This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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About the PhotographerMagnum photographer Thomas Dworzak has documented many of this century’s most important news stories since the 1990s. At 16, Dworzak started traveling to photograph conflicts in Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and Yugoslavia. Since then, he has gone on to photograph wars in Afghanistan and Iraq post 9/11, the revolutions in the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine. After graduating from Robert-Schuman Gymnasium, Cham (specializing in English, French, and History) he left Germany, always combining his travels and attempts to become a photographer with studying languages: Spanish in Avila, Czech in Prague, Russian in Moscow. During the 90s, Dworzak lived in Georgia, exploring the people, culture, and conflicts in the Caucasus, which resulted in the book, Kavkaz in 2010. Significant projects include a several-month assignment in Afghanistan for The New Yorker, where he discovered studio portraits of the Taliban. This became his first book, Taliban. Meanwhile, images taken during his many assignments in Iraq, most of which were shot for TIME Magazine, were used to create his next book: M*A*S*H* IRAQ. In Feldpost (2013 – 2018), he photographed the “memory” of WWI in more than 80 countries, producing 1568 “postcards” (one for every day of the war). It was completed on 11/11/2018, 100 years after the end of the conflict. Dworzak is also a keen curator, with a particular interest in digital culture. His work mining Instagram memes under various hashtags—ranging from animals dressed as the pope to the aftermath of the Boston marathon bombing‚—has resulted in 20 sketchbooks compiled of his findings. |
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Truth in Photography: There’s something about your work that is gravely serious on one hand. But, in some of your more recent work, the work you've done with Memes and other things, it's going in a slightly different direction. You made a comment that “I like the fact that I am not in control, that the photographs are what happens, rather than the result only of the decision I make.” Could you talk a little bit about your process?
Thomas Dworzak: There is a sort of a shift in how I’ve approached things, but I mean, I'm a dead bones, traditional photojournalist when it comes to my core photography, how I used to cover conflicts or how I used to go about stories. I'm trying to be very raw in my photography. I don't want to be manneristic or anything. I've never tried to change my photography. I try to take what we call “good pictures,” but I haven't developed in that sense. The way I go about photography is, I try to go to a place, get acquainted, get absorbed, get into it, hang out. I think it's in a very classic way, but then what I'm trying to do afterwards is how I put it together. For me it was very important that I did the M*A*S*H Iraq book where I used film stills from the movie, which gave a layer of doubt to what I was doing. I would photograph the subtitles of the M*A*S*H series. Basically, in the end, that’s what was left of my coverage of the Iraq war, for me it is M*A*S*H. What I have to say about it is this combination of film stills and subtitles (some of the texts are more important than the pictures on the stills) combined with classic reportage photography.
Thomas Dworzak: There is a sort of a shift in how I’ve approached things, but I mean, I'm a dead bones, traditional photojournalist when it comes to my core photography, how I used to cover conflicts or how I used to go about stories. I'm trying to be very raw in my photography. I don't want to be manneristic or anything. I've never tried to change my photography. I try to take what we call “good pictures,” but I haven't developed in that sense. The way I go about photography is, I try to go to a place, get acquainted, get absorbed, get into it, hang out. I think it's in a very classic way, but then what I'm trying to do afterwards is how I put it together. For me it was very important that I did the M*A*S*H Iraq book where I used film stills from the movie, which gave a layer of doubt to what I was doing. I would photograph the subtitles of the M*A*S*H series. Basically, in the end, that’s what was left of my coverage of the Iraq war, for me it is M*A*S*H. What I have to say about it is this combination of film stills and subtitles (some of the texts are more important than the pictures on the stills) combined with classic reportage photography.
TiP: What is reportage photography? Magnum obviously has a long history in that realm and in defining what that is. Robert Capa once said that truth is the best propaganda, but the question is, what is truth in photography or is there truth in photography?
Dworzak: I would not think about truth. I think it's utterly pretentious. It would be wrong to say this is truth. I'm trying in a way to question what I'm doing. I don't do it in the straight photography I'm taking. I don't use a flash. I don't use any distortions. That's my limitations I put on it because that's how I define it. But I would also then put into question, yes, this is the point I chose. This comes out of a whole sequence of why I was there. The other pictures on the contact sheet could give it another context.
