Real Pictures for Real People: No Bullshit

New York, NY. 18 June 2008
Long moments of respectful silence were punctuated with soulful reflection, confessions, dreams laughter and even some arguing: Philip Jones Griffith’s memorial at Aperture on a recent night was as anarchic and enjoyable as the man himself.

The 72 year old photojournalist and warrior of peace died in March after an eight year battle with cancer. He was no stranger to death, having photographed its ravages in Vietnam, Cambodia and in other conflict zones around the world since he began working as a full-time freelance photographer in 1961.

In the course of his career he accumulated many thousands of negatives, some of which were reproduced into books as epic as the tragedies they depicted. Perhaps his most famous is Vietnam, Inc., published in 1971, exposed a reality that has existed in times of war for centuries, yet in his singular way, Jones Griffiths framed the ravages of war in such a way that helped turn the tide of American public opinion regarding the war.

Through Jones Griffiths’ subtle but poignant black and white images, he draws the viewer in rather than repulses with the vulgarity typical to images of war. A pacifist and fierce opponent of the war, Jones Griffiths never considered himself a traditional reporter or war photographer.

The photograph of the Vietnamese woman cradling a babe in her arms while a US soldier stands behind watching her, cradling his machine gun; or of the young boy who lay on a bare mattress, contorted, chained to the metal post of his bed with his pants pulled down below his knees (he lost his mind when he lost his mother to the war), are just two such images on view the other night.

The memorial at Aperture opened with documentary photographer Donna Ferrato asking the one hundred or so gathered to embrace silence, even during moments of tempted hilarity, as we embarked on a journey of remembrance on screen. In typical fashion, Ferrato had gathered up whomever happened to be around when it came time to interview Jones Griffiths’ pals for the film she was making as memorial to her past lover, and managed to pull together a splendidly intimate and fittingly offbeat portrait of Jones Griffiths from his images, his words, and the responses to both by friends and colleagues.

Although I never met him, I learned from the film that Jones Griffiths was the kind of man you want on your side in the worst situations because it would ensure: (1) his methodical nature would get you out alive; (2) his argumentative nature would distract you and keep you thinking; and (3) his comedic delivery of even the worst news would leave you uplifted no matter the circumstance.

While he lost pints of blood from a constant nose bleed in the final days, suffering paralysis in the hand that he forced to sign hundreds of his photographs as he lay dying, Jones Griffiths asks his and Donna’s daughter, Fanny, to hand him a collection of Welsh poems. Jones Griffiths, who was born in Wales in 1936, in the film lies in what appears to be a hospital bed with a Wales-London rugby match (his beloved Welshman win) playing on the television. From the book Fanny retrieves him, Jones Griffiths reads an ode to rugby that includes the line, “Sing no song of rugby when the match is over they’re at the bar in throngs.”

In the movie he says he will start from the beginning, as if to say, “Here: listen. This is what I want you to remember.”

With grave tone he begins, “Good orgasms are hard to find. This is something we should care about.” As the audience erupts in laughter, Jones Griffiths waxes on about how fidelity is for the weak-willed who have fallen victim to the mores of a society that, “is all fucked up – it’s all done to make us feel insecure…love is always something you give, never something you take…love yourself first and have faith in yourself.” Throughout, Jones Griffiths comes off as deeply funny and deeply serious. Simultaneously.

In the film he is described by photographer Elliott Erwitt (think black and white photos of little dogs on the streets of New York) as a “moral compass” of how photography should be done (straight, unadulterated), and by Eugene Richards (a photojournalist known for his portraits of drugs, gangs and other gritty experiences) as a “forensic scientist” of history.

A contemporary of Jones Griffiths, the respected war photographer Don McCullin, perhaps considering his own legacy, sums up that of his deceased friend in terms of how people will continue to respond to his work. To the sound of the shutter release click-clicking as Donna takes Philip and Don’s last photos together, McCullin intones, “He tried to make a difference. Generations to come will be holding Philip’s hands and saying, ‘thank you’.”

After the credits roll and the lights get turned on (and then quickly turned off after Ferrato grabs the mike and shouts, “Lights off! Lights off! You jumped the gun, lights off!”) Alex Webb, an American photojournalist, offers the wisdom given to him by Jones Griffiths when Webb was first applying for membership in Magnum. At meetings of Magnum when you’re a nominee, he’s told, you say nothing. When you’ve become an associate member, you say nothing. Once you are a full member, then you say (and Webb pantomimes the appropriate arm motions to go with the phrase), “‘Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!’.”

Jones Griffiths pissed off a lot of people in his years. He could also take apart a Leica and put it back together. He also built his own industrial-size enlarger and, according to David Burnett, installed the landing light from nothing less than a 707 airplane as his light source. Everything with Jones Griffiths was larger than life, and not surprisingly, left unforgettable impressions on the people he knew.

Bring a group of passionate photographers and powerful women together and you’re bound to create a little friction. The night did not disappoint in this regard, with one particularly tense exchange between Ferrato and a woman named Alberta who stood up in protest after one of Jones Griffiths’ past assistants, Lila Lee, told of a dream she had in which a bed full of women (a theme running throughout the night was that Jones Griffiths loved to surround himself with women who are easy on the eye) were fighting in the deceased’s apartment on West 36th Street.

Alberta pleaded with the sound of disbelief mixed with disgust, “Can’t we have some boundaries? This is out of hand,” to which some snickered, others nodded their heads in agreement and Ferrato, who held the mic at the time, responded that Lee’s comments were beautiful and desirable, and others were welcome to follow suit.

Perhaps the most memorable commentary, for me, came from Tom Keller, a former director of Magnum, the picture agency where Jones Griffiths also served as director from 1980 through 1985.

Referring to the Biblical creation story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, wherein Adam eats the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge and is thus banished from Paradise, Keller suggests what remains for me, days later, the defining reflection on Jones Griffiths.

Through the lens of Milton’s version of the Fall in Paradise Lost, Keller describes how Jones Griffiths lived and moved and made choices. Without Eve Adam does not want to stay in paradise and so consciously chooses to eat, chooses to see, chooses to leave Paradise. Keller chokes back tears as he speaks:

“Philip spent his life eating from the tree of knowledge and knew an awful lot. I’m pissed off he left us here.” Keller pauses, and then adds, “And this isn’t Paradise.”

I still feel the lump in my throat that I felt when I heard his words, maybe because I hope to leave a legacy that stimulates and challenges, that brings Truth, or at least begs others to question what is Truth, where is Meaning, to the table.

As if in response, a young man and aspiring photojournalist who did not know Jones Griffiths personally, stood up to speak and offered, simply, “How can we live up to it? How can we not try? [Looking at Jones Griffiths’ work] inspires me to try a little harder because he did it so well.”

When Jones Griffiths stopped breathing the clock read 10 to 2. No more debates, no more soliloquies. No more poetry. No more photography. His daughters, Fanny and Katherine, lay in bed beside him not wanting to let go. In Donna’s words, “Philip believed being a photographer was an honor and that there’s no room for bullshit. Real pictures for real people. With Philip you got as good as you gave, and he always gave more.”