{"id":70534,"date":"2011-03-18T21:43:38","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T13:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seangallagher.wpengine.com\/blog\/?p=2907"},"modified":"2011-03-18T21:43:38","modified_gmt":"2011-03-18T13:43:38","slug":"remembering-philip-jones-griffiths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallagher-photo.com\/remembering-philip-jones-griffiths\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Philip Jones Griffiths"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
Tomorrow marks the 3-year anniversary of the passing of Philip Jones Griffiths, one of the leading photojournalists of the 20th Century. Born in the small town of Rhuddlan, in Wales, Philip became a member of Magnum Photos in 1971 and was most famous for his work in Vietnam, most notably for his book Vietnam Inc., a seminal piece of photojournalistic war reporting on the Vietnam War which was credited as helping change the tide of western opinion on the conflict.<\/p>\n
Philip was one of my heroes. It’s not often that people get to meet their heroes. It is less often that they ultimately can be able to call them a friend. I am lucky that I can, if only for a short period of time. On this anniversary, I wanted to share a couple of thoughts about my time with this inspiring photographer and man.<\/p>\n
I first discovered Philip’s work in 2003, whilst undertaking a 1-month internship at Magnum, in their London office. I spent my brief internship filing slides and cataloguing prints. It wasn’t glamorous but I had fortuitously gotten the job when I rang Magnum by phone to see if they had any internships. I was fresh out of studying a Zoology degree and I was looking for any chance to learn about photojournalism. Another intern had just cancelled and they asked me if I could start two days later. I jumped at the chance.<\/p>\n
As I stood there filing slides, I became distracted however by the bookshelves which contained many of the photographers’ books. One of the first books I picked up was Vietnam Inc. The book took my breath away. I had never realised the real power of photojournalism until I picked up this book. Leafing through the pages, every image captivated me. Philip’s witty and intelligent captions intrigued me and brought about another level of relevance and importance to these images. I was entranced.<\/p>\n