TiP: Do you feel you're bearing witness? When you've done new stories, what do you hope your photographs communicate to the viewer?
Dworzak: Maybe a questioning. I don't want to totally create mayhem and confusion, utterly. But if it's complicated enough that people ask themselves, “What's actually– What else is going on there?” They look further. They try to look at something else. They try to ask something else. I would not want to have the one picture that's the answer to everything. And God forbid, that would be wrong.
TiP: I think you're absolutely right, but we live in this world where we're constantly questioning, we're wondering what's real, what isn't. And unfortunately, there's the other side that's trying to manipulate us. Then there’s artificial intelligence.
Dworzak: When I started my big cause was the Chechen war, because I felt that it was extremely underreported. It was at the other end of the world. I lived there and I felt I had a much more important role. I think now I'm a little bit more questioning. I’m not questioning photography as such, but about who is going to take it? Who needs to provide it? Where does it come from? We're in a different situation now than then. There were literally no other images. There was this handful of people who were in Chechnya creating the pictures and they had, in a classic way, an impact. But now it almost feels like this is a different era. There's no lack of images of Ukraine now. They’re not all as good as Maxim Dondyuk's, whom you mentioned, but there's a lot of photos.
With that approach, I always fought with editors for the more gruesome picture. I wanted to spoil people's breakfast. I thought that was part of my job. It's not about making a pretty picture, like an exotic war with a guy with a fur hat. But it's always a complicated line because if it's too gruesome, they don't look at it anymore. It puts them off. But I'm clearly not neutral in it. I had my agenda when we were in Chechnya. It was clearly the Chechens. And neutrality would be the biggest lie.
Dworzak: I would not think about truth. I think it's utterly pretentious. It would be wrong to say this is truth. I'm trying in a way to question what I'm doing. I don't do it in the straight photography I'm taking. I don't use a flash. I don't use any distortions. That's my limitations I put on it because that's how I define it. But I would also then put into question, yes, this is the point I chose. This comes out of a whole sequence of why I was there. The other pictures on the contact sheet could give it another context.
TiP: Do you feel you're bearing witness? When you've done new stories, what do you hope your photographs communicate to the viewer?
Dworzak: Maybe a questioning. I don't want to totally create mayhem and confusion, utterly. But if it's complicated enough that people ask themselves, “What's actually– What else is going on there?” They look further. They try to look at something else. They try to ask something else. I would not want to have the one picture that's the answer to everything. And God forbid, that would be wrong.
TiP: I think you're absolutely right, but we live in this world where we're constantly questioning, we're wondering what's real, what isn't. And unfortunately, there's the other side that's trying to manipulate us. Then there’s artificial intelligence.
Dworzak: When I started my big cause was the Chechen war, because I felt that it was extremely underreported. It was at the other end of the world. I lived there and I felt I had a much more important role. I think now I'm a little bit more questioning. I’m not questioning photography as such, but about who is going to take it? Who needs to provide it? Where does it come from? We're in a different situation now than then. There were literally no other images. There was this handful of people who were in Chechnya creating the pictures and they had, in a classic way, an impact. But now it almost feels like this is a different era. There's no lack of images of Ukraine now. They’re not all as good as Maxim Dondyuk's, whom you mentioned, but there's a lot of photos.
With that approach, I always fought with editors for the more gruesome picture. I wanted to spoil people's breakfast. I thought that was part of my job. It's not about making a pretty picture, like an exotic war with a guy with a fur hat. But it's always a complicated line because if it's too gruesome, they don't look at it anymore. It puts them off. But I'm clearly not neutral in it. I had my agenda when we were in Chechnya. It was clearly the Chechens. And neutrality would be the biggest lie.
TiP: On the gruesome photographs, there’s a debate about that. There are people who are writing, “No, we shouldn't see the gruesome reality.” My feeling is if it ruins your breakfast, that's a good thing, because maybe you'll get out of your chair and do something.
Dworzak: That's the thing. Of course, I have a trigger warning on my pictures now in the archives because there is a generation which is more sensitive to this. I shouldn't neglect it either. I can't force it on people because the whole point is that they react to it. If I can't reach my audience because my audience is totally pissed off and freaked out, well then, I'm also missing the point.
