Every Friday, for 10 consecutive weeks, The Eye of Photography is publishing one of the 34 portraits of war photographers taken by Alizé Le Maoult. This week, we honor Yannis Behrakis, from Greece.
Yannis Behrakis is a Greek photojournalist born in 1960. He is the head of the Reuters office in Greece. For 25 years he has traveled throughout the world, photographing migrants and witnessing massive displacements of population in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Afghanistan. In 2016, Yannis Behrakis received the Pulitzer Prize for Reuters. He won also a World Press Photo in 2015, as well as many other international prestigious awards.
I met Yannis Behrakis, the first time I have attended the “Prix Bayeux-Calvados des correspondants de guerre” in October 2013. I did not know him. Patrick Chauvel introduced me to him in the yard of the hotel Le lion d’Or. We were going to the lunch in honor of James Nachtwey, who was the president of the jury and whom I wanted to portray. Yannis offered me to drive me there. On the road, we sympathized. Later I discovered his work, which touches me so much since then. I love the precision of his compositions, the depth of his photography: they’re so human. He covered the former Yugoslavia conflict so he could be part of my series of portraits Sarajevo Generation. He agreed on it. I found a wall which colors of the stones were waking up the surrounding grey of the day. It was cold. His blue-green-grey look, according to the light, had a rare intensity. With a bit of sadness in the eyes… An autumnal portrait. We saw each other again in Perpignan this year, with a certain joy. And this month, three years after, again in Bayeux, I wanted to take another portrait of him. After lunch, I found a wall with three horseshoes. A sign? Yannis just learnt he was the recipient of prizes. A very rare double award: the photo prize and the public prize, which both awarded his work about the migrants, « the persecuted » as he called them, who have reached his native country, Greece, after an odyssey of thousands of kilometers. What a beautiful soul. Thank you Yannis.
In a few words, Yannis Behrakis explains the choice of this photograph that for him symbolizes war: “This picture symbolizes the unconditional and universal love of a father for his daughter and the passion for life and survival. The picture carries a very simple yet powerful message of hope. While covering conflicts for over 25 years, I always try to find positive messages in the ugly and chaotic reality of war.”
Alizé Le Maoult
Alizé Le Maoult, Through their eyes…
From October 1 to December 31, 2016
Musée de la Grande Guerre
Rue Lazare Ponticelli
77100 Meaux, France
