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Ian Berry: Yes. I’m horrified to admit it, but yes. That says something about my inability to let go, I think. I think of quitting every year and never get around to doing it. You got your start in South Africa. How did you end up there?
Well, as a young Brit, I wanted to travel. And in those days you could get assisted passages to what was formerly, and in those times still, the Commonwealth. So, you could go to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. South Africa sounded the most exciting. You know, I thought I’d be seeing lions on the streets of Johannesburg and so on.Ha.
As it happened, my family knew a photographer there who had just come back from the States assisting Ansel Adams. And he was prepared to stand as a guarantor for me for a year. I didn’t actually need a visa but you had to have someone guarantee you. So I legged it out to South Africa, and that was it really. No regrets, either – it was a very exciting time to be there. You had no real formal training in photography beyond that, did you?
College for photography really didn’t exist at that time. The best thing you could do was become somebody's apprentice, and that's what I did. I mean, he was shooting on a 4x5 and everything was lit, and so on. So it was great training, even though I realised that it wasn’t what I wanted to do.
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After I left this guy, I went to the work for the Sunday Times Group in Johannesburg. I had been there for a little while and I’d heard that a famous British editor of a very famous London-based magazine called Picture Post was coming out to edit an African magazine called Drum. I felt there was something to be learned from this guy, so I applied and got a job with them.And then, there was a national strike in South Africa – and most photographers and journalists went out to the potential hot spots, in case anything happened. I got a call about a guy having been shot in this township, called Sharpeville. When I got there everyone had turned up – a lot of international photographers, too. They were hanging outside the gates when a load of armoured cars rolled up and headed in to the township. At that time, as a white, you had to have a permit to be in an African township.We all leapt into our cars and followed in. A hundred yards in, the convoy stops and the officer in charge comes back and says, “You better get the hell out of here, or you’ll be arrested.” So, most of the cars left. Three cars stayed, including the one I was in, and we followed them for another hot mile until the guy got out again and said, “You better leave now, this is your last warning!” And the other two cars left.
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Yes. What happened was people charged the crowd. And they said that they had only fired once and that the crowd was being aggressive. Which wasn't true. In fact, I had a photograph of them re-loading automatic weapons. And of course most people were shot in the back. They kept on firing at people as they ran away. I was the only white witness and in those days, as a white your word counted more than any African's. So I gave the evidence, and fortunately the people who had been charged with the fray, the wounded, were released and let off. So even though the pictures weren’t great, they served a humanitarian purpose. And because of that, Magnum called, and the rest is history.
Well, almost. First, this guy who was starting a new agency in Paris and who had been the bureau chief of Magnum invited me to join. I was with them for a year. Then Magnum asked me to join them and of course I was flattered. And I joined. What was it like to work with Cartier-Bresson?
It was great, actually – a great education for me. He was very friendly, and he let me look at the contact books. Mark Riboud, who was another famous French photographer who was with Magnum at the time, let me, too. You can learn a lot by looking at other photographers’ contact sheets, about how they approach things and how they think. It was a pretty valuable experience.
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I’ve been working on a thing about water around the world. It’s been going on for too long because I’m sort of in need of a particular situation. I think when New Orleans happened I had just fallen off my motorcycle and broke my leg so I missed out on that. When the tsunami happened, I had done something similar and missed out on that. So, I have all the basics to finish it off but I need some natural disaster. I sailed all up and down the Yangtze, the Mekong, the Nile, the Mississippi – all of it. You know, the trouble with a project like that is you find yourself shooting the same stuff. And you need something to punch it up, to carry it. But it keeps me out of mischief. It seems like if the same problems are happening everywhere, this work might be a way to show that this is a problem that requires more attention. Have your opinions or politics been shaped at all by the work you've done?
No. I know the popular thing these days is to go to an event, situation, whatever with preconceived ideas whereas I still have this old-fashioned approach of going somewhere with an open mind. I think it was on my last trip to South Africa, when I was asked by a French magazine to do something on the farmers living just below Zimbabwe.Now, I have no love for the Afrikaner; when I was working in South Africa I was always in more danger from the police than the Africans. And of course, the Afrikaners hate the British with a passion. But I went along to shoot this story and indeed what’s happening is a lot of the farmers are either being dispossessed or killed. And no matter how you feel about them you also feel sorry for them to a degree. I went to one farm that belonged to an old woman. Her grandfather had been buried there and she'd just been dispossessed with no sort of recourse. So, I still think you have to be fairly dispassionate wherever you go and whatever you do.
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We are very different, there’s no question about it. Just think of Korea today: I worked on a book on South Korea about three years ago. The people were great; friendly and pleasant. It makes you wonder how different the people north of the border can be. I had a German wife when the Berlin Wall first opened and she would not go into the eastern zone. She seemed to think that they were some kind of wild animals. Obviously, I went to the East and the people were no different from those in the West, albeit a little poorer.To me, that's what photography is all about. The camera is such a great tool for exposing cultures as well as opening them up slightly to one another. That sounds a bit pompous but there is not much reason to become a photographer if you aren't going to try to do a little good with it. As I look at your photographs, they strike me as being in line with the idea of the decisive moment. What do you think about digital photography and the snapping of thousands of photos at once? Is that something you embrace or is it something you reject?
No, I shoot digital and I think technically it’s good. When you’re on a two or three week shoot, to be able to go back to where you’re staying and look at what you shot and know what you don’t have – I think that's great. It’s not that good when you’re on a corporate shoot. In the old days you could walk around a place for ten hours and then go back and have a good meal, relax, do anything. Now you go back and have to download a load of junk and send it off the same day. It’s a mixed blessing. But I still think you have a better chance picking that moment with digital.
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If I had any tips, I’d tip myself off. It’ll be interesting to see how Newsweek works out, because at the moment nobody is really making any money in still photography. I give these workshops, and I get asked that exact question. I fear that I can’t really answer it. I suppose if I were to be absolutely callous, I would say take up a video camera instead of a still camera. But it’s a different world. I was just asked to shoot a project in Mozambique and at the last minute they suddenly said they wanted video, as well. Up until now, I’d avoided doing that.At the end of the day, the people with real dedication and a good eye will make it. Until we do start to make money out of the web, all you can say to those people is to hang in there. But I look at the photography schools in this country, the number of people who are being churned out as photographers and I doubt one percent is going to make it in photography. They might make a living working for the police or doing stuff for the museum, weddings or god knows. Not many will make a living out of photojournalism. I think. I’d like to be wrong. Thank you, Ian. It was a pleasure speaking with you.
And to you, Christian.Click through to see more photography by Ian Berry.
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