In this day and age, there's so much visual material, which is not just professional photographers, which has such a big role. All this stuff from every side, we can't neglect it anymore. That purity of Chechnya, where I'm sending my five rolls of film to an agency in France and then five days later it comes out in a newspaper, and that's the one picture we've seen of Chechnya this week, that's over.
TiP: That's part of the motivation of what we're doing, to put the work of professional photographers side by side with the work of others, because we can't ignore anymore that this hierarchy of image-making is artificial.
Dworzak: As a photographer, the struggle was always this positioning: how do I get myself into the place where I have an angle, where I'm close enough, where I'm involved enough, but still have the distance– This back and forth, with knowledge, with learning languages. How do you walk along with a group of people? Do you walk in front and do things which are totally abnormal? Because in life when you walk with somebody, you walk next to them. I think that's been a big struggle for me.
TiP: I think that's good that you're introspective in that way. You have to some type of ethical clarity in your head when you're in those situations. Or maybe you need to be probing that ethical position because different situations dictate different circumstances.
Dworzak: I’m sort of naturally a little bit contrarian. You’re pushed in one direction, then you try to see the other side, in a simple way, whatever it is. When there's a lot of war, you look for the one place there is actually the moment of peace. But of course, it would be wrong to only show the moment of peace if there's a big war around.
Dworzak: That's the thing. Of course, I have a trigger warning on my pictures now in the archives because there is a generation which is more sensitive to this. I shouldn't neglect it either. I can't force it on people because the whole point is that they react to it. If I can't reach my audience because my audience is totally pissed off and freaked out, well then, I'm also missing the point.
In this day and age, there's so much visual material, which is not just professional photographers, which has such a big role. All this stuff from every side, we can't neglect it anymore. That purity of Chechnya, where I'm sending my five rolls of film to an agency in France and then five days later it comes out in a newspaper, and that's the one picture we've seen of Chechnya this week, that's over.
TiP: That's part of the motivation of what we're doing, to put the work of professional photographers side by side with the work of others, because we can't ignore anymore that this hierarchy of image-making is artificial.
Dworzak: As a photographer, the struggle was always this positioning: how do I get myself into the place where I have an angle, where I'm close enough, where I'm involved enough, but still have the distance– This back and forth, with knowledge, with learning languages. How do you walk along with a group of people? Do you walk in front and do things which are totally abnormal? Because in life when you walk with somebody, you walk next to them. I think that's been a big struggle for me.
TiP: I think that's good that you're introspective in that way. You have to some type of ethical clarity in your head when you're in those situations. Or maybe you need to be probing that ethical position because different situations dictate different circumstances.
Dworzak: I’m sort of naturally a little bit contrarian. You’re pushed in one direction, then you try to see the other side, in a simple way, whatever it is. When there's a lot of war, you look for the one place there is actually the moment of peace. But of course, it would be wrong to only show the moment of peace if there's a big war around.
TiP: How do you feel your images reveal your process?
Dworzak: I hope not. It's slightly professional suicide, but I was always a little bit skeptical about, “Oh, this looks like your picture.” I don't want to have something that looks like my picture. I have things I care about, but I don't want to have a style. In this day and age, I should be more identifiable, I guess. Of course, it's about me. Of course, I'm totally biased and I'm in the middle of all of it, but at the same time it's not about, it shouldn't be about me.
TiP: Why do you feel that way? A lot of art photography goes in completely the opposite direction. People who see themselves as artist photographers, it's all about the maker to some extent.
Dworzak: I got into Magnum when I was fairly young, so I was pushed into the authorship corner at a time when I didn't feel author-y in any sense. Most people were like normal photographers, and you showed up and you took pictures. Magnum always had this little authorship touch, so it was a little complicated. I don't think it's in the pictures themselves. I've always tried to stay raw in my pictures. What I'll do with it afterwards, that’s where the author comes in. How I put it together. I'll make a book, and I’m the author of the book. But the picture as such, I'm trying to be as neutral, raw, simple when I go about it. I go somewhere and I try to follow what's happening and I try to get into the midst of something. I'm a very old style Capa, go where it is, something like that. Or sometimes not, or push back, but it's not a reflective process. I wouldn't say I would want to show my process. I shouldn't be in there.
TiP: From the point of view of composition and framing, it's revealed to you in the act of doing it, because you don't have a preconceived idea, or do you?
