Tokyo photo night


The greatest hindrance to photojournalism is colour.

Magnum photographer Philip Jones Griffiths

The Welshman took an hour to show some of the pictures taken throughout his career, followed by an enlightening question and answer session. He is well known for his images from the Vietnam war, which seems to have been a turning point in his personal and professional life. Some interesting questions came up, amongst them working style (he does not seem to be a great fan of Nachtwey) and the question about why all his images are in black & white. The answer to this was brief and, of course, subjective. He was also referring to a piece called “The curse of colour” he had written for a Swiss magazine, which I cannot seem to find online.

During the session I realised that the technique and working style is not that different from being out doing so-called street photography. Approaching subjects, pre-focussing and other techniques are completely identical. And why should they not be? The only difference is that these guys are paid and work on a story of sorts, whereas we are just out there for our own motives.