Hello,
This is my first blog entry since I arrived back in Shanghai from three weeks of rest in Melbourne. I’m seeing this blog as an opportunity to look through my archive and get some things into the light of day.
The following is an interview with Magnum great Abbas, who sadly passed away in 2018, aged 74. Photojournalism suffered a great loss, but Abbas left an extraordinary body of work that spanned six decades.
I was lucky enough to meet Abbas a little over ten years ago at the photojournalism festival Visa pour l’image. Here’s the story as it appeared in Australian magazine Professional Photography along with one of my portraits of Abbas:
AN ENCOUNTER WITH ABBAS
As I arrive to meet Iranian photojournalist Abbas at the Hotel Pams courtyard during Visa pour l’image, I find him talking in animated Farsi into his mobile phone. He soon finishes his call and explains that he is booked to give an interview to Iranian radio in half an hour. It is hardly surprising that he is so sought after. Abbas is an elder statesman of photojournalism, and as a full member of Magnum he is, to borrow a term from the American mafia, a made man of the photographic community. Furthermore, this year he has a new book and exhibition to promote. Although his career spans more than four decades, he shows no signs of slowing down. We grab a coffee at the bar – a triple espresso for Abbas – and get down to it.
It soon becomes apparent that this will be a challenging interview. Abbas, a stout man with a thick graying goatee, bushy eyebrows and an accent more Parisian than Persian, is an intensely private man. His single name byline hints at this. While he states that his family emigrated to France in the early 1950’s when he was “six or seven”, efforts to extract further biographical information are politely batted away. For instance, when I attempt to ask him of his photographic beginnings, whether he was born into an artistic family, he employs his stock answer, “I was born a photographer.” When I press him, he continues, “I have been a professional photographer since 1968. I say I was born a photographer so I don’t have to answer all those personal questions. I was born a photographer.”
He allows me to take his portrait, but only on the condition that his face be obscured in some way, so he cannot recognized in the street. This causes some amusement to West Australian photographer Bohdan Warchomidj who is passing by our table. “What are you talking about Abbas? You’re famous!” he cackles.
I am more successful in my conversation about the theme that has dominated his work for the last three decades - religion.
“What I’m interested in is not religion as such, but the political, social, psychological aspects of religion: the horrors people commit in the name of God. This is what I try to photograph.”
Abbas’ canon includes a book on militant Islam, Allah O Akbar [1994], Faces of Christianity [2000] and a study of Judaism, The Children of Abraham [2006]. “I don’t know why I’m fascinated by religion,” he says, “maybe it’s because I don’t understand it.”
Abbas’ “purely professional” interest in religion has taken him to all corners of the globe to observe a multitude of cultures and traditions. His latest book In Whose Name? is no exception. The photographer travelled to 17 different countries over 7 years as he investigated the Islamic world in the shadow of the September 11 terror attacks.
“The reason why I started the project was that I was in Siberia, working on [a project on] paganism when 9/11 happened. I saw it happening live although I was eighteen time zones away. It was an extraordinary event, so I wanted to do something about it. I thought I might as well cover the aftershock of the event all over the Islamic world, trying not maybe to explain why 9/11 happened, but give people maybe some elements of why this has happened. Basically, that’s what it’s about. What has happened to the minds of Muslims that makes 9/11 possible.”
The book’s title – itself a question rather than a statement – summarises the photographer’s intention – to engage in dialogue with his audience. Additionally, the work represents a dialogue between Abbas and his subject. Quotes from his diaries, which separate the various chapters of his photo essay, are also peppered with question marks. However, when I ask Abbas as to whether the project led him to draw any conclusions of his own, he is guarded.
“People can draw their own conclusions – I hope I’ve given them enough elements. I hope I’ve been fair. I’m not saying objective, because I’m very a subjective photographer. I have photographs of people praying in the book – it’s about their relationship with God – and [therefore it’s] about Islamism, why you have Islamism and Jihad, the terrorist side, the holy war – the people who blow themselves up every day around the world… I hope I’ve been successful. You’ll have to tell me!”
This year at Visa pour l’image, Abbas’ exhibition showed the various stages of the creative process of In Whose Name? – from contact sheets to tentative layouts. Always interested in how his work is perceived, he took special interest in the comments book at his exhibition space.
