On Thursday 8 March the new book by Luxembourg photographer Yvon Lambert will be launched at the Centre National d’Audiovisuel (CNA) in Dudelange. The project was produced by the CNA and together with the exhibition, the book will be presented during a press conference and opening reception.

On the invitation of the CNA and the photographer, I wrote the introduction for the book. An extract follows below:

The importance of appreciation: a comparative view of terres fermes

“I wanted to show the things that had to be corrected. I wanted to show the things that had to be appreciated”. – Lewis Wickes Hine

This book is like a diary, in which we do not see an objective or documentary point of view of the countryside of Luxembourg. We see a highly personal encounter of a man with a community and a way of life he doesn’t quite understand as a city dweller. Slowly but surely we follow the photographer as he gets to know the country and its people. There is no rush, and we become part of the process that the photographer goes through. Step by step, even though the man with the camera remains invisible until the final picture; we follow him as he gets closer and closer to the land and its people.

We can see different kinds of photographic approaches to the subject as Yvon Lambert leads us into feeling what he felt when he spent his time on the countryside. In the first images we are sitting in a car, as we arrive in the countryside: fields covered in snow, overviews of a hilly landscape, a tractor tucked away in the barn, the snow topped rolls of hay. Idyllic, pretty, but then suddenly we see a dead cow, tied up in rope, in the middle of a destitute field. Here, we see an approach that resembles the approach of the DATAR mission in France. This government sponsored program was aimed at documenting the changes in the French landscape. It commissioned several French and international photographers to photograph landscapes in the entire country. The project had both a political as well as a cultural aim, therefore the images went beyond mere documentary. The overall feel of the work, when it was published in two books in the late 1980s, is one of a very harsh reality. The photography itself is of a very high quality, but what it shows is not that of the most beautiful scenery of the country. That same aesthetic quality we can see in the early pages of this book: it is a harsh reality, but shown through beautiful photographs.

Yvon Lambert quietly and honestly leads us inside the countryside as he came to know it during the year that he spent there. By slowly but surely getting to know the landscape and the people he meets, we too, get close to them. Eventually we are shown the beauty of the countryside, the humanity of its people, and the sense of community and commitment they have to the place where they work and live. It does not need to be corrected, just appreciated. This is exactly what will happen once we immerse ourselves into the beautiful images in this book.

Marc Prüst

More information on the exhibition, and how to acquire this beautiful book, check the website of the CNA

The World Press Photo of the Year 2011 was announced a few days ago, and already many blogs and opinion leaders in the photographic community have had their say on the image.

From what I have read, heard, and seen the common thread is that World Press Photo has yet again awarded an iconic image, this time resembling a pieta. There is a lack of context in this image, it only refers to Western iconography, it is too beautiful to depict such misery, and all in all it is not an image really worthy of such acclaim.

Personally, I think this image rightly won the World Press Photo of the Year 2011: it shows the power and at the same the limits of photography as a means of communication.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: indeed, as I am a Western man, with a Christian background (as most people born and raised in Europe) I can only look at this image with my own eyes, and I see beauty: strong matching colours, a convincing composition, and a direct reference to Christian iconography. The image attracts my attention: the white glove holding on to the man’s neck is the highest contrasted point in the image, and directs my eye directly to where the man and the woman touch each other most intimately. The direction of the man’s left arm gives the images a dynamic: it leads the eye down to the bottom left, where the woman’s left hand glove drives our eye back to the right arm of the man, which again moves up to the first point I saw: the white-gloved hand grasping the neck. The beauty invites me into the image, makes me want to look at it, contemplate it. Here is a photographer at work who has control over the medium, and does not hide behind intellectual concepts, but simply creates an aesthetically convincing image.

Beyond this circular dynamism, I find several strong elements in the frame: the woman’s unseen eye, but visible in the small crack of her veil, the intriguing tattoo on the man’s arm, the expensive looking handbag, the other people present on the left and the right of the man, providing visual support as shadows but also giving some context to as where this scene is taking place.

Its reference to a pieta is clear, and makes the impact of the image even stronger. The Roman Catholic church for better or worse has had a decisive influence on all visual communication present in our media. Whether one likes it or not, photographs that refer to Christian iconography are effective, and communicate strongly in a large part of our world: namely that with a Christian background. It excludes important and large parts of our world, indeed, but who said photography had to be universal? And again: it is not only the pieta-link that makes this images strong.

Does the image tell the entire story of what is now known as the Arab Spring? Does it give context to what has been happening in Yemen? It obviously does not: but can a single photograph ever provide context? Can it ever effectively explain a multi-layered complex situation as the public uprising in a county such as Yemen?

Photography as a medium can be very powerful: the still image allows for contemplation, it can refer to cultural and visual traditions, and as a representation of reality it forces the viewer to think about the depiction and its meaning. As such, a successful photograph can evoke emotions, and can perhaps even explain something basic about a certain situation, as it refers to memory, and cultural, and historical situations.

But a photograph cannot and does not provide context, it cannot explain a situation, it does not show reality, a photograph does not say more than a 1000 words. A successful photograph creates order in chaos: it makes us contemplate a moment in time. The emotions you feel may need 1000 words to express them, but the photograph can ususally be explained more quickly and easier.

So, why do I think the photograph by Samuel Aranda is a worthy winner of the World Press Photo of the Year 2011 Award? Because its beauty forces the viewer to look closer to what is happening, it shows an intimate moment between two people, and it invites the viewer to read the caption. The caption then provides the context essential to a fuller understanding of the situation, and the story, actually one of the most important stories of 2011. The references that it makes to an existing visual tradition renders the impact even stronger to a large part of our world.