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 Patrick Robert, from France.
Patrick Robert, born in Algeria in 1958, a passionate about international news, has worked as a war reporter for nearly thirty years. He has covered many conflicts in Africa, Asia, the Near and Middle East as well as in Eastern Europe. He also made portraits of political figures and from the entertainment world. He was seriously wounded by gunfire in Liberia in 2003. He received a dozen of international awards, including two Visa d’Or at the Visa pour l’Image festival in Perpignan.
I met Patrick Robert through my friend reporter Katia Clarens, who brought me to Perpignan for the 20 years anniversary of Visa in 2008. I was writing a feature film with some war reporters characters and I discovered this yearly unique gathering. We had a dinner with Patrick who just won a Visa d’Or, he didn’t have the « look » of a war reporter with his navy blue blazer, we laughed so much all together. Patrick belongs in all the series of portraits I did about the war photographers. From the first one « Sarajevo 2012 » with my Polaroid 180 in black and white to this series in color shot with my Leica for the exhibition at the Great World War Museum in Meaux, France. It’s difficult to take the portrait of a friend sometimes. The first portrait was for the series « Sarajevo Generation ». We had an appointment in Bastille, the weather was uncertain and stormy, and Patrick was a in a rush. I found a wall near the Paris harbor below the Bastille monument. The light was beautiful. But I was not that very happy with the portrait. Two years later, in the early evening near the Canal St Martin, Patrick was there with his black leather jacket, a graphic wall on our way, it was the right moment.
In a few words, Patrick Robert explains the choice of his photograph that for him symbolizes war: “This farmer in Sierra Leone was a victim of the bloodthirsty rebels and Mafiosi of the ‘Revolutionary United Front’ who used his body as a propaganda tool. It was covered in inscriptions carved with a knife on his skin. His lower lip and one of his ears had been cut off. The word ‘TERROR’ inscribed across his chest. This summarized the objectives of the rebels who are known also for mutilating the hands and arms of would-be voters: to rule through chaos and oppose any attempt to reinstate the rule of law and hold elections. I focused the framing on the man’s chest in order not to weaken the message through the revulsion that these numerous mutilations would inevitably have aroused.”
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
