The Beauty And The Darkness

By Tim Anger | Friday, 28 May 2010 01:31

Poetry And Pathos

In talking about the highs and lows of his chosen career, Jack Picone recounts the toll on his life – the relationship breakdowns and the numerous times that he thought he was going to die.

“No question about it,” he says talking of the near misses, “anything from a gun being pointed to my temple and cocked, to being stuck in a trough in Armenia during the civil war and a sniper really trying to kill me with bullets going everywhere.”

He still has small pieces of shrapnel in his back and head. And it is not just the risk to personal safety that plagues photojournalists in modern warzones.

“There’s a lot more censorship then there’s ever been – a lot more governments that just won’t let you go in and see what’s going on,” Dupont said.

Regardless, asked whether, in hindsight, they’d line up again if they were starting out, the answer was an emphatic “yes” from both of them, albeit with a laugh from Picone, recognising how it must sound.

Picone calls the conflict of death and life inherent before his lens “the beauty and the darkness”. Talking about the death and unspeakable horror as only someone who has had such intimate experience of it could, Picone said that “even in those situations, there is a poetry and pathos... in death and dying. It sounds like an odd thing to say, but there is a strange beauty as well”.

The Future

At the Sydney workshop a question was asked about the increasing diminution of photojournalistic budgets, opportunities and paid assignments. What would it mean if there were no opportunities in the future to do what you’ve done?

“My first thought was that this would be a tragedy of enormous proportions,” Jack Picone replied. “It’s not until you go to these really dangerous places and you see people caught in the crossfire or in between warring factions, that you know they have to have a voice. It’s the last thing that they have left. They have been stripped bare of everything else.” Stephen Dupont added, “You feel that you have a very important and responsible role in this world”.

His advice to those who might aspire to such a role is, “To be honest and to make sure what you’re showing is accurate – you have the potential to make things happen and change events”.

Awards

With serious photographers, any talk of awards can be a little prickly. And when you’ve ‘made it’ like Picone and Dupont, awards almost seem to conjure embarrassment. Dupont stresses that he doesn’t shoot for awards, but he admits to entering more than Picone. And he says the prize money and recognition do have value.

Regardless of the hesitancy, between them they have won some of the most prestigious awards available to documentary photographers. Picone’s achievements include World Press Photo awards, Photographer of the Year (USA) and the Fifty Crows Award for documentary photography.

While Dupont has won a Robert Capa Gold Medal citation from the Overseas Press Club of America, a Bayeux War Correspondent’s Prize and first places in the World Press Photo Awards, Pictures of the Year International, the Australian Walkely Awards and the Leica/CCP Documentary Award. In 2007 Dupont was awarded the W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography for his ongoing work in Afghanistan.

“Because of who this man was and how he inspired me,” Dupont considers this was his proudest achievement in photography. Subsequently, he has recently been awarded the 2010 Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Workshops

Jack Picone started running photographic courses almost a decade ago, providing training to industry, foundations, NGOs and independent aspiring photographers, partly in response to the changing media landscape and reduced paying assignments. The workshop in Sydney was the first he had staged outside of Asia and the first run jointly with Stephen Dupont.

Asked why they decided to follow this path, Dupont said, “We didn’t have anything like this when we were starting out”.

They both went on to detail the number of aspiring photographers and institutions who have contacted them over the years asking for mentoring or critiquing of work.

“People should come to the course because they want to be inspired and they want to get better at photography,” he said. Picone said the courses have a great sense of community “…once you bring people together there’s a cross-fertilisation among the students themselves and the tutors. It creates a community of like-minded people who are passionate and love photography.”

Often, according to Jack Picone, people strike up friendships as a result of the courses, keeping in contact online. He also described the pleasure of hearing from students down the track.

“Occasionally they drop me emails when they have won awards or when they’ve got an exhibition or a book happening... it’s really nice to give something back.”

And, he adds, “…the students inspire us as well”.

Tim Anger is a photographer, graphic designer and occasional writer. More of his work can be seen at www.enigmacreativemedia.com.au

Upcoming Workshops With Jack Picone and Stephen Dupont June 25 – 30: Cambodia – Angkor and Siem Reap December 6 – 11: India Varanasi and Uttar Pradesh

All courses are restricted to 16 participants. For further details contact jack@jackpicone.com or visit www.jackpicone.com