Dworzak: I grew up without a lot of photography. I didn't see accomplished photography. I had newspapers. I grew up in a small town. I didn't study photography. So when I went to Caucasus the first time, I literally felt I am seeing something interesting and I want to turn it into pictures, which was a very huge privilege to have that possibility. I didn't think about anything else, because nothing disturbed me, because I didn't know anything else. Afterwards, I learned more about photography. If I frame, I frame out of connection with the world. I can’t deny what I've seen in different contexts, of course, I'm influenced by certain things.
Dworzak: I hope not. It's slightly professional suicide, but I was always a little bit skeptical about, “Oh, this looks like your picture.” I don't want to have something that looks like my picture. I have things I care about, but I don't want to have a style. In this day and age, I should be more identifiable, I guess. Of course, it's about me. Of course, I'm totally biased and I'm in the middle of all of it, but at the same time it's not about, it shouldn't be about me.
TiP: Why do you feel that way? A lot of art photography goes in completely the opposite direction. People who see themselves as artist photographers, it's all about the maker to some extent.
Dworzak: I got into Magnum when I was fairly young, so I was pushed into the authorship corner at a time when I didn't feel author-y in any sense. Most people were like normal photographers, and you showed up and you took pictures. Magnum always had this little authorship touch, so it was a little complicated. I don't think it's in the pictures themselves. I've always tried to stay raw in my pictures. What I'll do with it afterwards, that’s where the author comes in. How I put it together. I'll make a book, and I’m the author of the book. But the picture as such, I'm trying to be as neutral, raw, simple when I go about it. I go somewhere and I try to follow what's happening and I try to get into the midst of something. I'm a very old style Capa, go where it is, something like that. Or sometimes not, or push back, but it's not a reflective process. I wouldn't say I would want to show my process. I shouldn't be in there.
TiP: From the point of view of composition and framing, it's revealed to you in the act of doing it, because you don't have a preconceived idea, or do you?
Dworzak: I grew up without a lot of photography. I didn't see accomplished photography. I had newspapers. I grew up in a small town. I didn't study photography. So when I went to Caucasus the first time, I literally felt I am seeing something interesting and I want to turn it into pictures, which was a very huge privilege to have that possibility. I didn't think about anything else, because nothing disturbed me, because I didn't know anything else. Afterwards, I learned more about photography. If I frame, I frame out of connection with the world. I can’t deny what I've seen in different contexts, of course, I'm influenced by certain things.
TiP: Where are you from?
Dworzak: Eastern Bavaria, Southern Germany.
TiP: What propelled your interest in photography? What made you want to be a photographer?
Dworzak: I didn't have much choice in the 80s. You're from a middle class, provincial background. It's not like you have 550 ideas of what you are going to do. You've got to study something. If you want to get away, what could you do? You could join the army, you can become a doctor, or you can become a journalist or something like that. I wanted to get away literally from where I was, from the small world. I was curious and the mixture of curiosity and wanting to go away. Photography, maybe that could be the ticket.
TiP: How old were you when you got your first camera?
Dworzak: I think I was 9 or 10. It was a kiddie quick-snap camera to take grasshopper pictures.
TiP: And by 16 years you were doing serious photography.
Dworzak: Somewhere between 15 and 16, I wanted to check out what wars were like. So, I bought a train ticket, and I went to Belfast. I rented a bicycle. I biked around. I saw soldiers. I totally freaked out and ended up taking pictures of the sky above Belfast. I was aiming very timidly in the wrong directions, but the wish was there. From that moment, that’s what I wanted to do.
TiP: What are you working on now?
Dworzak: My big thing at the moment is war games. Basically, I'm doing everything that's related to the war, which felt like an appropriate thing for a 50-year-old, to go away from the real thing. Everything that is the fake of war, like training, movie sets, survival stuff, all kinds of things, in the widest sense, the fake things. Doing it a little bit all over the place where I can.
TiP: Where are you making these photographs?
Dworzak: I had a grant last year in France. I live here, so it's easier now. So, I ended up doing it in France, which was okay, but I had a lot of stuff in the States I was interested in. I started doing a few things around there, some more in Eastern Europe. I did stuff in Russia, as long as I had a Russian visa, I was still going there.
Dworzak: Eastern Bavaria, Southern Germany.
