my pantheon of photographers: Harry Gruyaert

Gruyaert - Launderette 1988
Sometimes FB throws up something worthy.

Today it was this piece from the BJP with the headline:
“There is no story. It’s just a question of shapes and light”

On further investigation, I found:
“In Europe and especially France, there’s a humanistic tradition of people like Cartier-Bresson where the most important thing is the people, not so much the environment,” he says. “I admired it, but I was never linked to it. I was much more interested in all the elements:  the decor and the lighting and all the cars: the details were as important as humans. That’s a different attitude altogether.”

And later still:
“It’s purely intuition. There’s no concept. things attract me and it works both ways. I’m fascinated by the miracle where things come together in a way where things make sense to me, so there’s very little thinking.”

The occasion for this interview is publication of his first English-language monograph.  (BJP's FB update was to note his receipt of the 2016 PHotoEspaña Award.)  Buy the book, or visit Magnum for a collection of over 100 images.

Another interview from 2015 contains this gem on his experience of learning:
When he was 18, Gruyaert took himself off to Brussels to enrol in a film and photography school. It was here that he began spending all his time in the cinema. “The school was terrible, and I was learning nothing. But in watching films I started to understand composition and movement… I went to galleries to look at paintings, I bought magazines and books, and gradually I discovered how to see.”

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