“You should bring your opinion to every piece of reportage. If you love or hate the situation, or find it ridiculous, it should come through in the resulting pictures. Don’t try to be objective – it’s boring!”
Clockwise from top: Boxing heavyweight champion Muhammed Ali, Chicago, USA, 1966. Young people relax during their lunch break along the East River while smoke rises from Lower Manhattan after the 11 September attack on the World Trade Center, New York, 2001. All images © Thomas Hoepker/ Magnum Photos.
You should bring your opinion to every piece of reportage. If you love or hate the situation, or find it ridiculous, it should come through in the resulting pictures. Don’t try to be objective – it’s boring! One of your best-known images from 9/11 provides a very different view of the event. What’s the story behind it? It’s strange because at the time I didn’t think this moment was important. I automatically reacted to the situation, but only pressed the shutter three times because I was looking
for the horror and didn’t think this was “the picture”. Magnum had a meeting in New York the day before. I saw what other photographers had done and thought my picture was too harmless, too pretty. So I kept it in my drawer for few years, until a museum curator saw the photograph and encouraged me to publish it. I learned my lesson – you should never be too pre-determined. As a reporter, you want to be really close to the event, but sometimes, if you detour from the core of it, you can be lucky to find something special. 21