The great Turkish photographer Goksin Sipahioglu, founder of the agency Sipa, once said that you have to be realistic enough to know that photojournalism cannot change the world, but “we can witness History”. Of all the quotes I’ve heard, that’s my favourite because, in addition to being accurate, it’s an antidote against deception. Moreover, it is already a privilege to be able to live events and moments that will remain forever engraved in the collective memory.
My teacher was not Sipahioglu – nicknamed the Grand Turk in Paris newsrooms – but another photographer who was lucky enough to live the golden age of photojournalism in the French capital, Jean Pierre Porcher, with whom I founded Gran Angular agency in Barcelona in 2001. Jean Pierre, a constantly affable man, teached me that pressing the camera button is just the last step in the complicated process of taking pictures. And I never forgot that.
A photograph has picked up a fact of life, and that fact will live forever -Raghu Rai
