1947 : Four photographers had a vision
Magnum Photos arguably is the world’s most famous and influential photographic agency. London’s Chris Beetles Gallery’s current exhibition Magnum 62 is a celebration of this diverse and distinct photographic co-operative and brings to light the 62 magnum member’s individual, powerful visions. These influential photographers have chronicled and interpreted the world and its people, events, issues and personalities for more than six decades.
The photographers Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David Seymour founded Magnum Photos in 1947, two years after the Second World War ended. It was a time marked by a sense of surprise that it had survived all the horror and destruction, as well as by a curiosity of discovering what is still out there. The four founders of Magnum Photos understood that the media would change drastically over the years ahead and the Magnum agency was their attempt to challenge the monopolisation of the photographic industry by the magazines of the day. At Capa’s suggestion, the four set up a co-operative agency, one which was wholly owned by its photographers – a radical departure from the conventional practice of other agencies. Initially based in Paris and New York, Magnum Photos has been the world’s longest surviving artist co-operative as well as a dominant force in photojournalism, one which changed intellectual property and copyright forever.
The old adage that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is proven to be an understatement by the exhibition Magnum 62, which features a single photograph by each of its 62 members. In the early days of the agency, many areas of the world had not yet been documented and photographers had the freedom to choose to go almost anywhere they wanted – in those days, images had a significant impact on the public’s consciousness. With the increase of magazines, newspapers and other printed media as well as simpler reproduction techniques, photography was about to change journalism completely and the image’s impact was to increase even more.
Magnum’s first step was to divide the world into flexible areas of coverage – David Seymore in Europe, Cartier-Bresson in India and the Far East, Rodger in Africa and Capa in the USA. Apart from their belief that a photographer had to possess a point of view in their work which transcended simply formulaic recording of issues and stories, they also wanted Magnum photographers to have the freedom and flexibility of selecting many of their own stories and the duration spent on working on them, rather than being restricted by the dictation of a publication or editorial staff. Cartier-Bresson told Byron Dobell from Popular Photography magazine in 1957 that:
“We often photograph events that are called ‘news’, but some tell the news step by step in detail as if making an accountant’s statement. Such news and magazine photographers, unfortunately, approach an event in a most pedestrian way. It’s like reading the details of the Battle of Waterloo by some historian: so many guns were there, so many men were wounded – you read the account as if it were an itemization. But on the other hand, if you read Stendhal’s Charterhouse of Parma, you’re inside the battle and you live the small, significant details… Life isn’t made of stories that you cut into slices like an apple pie. There’s no standard way of approaching a story. We have to evoke a situation, a truth. This is the poetry of life’s reality.”
Born in 1908 in France, Henri Cartier-Bresson is one of the most influential and significant photographers of the 20th century. Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, 1932 is the oldest photograph in the exhibition Magnum 62, an image taken right at the beginning of his career. The image is a triumph of technique and showcased the new technology of Cartier-Bresson’s camera of choice, the Leica. The image is an exquisite example of his concept of ‘The Decisive Moment’, which he described in an interview with The Washington Post in 1957:
‘Photography is not like painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera.
That is the moment the photographer is creative. Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever’.
Bresson’s precise eye for design and the composition of forms, his working methods, and his articulate comments about the theory of photography made him a legendary figure in the history of photography. His work has been published in the world’s major magazines – but his lasting contribution to the art is the far-reaching influence his work continues to have on contemporary photojournalists and photographers.
Whenever the name of the Hungarian-born photographer Robert Capa, born in 1913, is brought up in relation to photography, one holds his breath as Capa, a war and conflict photographer, is renowned for his ability to capture great horror with his camera. Landing of the American troops on Omaha Beach, Normandy, France, 6 June, 1944 is the title of Robert Capa’s photograph featured in Magnum 62 – one of his most famous photographs depicting a scene of the Second World War which earned him an international reputation. Capa’s description of the process of taking this legendary photograph is a reminder of how much the profession and practice of photojournalism has changed since:
‘I finished my pictures, and the sea was cold in my trousers. Reluctantly, I tried to move away from my steel pole, but the bullets chased me back every time. Fifty yards ahead of me, one of our half-burnt amphibious tanks stuck out of the water and offered me my next cover … Between floating bodies I reached it, paused for a few more pictures, and gathered my guts for the last jump to the beach. The slant of the beach gave us some protection, so long as we lay flat from the machine-gun and rifle bullets, but the tide pushed us against the barbed wire, where the guns were enjoying open season … I took out my second Contax camera and began to shoot without raisin my head.’ – Robert Capa
In the early 1950s Capa travelled to Southeast Asia to cover the First Indochina War for Life magazine. There, Capa tragically suffered an early death when stepping on a landmine. It is said that he has died with a camera in his hand.
Born in England in 1908, George William A Rodger pursued a career as a self-taught photographer and his images of the London Blitz brought him to the attention of Life magazine, for which he worked as a war correspondent from 1939 until 1945. However, after having extensively covered the Second World War, Rodger felt the need to explore a subject other than violence and horror and travelled to Africa and the Middle East, where he focused on human rituals, particularly on the relationship between people, nature, and wildlife. It was on these travels in 1949 where he shot his famous image, one of a series commissioned by National Georgraphic magazine. The Nubas in Kordofan, Sudan, 1949, is featured in this exhibition.
David Seymour, sometimes known as “Chim”, is the fourth of the founding fathers of Magnum Photos and became the agency’s president after Capa’s death.
Born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1911, Seymour became known as one of the most influential, passionate and engaged photojournalists of the 20th century. Seymour witnessed war on many occasions but rather than concentrate solely on the battlefield, he turned his eye on the individual and human side of war, showing us the aftermaths in the people. In addition to recording conflict and war, he produced other major stories across Europe; he was also a trusted and truly outstanding portraitist of Hollywood film stars. Sophia Loren, Rome, Italy, taken in 1956 and featured in Magnum 62, is one such portrait. Unfortunately Seymour’s also died early whilst travelling near the Suez Canal, where he was shot by Egyptian machine-gun fire in 1956.
What started as the vision of four outstanding photographers of the 20th century – legendary figures in the history of photography – quickly became a successful co-operation which has, for the past 65 years, contributed thousands of images to the world. Its members have untilised innovative photography, integrity, and bravery to cover many of the significant events during its existence.
To be continued.
By Anna-Maria Pfab
Magnum 62
until 19 May 2012
Chris Beetles Fine Photography
3-5 Swallow Street
London
W1B 4DE
Telephone: 020 7434 4319