TiP: What propelled your interest in photography? What made you want to be a photographer?
Dworzak: I didn't have much choice in the 80s. You're from a middle class, provincial background. It's not like you have 550 ideas of what you are going to do. You've got to study something. If you want to get away, what could you do? You could join the army, you can become a doctor, or you can become a journalist or something like that. I wanted to get away literally from where I was, from the small world. I was curious and the mixture of curiosity and wanting to go away. Photography, maybe that could be the ticket.
TiP: How old were you when you got your first camera?
Dworzak: I think I was 9 or 10. It was a kiddie quick-snap camera to take grasshopper pictures.
TiP: And by 16 years you were doing serious photography.
Dworzak: Somewhere between 15 and 16, I wanted to check out what wars were like. So, I bought a train ticket, and I went to Belfast. I rented a bicycle. I biked around. I saw soldiers. I totally freaked out and ended up taking pictures of the sky above Belfast. I was aiming very timidly in the wrong directions, but the wish was there. From that moment, that’s what I wanted to do.
TiP: What are you working on now?
Dworzak: My big thing at the moment is war games. Basically, I'm doing everything that's related to the war, which felt like an appropriate thing for a 50-year-old, to go away from the real thing. Everything that is the fake of war, like training, movie sets, survival stuff, all kinds of things, in the widest sense, the fake things. Doing it a little bit all over the place where I can.
TiP: Where are you making these photographs?
Dworzak: I had a grant last year in France. I live here, so it's easier now. So, I ended up doing it in France, which was okay, but I had a lot of stuff in the States I was interested in. I started doing a few things around there, some more in Eastern Europe. I did stuff in Russia, as long as I had a Russian visa, I was still going there.
TiP: What's the appeal of war games?
Dworzak: Well, it’s something I've seen in real life. Sometimes it looks the same or almost looks the same.
TiP: Do you ever juxtapose them side by side?
Dworzak: No, I don't want to.
TiP: They’re two separate things. What about conflict photography? Are you still doing that? Do you want to?
Dworzak: I think I'm too old. It seems like it. People my age still doing it. Libya was the last. I went to Ukraine just before the war started, for the war games, actually, for the training. And I really wasn't expecting a war. I spent three years in Afghanistan in the last years with the Georgian military. And then I went to Libya. Libya was where I realized that I don't have the instinct of going there anymore. It was like, okay, stop pretending. There are enough people who want to, who could do it.
Dworzak: Well, it’s something I've seen in real life. Sometimes it looks the same or almost looks the same.
TiP: Do you ever juxtapose them side by side?
Dworzak: No, I don't want to.
TiP: They’re two separate things. What about conflict photography? Are you still doing that? Do you want to?
Dworzak: I think I'm too old. It seems like it. People my age still doing it. Libya was the last. I went to Ukraine just before the war started, for the war games, actually, for the training. And I really wasn't expecting a war. I spent three years in Afghanistan in the last years with the Georgian military. And then I went to Libya. Libya was where I realized that I don't have the instinct of going there anymore. It was like, okay, stop pretending. There are enough people who want to, who could do it.
TiP: What does it take to be able to go into these war zones?
Dworzak: I guess everybody has a different thing. For me it was a mixture of frustration and curiosity, and a little bit of stupidity. You think you’re sort of immortal at 20 years old and nothing happens. I find this camaraderie because you live in that world and you go and you live and it’s sort of the normal thing, and all your friends are doing it. Also, you’re really passionate about it, you really believe in the cause. For the Chechens, I felt I should go. Ukraine was complicated for me, because I naturally should have gone, but in the end, I think everybody and his mother went. I really didn't see my role as there's only so much I can add onto it.
TiP: When you're in different situations, it takes a while to get your bearings, to understand what's going on. What's that process? Is it through a series of interactions?
