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PHOTO ISSUE EXTRA - THOMAS HÖPKER’S DDR-ARCHIVE


Thomas Höpker has seen, experienced and shot it all—from Lepra quarantines to American Army bootcamps. He is not only one of Germany's most influential photojournalists in the history of the trade, he's also the first German to ever enter the sacred Magnum agency and become its leader from 2003 until 2007. When Germany was still seperated, he was one of the very few and actually the first journalists from the West who was given the permission to enter and document East Germany (it was strictly supervised, of course). He hated this work and only recently revisited his archives from this time to put together a GDR-photobook that will be published soon…

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VICE: When you were 14 years old you started earning some extra money by taking pictures of your teachers for 25 cents…
Thomas Höpker: Wow, you're well prepared. Yes indeed. I did that to get a little extra money on the side.

You're one of the most influential photojournalists from Germany. How did that happen?
My grandfather gave me a plate camera when I was 15 and I used to develop films and print pictures in my mother's kitchen just to get a feeling for it. When I finished school I had a strong urge to become a photographer.

So what did your dad think of that?
He wanted me to do something decent and not like join the Circus or something. When I went to school I started earning money with my photography, and after a couple of years the Münchener Stadtillustrierte hired me as a staff photographer. I used to be a layman and I still am.

OK and what happened after that?
Looking back, these were the most interesting years for sure. I moved from Munich to Hamburg and started working for a magazine called Kristall. They sent me all over the world. One time my boss came in and said they wanted to do a big story about the US and then I ended up driving through the US for like three months. I took pictures of whatever I found interesting and my colleague wrote about whatever he found interesting and then they published everything we brought back in five or six photo stories.

That sounds awesome…
Sure, we had lots of freedom and were very naïve back then. Our assignments always went into one direction: look around and take pictures of whatever you like and then in the end we'll have a pretty photo essay. They always said things like, "Stay as long as you like and get a helicopter if need be."

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Well yeah, but you didn't bring home just landscape photos, but also actually pretty interesting stories.
These things naturally evolved. Either we came up with something ourselves or we were around different places, heard of something and went there. When there was a story im Egypt to be told, we went to Egypt.

Ha, I can't imagine anything like this nowadays.
It was a really good time. In the mid-60s our task was to explore the world for our readers. People didn't have a lot of money, mass tourism was yet to be invented, and TV was far from being developed. The magazines were people's gateway to the world.

Tell me a story from one of your trips. 
I really like this one story with Muhammad Ali. They sent me to London with reporter Eva Windmüller, who later became my wife, to meet Cassius Clay. He had just changed his name to Muhammad Ali. German magazine Stern said he was an interesting man and that we should do a story about him. So we applied the technique of tagging along--that means we stayed with people as long as they could put up with it. We started in London and hung out with him for two days. His next stop was Chicago. We followed him and became like his pets. After a while he stopped being aware of us and that is gold for a photographer. One time we went home to Philadelphia with him, another time back to Chicago. That's where we took the photo in the bakery. You know that one?

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You mean the black and white one in the doughnut place?
Yes, we were in Chicago and Ali had a driver to go around town. He had this fancy limousine and he stopped to go into the bakery to buy doughnuts. That was pretty odd, because at this time he was training and he was only supposed to eat meat and steak. So I was wondering. On the way back from practice he went there another time and when he went for a third time, I followed him into the store. That's when I realized it wasn't about the doughnuts, but the girl in the bakery. It was years later when I found out that she became his third wife. That was a very nice photo story.

What defines a good photojournalist work in your eyes?
Robert Capa once said, "If the picture isn't good enough, you weren't close enough." Creating intimacy towards people and situations is key. Capa said this about war photography, but actually you can apply it to everything. You have to come really close to people and be really up for it. You don't get any good pictures when you don't have an opinion of your own. Things start getting interesting when you love a topic or hate it.

What's a topic you hated?
The GDR. That was a complex that didn't make us happy at all. There were critical situations and our removed stance on things created pictures that were evil and ironic, pictures that transport an opinion. Being a good photojournalists means having an opinion of your own. Stark objectiveness is not enough; you need a personal point of view, no matter whether that's positive or negative. Well and that it has to be technically flawless is mandatory anyways.

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Especially when you shoot a starving community in Ethiopia or report on the consequences of war in Guatemala. Doesn't that proximity fuck you over?
It can be pretty dangerous. James Nachtwey, for example, reported from the craziest war and exposed himself to the worst diseases you can think of. That's not a piece of cake for sure. He's a maniac. He always wants to get closer and closer. I was never big on the war reportage. They never sent me to any actual war zone, but I was definitely in similar situations. I'm generally more of a quiet photographer who's documenting the backgrounds.

Sounds just like the Magnum philosophy that was defined by Capa and Cartier Bresson.
Yeah, we had two directions at Magnum. Capa, the daredevil and adventurer, the war reporter and fanatic. He had to go wherever things were exploding. And then there was Henri, the noble Parisian gentleman, who knew the art scene and who insisted on the right proportions and the scenery. They got into a lot of fights, but that was a good and healthy conflict that made sure both sides were covered, the fast news coverage and the aesthetic--ideally in one picture.

From 2003 until 2007 you were the president of Magnum. What did that mean for you?
That basically implies a lot of crisis management. They don't care about business a lot and that's not an easy thing to start with. We'll have our annual meeting soon and we'll definitely have a lot of heated conversations there about where we want to go and what our goals are. Then we'll go our for a couple of drinks and everything will be all right again. We've known each other for like ten years. It's a wonder pretty much that this group is still around and functioning. Magnum is a pretty special bunch.

I'd say so.

MARTINA KIX