Afterimage Magazine
[Volume 31, #6]

Interview with Chris Steele-Perkins
by Bruno Chalifour

Chris Steele-Perkins was born in Rangoon, Burma, in 1947. His father took him back to Britain where he did most of his schooling. After graduating in psychology and while he was lecturing, he started free-lancing in photography. Joining the Exit group in 1975, he went on documenting British life as it was experienced by the under-privileged in inner-cities. The black and white photographs would ultimately become an exhibition as well as a book, Survival Programmes, published by the Open University in 1982. In 1976 he joined the young French photo-agency VIVA as he was leaving behind the various aspects of British subcultures and traveling more and more frequently (although his first book The Teds was published in 1979). He started to photograph the consequences of war and conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Central America. He joined Magum as a full member in 1982, won the Tom Hopkinson award for British Journalism in 1988, the Oskar Barnack Prize and the Robert Capa Gold Medal in 1989, and finally the World Press Photo Award (category “daily life”) in 2000. His latest projects are more intimate as illustrated by Echoes (Trolley Ltd, 2003), a book of personal photographs Steele Perkins took in 2001.

Bruno Chalifour: After, in the 1970s, such an interesting project as Survival Programmes with the Exit Photography Group (Nicholas Battye, Paul Trevor, and yourself), one deeply rooted in the English documentary tradition of those days, why did you seek foreign assignments and document wars?

It was a normal evolution. I am from a middle-class background and I was for a time intrigued by the English way of life. Later, my involvement with Magnum and war photography had to do with the hard times for documentary photography. This was in the 1980s. The vehicles that used to present documentary photography, collapsed. I did not have any agenda; I wanted to know what it meant in the world to be at war.

What did you learn from that experience?

I learnt that war is a terrible thing and that I couldn’t change anything. It is also a test for yourself. I never felt that I made any of my best photographs under such circumstances. But it changed my mind. I started to photograph in a more fluid way. You don’t really know why you do these things. The pictures that mean the most to me are the ones that operate gently rather than directly, pictures that are more about how people react to, cope with a given situation. We can all create differences at some kind of level, but it is egotistic to think we can make some major changes.

What do you think of the evolution in the media coverage of foreign conflicts, the “embedded” photographers for instance?

Media management seems more sophisticated than it used to be. Regarding the phenomenon of “embedded photographers,” of course the army has more control, but I have no major objection though. Even “embedded” you can still do something interesting. Clearly it has been a major shift in the western world. Manipulating the coverage of war has become very widespread. For instances, in Africa, western photographers used to have a privileged situation, they were less likely to get killed or shot at.

What about your own photography in this context?

My photography has evolved and improved. I have gained experience but I am completely uninterested in going to war now. I feel like I have done that, that I have nothing more to contribute. I still feel I am a documentary photographer, I am still interested in the world. The camera allows me to enter other people’s lives. It is an extraordinary tool to record experiences of the world. We used to think that everything was possible through photography. I still use it to photograph and understand the way things are, to learn about the things I do not really know.

In the light of recent books by James Natchwey and other photographers of the VII agency, or even Magnum, do you think that books offer a better venue for documentary photography, especially its epitome, war photographs?

Books seemed to be a solution for documentary photography, especially after the collapse of its previous means of diffusion, mainly illustrated magazines. This was in the 1980s. As a photographer I have had a better experience of my images shown in a book format; there is less control, less editing by others. It is also an indulgence. If I did not do that, I would give up. Of course, you have to do other jobs to make money, corporate jobs that can be interesting and challenging.

What has your relation with Magnum been?

The agency helped me, especially in the management of images. Its reputation also helped. Before joining Magnum, I exclusively worked in Britain [NOTE: Steele-Perkins was an associate member of Magnum before joining it as a full member]. I became more interested in the rest of the world and Magnum provided the contacts, I benefited from other members’ experiences. Times have changed though. In order to survive, the agency has had to become more productive, generating further income from its archives, recycling pictures. The cultural projects that Magnum had have seemed to recede. You cannot find now the kind of funding that you used to.

Your current interests and projects?

I am interested in Japan and Northern England, country life around Durham, how people live there. I still want to record life and make a statement about it, including mine; and that is what my latest book Echoes published by Trolley is about. The book is a project that moves through a whole year, 2001, but do not make any judgment. There is no hierarchy of topic. I want pictures to work as pictures. Now, I’d also like to go back to Burma. I can still find more about the world and I enjoy making photographs, shaping flux into something meaningful to other people.