Dworzak: In the 2000s, after September 11, it was the embed periods. All we did was embedding, which is not very difficult. You just show up and you follow the people. Compared to the wars where you have to navigate through all kinds of weird things between the Bosnians, Serbs, and this and that. An embed there’s really nothing you can do that’s wrong. They feed you and you’re with them. You also didn't have the choice. There's no big decision to be made. You're with your unit, so what are you going to do. The other ones were complicated. I was never really that good at the quick stuff, like going to a place for ten days. I've done a few. Going off somewhere, getting a fixer, spending one week, and then leaving again, I wasn't that good. I've been really spoiled in the last ten years, that I basically did two big things. I was in Georgia for five, six years with the Georgian president. I worked with him, and then I worked with the Georgian army in Afghanistan. I learned the language, I lived with them, I knew them, and we were very close. I was spoiled with having as much access as I wanted, because that was the deal with the president and then with the Georgian army in Afghanistan. I was the one who could control the access. Nobody was saying anything. And also, to work on something for over a year, I found it so much more rewarding. In a way, I came back to how I started.
Dworzak: I guess everybody has a different thing. For me it was a mixture of frustration and curiosity, and a little bit of stupidity. You think you’re sort of immortal at 20 years old and nothing happens. I find this camaraderie because you live in that world and you go and you live and it’s sort of the normal thing, and all your friends are doing it. Also, you’re really passionate about it, you really believe in the cause. For the Chechens, I felt I should go. Ukraine was complicated for me, because I naturally should have gone, but in the end, I think everybody and his mother went. I really didn't see my role as there's only so much I can add onto it.
TiP: When you're in different situations, it takes a while to get your bearings, to understand what's going on. What's that process? Is it through a series of interactions?
Dworzak: In the 2000s, after September 11, it was the embed periods. All we did was embedding, which is not very difficult. You just show up and you follow the people. Compared to the wars where you have to navigate through all kinds of weird things between the Bosnians, Serbs, and this and that. An embed there’s really nothing you can do that’s wrong. They feed you and you’re with them. You also didn't have the choice. There's no big decision to be made. You're with your unit, so what are you going to do. The other ones were complicated. I was never really that good at the quick stuff, like going to a place for ten days. I've done a few. Going off somewhere, getting a fixer, spending one week, and then leaving again, I wasn't that good. I've been really spoiled in the last ten years, that I basically did two big things. I was in Georgia for five, six years with the Georgian president. I worked with him, and then I worked with the Georgian army in Afghanistan. I learned the language, I lived with them, I knew them, and we were very close. I was spoiled with having as much access as I wanted, because that was the deal with the president and then with the Georgian army in Afghanistan. I was the one who could control the access. Nobody was saying anything. And also, to work on something for over a year, I found it so much more rewarding. In a way, I came back to how I started.
TiP: Are there photographs of yours that are iconic in your mind?
Dworzak: I'd say I hope there are no more icons. I don't want to have icons. Maybe I should retire or something. Of course, I have some pictures everybody likes, so they always come up again. I have one that made a difference for me, where I felt really the classic sense of getting a good picture, the satisfaction of, wow, now everything has worked out. I have a picture of a woman in a gas mask walking through a mass funeral and everything came together in a very old-fashioned way. it reaffirmed my idea to stay a photographer, because in the early years there was always this thought, “Should I go to university? Should I study something normal?” It was always in the air. That one picture wasn't particularly published at the time, but for me it had that iconic impact.
That's also something that fit at that time. Right now, I almost think that doesn't exist anymore. Maybe I'm too old or too cynical or whatever. But I think in our day and age, this one thing where everything falls together, I haven't seen it. What is the iconic picture of Ukraine now?
Dworzak: I'd say I hope there are no more icons. I don't want to have icons. Maybe I should retire or something. Of course, I have some pictures everybody likes, so they always come up again. I have one that made a difference for me, where I felt really the classic sense of getting a good picture, the satisfaction of, wow, now everything has worked out. I have a picture of a woman in a gas mask walking through a mass funeral and everything came together in a very old-fashioned way. it reaffirmed my idea to stay a photographer, because in the early years there was always this thought, “Should I go to university? Should I study something normal?” It was always in the air. That one picture wasn't particularly published at the time, but for me it had that iconic impact.
That's also something that fit at that time. Right now, I almost think that doesn't exist anymore. Maybe I'm too old or too cynical or whatever. But I think in our day and age, this one thing where everything falls together, I haven't seen it. What is the iconic picture of Ukraine now?
TiP: Where was that photograph made?
