JOIN USMartine Franck believed that the wonder of photography lay in capturing the surprises. Giridhar Khasnis profiles the documentary and portrait photographer
In an interview in 2008 with art critic and award-winning author John Berger, Magnum photographer Martine Franck was asked where would she like to be buried? “I have never really wanted to think about where I am going to be buried, but now that you ask me, I think I want to be cremated and my ashes spread under a beautiful tree,” replied Franck. “I like the idea of being recycled into the earth — but not right away please!”
When she died on August 16, 2012 in Paris after a battle with cancer, Franck was 74.
Announcing her demise, award-winning Italian photographer and president of Magnum Photos, Alex Majoli wrote, “Martine was not only an incredibly talented photographer, she was also a dear friend and colleague to us, and an inspiration to many. Magnum has lost a point of reference, a lighthouse, and one of our most influential and beloved members with her death. Her wisdom, wit and intelligence will be missed immensely by all of us.”
Franck was buried in Cimetiere de Montjustin, the cemetery which was also the last resting place of her husband, Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 – 2004), who was an influential photographer, co-founder of Magnum Photos, and proponent of ‘the decisive moment’.
Born in Antwerp to a Belgian banker and his British wife, Franck spent her childhood in the United States and England. Her father was an amateur art collector and a distinguished yachtsman who raced in two Olympic Games as captain in the 6-metre class. Franck studied art history at the University of Madrid, and later at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris. She turned to photography using her cousin’s Leica camera when she went to China in 1963.
Special moments
Sticking to Leica all through her life, Franck developed a flourishing career as freelance photographer working in Paris for Time-Life, The New York Times and French Vogue. In a later interview she revealed how her interest in photography had begun. “I was painfully shy and found talking to people difficult; a camera in hand gave me a function, a reason to be somewhere: a witness, but not an actor.”
In 1966, Franck met Henri Cartier-Bresson, 30 years her senior; they married in 1970. She became a full member of Magnum in 1983, one of the few women photographers to do so at the prestigious photographic agency. In 2003, she, along with her husband and daughter, set up the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson. Besides organising exhibitions and other events, the foundation also provides HCB awards to talented photographers, every two years.
In her long career spanning nearly five decades, Franck not only developed a lyrical approach to landscapes, but also documented daily life in Paris. She also successfully assembled a portfolio of portraits of famous authors and artists, which included the likes of Belarusian painter Marc Chagall, Swiss sculptor Diego Giocometti, French filmmaker Agnes Varda, Polish-French modern artist Balthus, photographer Robert Doisneau, and her own husband, Cartier-Bresson.
What, however, seemed closest to her heart was capturing intimate moments of anonymous poor, marginalised groups and elderly people. Like her husband, she too had a special place for Asia, a continent she revisited for weeks at a time. Among others, her fascinating images of children in Tibet and young lamas in India and elsewhere brought her fame and widespread appreciation.
One particular photograph, ‘Tulku Khentrol Lodro Rabsel with his tutor Llagyel in the Shechen monastery, Bodnath, Nepal, 1996,’ showing a young monk with his elderly coach, became iconic. The dramatic element of the picture came from a bird perched delicately upon the senior monk’s head, much to the delight of the young student. “The pigeon was already in the room, just sort of flitting around,” recalled Franck. “I was there for an hour, just sitting quietly in a corner, observing. I never imagined for a second that the bird would perch on the monk’s head. That’s the wonder of photography — you try and capture the surprises. I was in the right place at the right time, with the right lens on... I don’t look at my photographs very often, but this picture always makes me happy. It was just such a perfect moment... The picture is somehow a symbol of peace, and of young people getting on with old people.”
Another photograph — the poolside image at Le Brusc, Provence (1976) — is often referred to as Franck’s single most perfect image. “I remember running to get the image while changing the film, quickly closing down the lens as the sunlight was so intense,” recalled Franck. “That’s what makes photography so exciting.”
Concern & compassion
Franck believed that a photograph was a fragment of time that would never return. “A photograph isn’t necessarily a lie, but nor is it the truth. It’s more of a fleeting, subjective impression. What I like most about photography is the moment that you can’t anticipate: you have to be constantly watching for it, ready to welcome the unexpected.”
Franck’s work was exhibited across the world; and in 2005, she was made a chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest honour. A gentle, modest and generous person, Franck came to be known as an outstanding artist with a compassionate eye.
“Compassion is something I have learned from studying Buddhism,” she said. “I hope I have compassion; one doesn’t always, not when you don’t like people or don’t like situations, but when I photograph someone I try to put myself in their place.”
Franck liked to photograph people who have been forgotten from society. “I have done a lot on old age, quite a lot on exiles. It’s like with the Tibetans: you don’t want them to be forgotten, you don’t want their culture to disappear, you don’t want them to lose their roots... The women in India that I have been photographing, I have absolutely nothing in common with, but at the same time I feel a deep concern about their way of living, their way of surviving, their way of protesting. It’s an identification, a way of identifying yourself with the person you are photographing.”
HCB Award 2013
The Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson recently announced the HCB Award for 2013. The winner of the award, French photographer Patrick Faigenbaum (b.1954), who will receive a purse of 35,000 Euros, was chosen for his ongoing project on Kolkata.
“My interest in India goes back to a first visit in 1995,” says Faigenbaum, who discovered India to be a very forceful country. Acknowledging that the country has changed a great deal since then, he says that he preferred photographing Kolkata as against more dynamic cities like Mumbai or Bangalore. “The choice of Kolkata allows me to explore the historical layers and show how they are combined or interwoven in a mosaic-like image.”
Specifically, Faigenbaum’s project would look at the home and neighbourhood of artist Shreyasi Chatterjee, whose work the Paris-born photographer admires. “As a whole, the images will constitute both a portrait of this artist in her family and professional settings, and a free description of her larger urban environment. In this way, I intend to produce a complex image of one region of the Indian subcontinent which renders both its historical depth and its most vivid features.”