“I love to see the way people look at my photos,” he confides. “Yesterday at my exhibition somebody wrote some very critical notes.” [They claimed] “You’ve been taking the same pictures for forty years,” and I thought, “No, no you’re wrong – I’ve been taking the same photographs for 41 years.” Basically a picture that I took in ’68 is taken the same way [as I photograph today]. The composition is basically the same. I’m very proud of not having changed. I renew myself not in style, but in content.”
The catalyst for Abbas’ fascination with religious identity was his coverage of the Iranian Revolution, which lasted from 1978 to 1980. Although he was no stranger to conflict and social upheaval, it was the first time that he had returned to Iran since his childhood. As a member of the Sipa press agency (1971 – 1973) and then Gamma (1974 – 1980), his resumé already included wars in Biafra and Vietnam and apartheid in South Africa. Nevertheless, his work in Iran represented a career breakthrough and culminated in his first book and his entry into Magnum Photos.
Before the revolution, Abbas had been eyeing the situation closely, biding his time.
“I knew something would happen. It was obvious. You can’t expect a religious revolution and I didn’t expect a popular revolution. Then suddenly it happened. Basically all you had to do was go down into the streets and photograph what was happening.”
Although Abbas did not intend to return to live in Iran, he was, like many of his countrymen, swept up in the fervor of change. As he recollects in his latest book, “The two years […] when I covered the Iranian Revolution were the only time I didn’t feel at odds with my country’s masters.”
He became disenchanted with the new regime of religious hardliners when they began to adopt the same injustices meted out by the hated Shah such as secret trails and summary executions. When he found it no longer possible to work with the same freedom of movement he had previously enjoyed, he returned to Paris. Then the Iran-Iraq war broke out.
“I wanted to rush back, but my friends told me not to. I’d just published a book Iran, la révolution confisquée – the confiscated revolution - and of course that didn’t go very well with the authorities. I didn’t go back for another 17 years.”
In the interim, Abbas worked on a project in Mexico from 1983 to 1986, which became the book Return to Mexico. His approach was typically cerebral. He claims he approached the project like a novelist with a camera rather than an essayist. The work also had a idiosyncratic anthropological slant. Abbas observed truths and connections not readily visible to superficial eyes. In particular, he was drawn to “the invisible links” between Iran and Mexico – two countries built on ancient civilizations decimated by foreign invaders, whose violence gave birth to original cultures, revolutions and a “shared fascination with the cult of death.”
His next book, compiled over a seven year period from 1987 to 1994 was Allah O Akbar, which he viewed as a logical progression from his work in Iran. “I knew the shockwaves of the revolution weren’t going to stop at the border,” he says.
This study of Islamic fundamentalism was seized at the Iran Book Fair and subsequently banned upon its release. Regardless, Abbas returned to Iran in 1997 and averaged around two trips annually over the next eight years. This time his focus was on “youth, women and artists,” people who he believes will bring change to Iran. Although he was not prevented from working, the Iranian authorities did, from time to time, let him know that he was being observed.
In December 2006, two months after what is his last Iranian visit to date, Abbas was denounced on the front page of a national newspaper with strong links to the country’s fundamentalist rulers. The article titled A Black Camera accused him of trying to turn Muslims away from “the true religion” by focusing on negative aspects. In In Whose Name? Abbas poses the question: “Shouldn’t I take it as a compliment, an indication that I’ve got the focus right?” One can assume that he already knows the answer.
As for the ban on his books:
“It’s like the foreign television that is available via satellite. You cannot stop motivated and intelligent people from knowing what is happening in the world.”
Abbas is currently working on a book on Buddhism and only recently made the switch from film to digital for reasons of practicality and cost. He insists, however that a camera is merely a tool.
“When people ask me, “Which camera do you use?” I say, “My eyes, my brain, my heart…”
And as for any wisdom he would bestow on younger photographers?
“It’s very simple. I would advise them to buy a good pair of walking shoes and fall in love and that’s it. When you’re in love, you’re not in a normal state – you see things differently. And a good pair of walking shoes because photography is about walking!”
Feel free to check out my other site www.davetacon.com
