November 1, 2007
Photographing the Photographers
Peter Marlow
USA. New York. The Magnum Annual General Meeting. The annual member's meeting took place at Milk Studios over a period of four days. © Peter Marlow/Magnum Photos
My first direct experience of Magnum was on June 24 1982, when I turned up in Paris for my first photographer's meeting, (once a year all the members get together, alternating between New York, Paris and London to decide policy for the year ahead, and look at new portfolios presented to the group). I had been voted as a Nominee, the summer before, on the first rung of the Magnum membership ladder.
Round the table were some most well known photojournalists of the twentieth century, but on the table was basically a carpet of Leicas and other assorted cameras, and as the meeting went on people began photographing each other.
I felt more than uneasy when I finally had the nerve to join in, but it is something that I have done ever since at subsequent meetings over the years. Rene Burri has traditionally been the one to shoot a group portrait each year, an event that is always full of fun as Rene tries to dash into the shot as the delayed action setting ticks away.
I was always rather frustrated by the lighting conditions, which are normally difficult, and in my first meeting as President in London 1991, I set up two large film lights across the large table determined that this was going to be the best-lit Magnum meeting ever. It all went well until on the third day Philip Jones Griffiths started fiddling with one of the lighting stands and it came crashing down fusing the whole system.
The pictures here were all taken this year in June 2007, at Milk Studios in New York, and were my way of passing some of the time during four days of intensive and sometimes difficult discussions. They are all shot on real film, using a 6x6 Mamiya camera, and with the occasional help of a chair for the camera to rest on for long exposures.
Links:
» Peter Marlow's Website
» Peter Marlow's Magnum Portfolio
» Peter Marlow's story USA. Magnum AGM 2007
Published on the Magnum Blog on November 1, 2007
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