Dworzak: Abkhazia broke away from Georgia in the early nineties. And after, I had the picture of the girl with the balloons. I don't know, it gets up my ass sometimes. I'm more attached to my books. I think, okay, that made sense. I put it together. The recent one I did on Afghanistan is actually a movie script. It's a feature film. I worked with screenwriter Ineke Smits and her husband Jeroen Stout, who wrote a script about the stories I told them from the Georgians in Afghanistan. And then we put it together, and I used their script as guidance, how I would edit my pictures so that they illustrate the story. I’m interested in that kind of stuff. But I had a very hard time picking the few press pictures from that book.
Dworzak: Abkhazia broke away from Georgia in the early nineties. And after, I had the picture of the girl with the balloons. I don't know, it gets up my ass sometimes. I'm more attached to my books. I think, okay, that made sense. I put it together. The recent one I did on Afghanistan is actually a movie script. It's a feature film. I worked with screenwriter Ineke Smits and her husband Jeroen Stout, who wrote a script about the stories I told them from the Georgians in Afghanistan. And then we put it together, and I used their script as guidance, how I would edit my pictures so that they illustrate the story. I’m interested in that kind of stuff. But I had a very hard time picking the few press pictures from that book.
TiP: Talk about some of your other projects.
Dworzak: I did a presentation on the paraphernalia of war photography. In my book Kavkaz, I had my work from the 90s until the mid 2000s, black and white Caucasus and Chechnya, and the way I put it together was I used Russian literature as the guiding line between the pictures. Once I did a thing about Pokémon. I used Pokémon Go as a way to look into the history of Paris, because all the Pokéstops were memorials or whatever. I did the Instagram books. I'm trying to play around with these things. TiP: What was the purpose of creating books collecting Instagram photos? Dworzak: I felt part of my work with the Instagram books was cataloging and archiving things by hashtags that don't exist. I talked to Ukrainians the other day, there's an institute in Ukraine collecting photography from social media just to have a solid archive of it. But I'm sure we're missing out on a lot of stuff, because it's done without pretension. Anybody who wants to, they're going to send it out to something and try to get likes. I did an Instagram book on school trips to Auschwitz. I have the one who puts Auschwitz as a hashtag, but then I have all the other guys, the other kids who are in the same class. So, they have no hashtag. They have no link to it necessarily. And then you find, suddenly, a really touching portrait of somebody, and they have 14 likes or whatever, because they're nobodies. Instagram clearly is not going to help with it. |
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TiP: So how many images are in your Instagram books?
Dworzak: Well, it's 20 books and they're all maybe three or four hundred pictures each. So 20 different themes. One is the school trips to Auschwitz, one is the pope election, one is trauma. Many different ones. They all have one theme.
The thing is, I don't keep them. I made them on Blurb. I don't want them to exist as a digital form. They're only physical copies. I don't publish it. I'm not trying to steal somebody's pictures, so I'm not selling them or anything.
I grew up in Germany, I've gone to Auschwitz. I was on a school trip when I was a kid and I've always thought addressing it, it was such an odd and strange situation because you’re the perturbed teenager, and at the same time you're in love with the girl who sits on the bus with you, and at the same time you go to a concentration camp. So, all of this comes together and I think, I could not find a way in documentary to show the complexity of it. Even if I go with a class, especially with kids now, I wouldn't get it. But then in their accounts, I saw a lot of this, and it was very telling, and it was very touching and complex. It wasn't just, oh my God, they make funny faces. No, it was much more.
Dworzak: Well, it's 20 books and they're all maybe three or four hundred pictures each. So 20 different themes. One is the school trips to Auschwitz, one is the pope election, one is trauma. Many different ones. They all have one theme.
The thing is, I don't keep them. I made them on Blurb. I don't want them to exist as a digital form. They're only physical copies. I don't publish it. I'm not trying to steal somebody's pictures, so I'm not selling them or anything.
I grew up in Germany, I've gone to Auschwitz. I was on a school trip when I was a kid and I've always thought addressing it, it was such an odd and strange situation because you’re the perturbed teenager, and at the same time you're in love with the girl who sits on the bus with you, and at the same time you go to a concentration camp. So, all of this comes together and I think, I could not find a way in documentary to show the complexity of it. Even if I go with a class, especially with kids now, I wouldn't get it. But then in their accounts, I saw a lot of this, and it was very telling, and it was very touching and complex. It wasn't just, oh my God, they make funny faces. No, it was much more.
TiP: The work of yours, which is more playful, has its own depth. There's something poignant about it because you're re-contextualizing what you're seeing out there.
Dworzak: I'm dealing with things I kind of have a link to. I wasn't at the pope election this year, but I have done a pope election before. The Chechen president and the school trips to Auschwitz, all these things, it's kind of my world. It would be my themes. It’s not totally off. And it's rewarding. I find a lot of pure, raw joy in discovering these images. The insight I get by digging, by sort of rabbit holing into these worlds. In a certain way, it’s stronger than a lot of these 6 to 12 picture photo essays.
At Magnum, I'm laughing that I feel I'm sort of the last one of the old generation, and the youngest one of the old generation. A lot of them who came into Magnum after me have never used film, because they started with digital. They haven't had all these constraints and everything. They are digital natives. I'm not.
I have no nostalgia of rolling Soviet film in the toilet. I used to travel around the Caucasus for weeks and weeks and we used to bury my exposed film in gardens, graveyards, hidden it in plastic bags, so I could pick it up later. That was horrible. I had this big role of A2, this very contrasty, black and white Soviet cinema film, which you could buy relatively cheap, it was like $40 for 300 meters. You could buy these canisters where you could roll your film. What’s sad is that there are no more double exposures. I always had some bizarre, funny, nice double exposures. And sometimes you would have a thing when a little bit of light comes in your film, it did some nicely weird screw up.
TiP: You have a very good sense of humor. What's the role of humor in your work?
Dworzak: Have you ever cried laughing about a photograph? No, it doesn't work. You giggle. It's kind of quirky. It's kind of funny, but it's not that you can’t stop laughing about a photograph. Somebody singing, a joke, or slapstick, something. Photography is not made for it. Photography and humor doesn't really… I mean, Elliot Erwitt is funny. It's okay. Richard Kalvar. Yes. But it's very subtle, nice humor. It's not like crude bursting laughing.
I think photographers can be funny. At least they behave very funnily. I always thought if Martians look at photographers running around villages taking pictures, it must be really funny. How stupidly we like climbing on things. And then everybody wants to get the same spot. There's like nobody in the world and these two, three guys are really close to each other trying to get a picture of a sheep or something. That's the funny thing.
Dworzak: I'm dealing with things I kind of have a link to. I wasn't at the pope election this year, but I have done a pope election before. The Chechen president and the school trips to Auschwitz, all these things, it's kind of my world. It would be my themes. It’s not totally off. And it's rewarding. I find a lot of pure, raw joy in discovering these images. The insight I get by digging, by sort of rabbit holing into these worlds. In a certain way, it’s stronger than a lot of these 6 to 12 picture photo essays.
At Magnum, I'm laughing that I feel I'm sort of the last one of the old generation, and the youngest one of the old generation. A lot of them who came into Magnum after me have never used film, because they started with digital. They haven't had all these constraints and everything. They are digital natives. I'm not.
I have no nostalgia of rolling Soviet film in the toilet. I used to travel around the Caucasus for weeks and weeks and we used to bury my exposed film in gardens, graveyards, hidden it in plastic bags, so I could pick it up later. That was horrible. I had this big role of A2, this very contrasty, black and white Soviet cinema film, which you could buy relatively cheap, it was like $40 for 300 meters. You could buy these canisters where you could roll your film. What’s sad is that there are no more double exposures. I always had some bizarre, funny, nice double exposures. And sometimes you would have a thing when a little bit of light comes in your film, it did some nicely weird screw up.
TiP: You have a very good sense of humor. What's the role of humor in your work?
Dworzak: Have you ever cried laughing about a photograph? No, it doesn't work. You giggle. It's kind of quirky. It's kind of funny, but it's not that you can’t stop laughing about a photograph. Somebody singing, a joke, or slapstick, something. Photography is not made for it. Photography and humor doesn't really… I mean, Elliot Erwitt is funny. It's okay. Richard Kalvar. Yes. But it's very subtle, nice humor. It's not like crude bursting laughing.
I think photographers can be funny. At least they behave very funnily. I always thought if Martians look at photographers running around villages taking pictures, it must be really funny. How stupidly we like climbing on things. And then everybody wants to get the same spot. There's like nobody in the world and these two, three guys are really close to each other trying to get a picture of a sheep or something. That's the funny thing.
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