Clockwise from top: Raymond plays with Star Wars lightsabers with his sons Brady and Riley, Wisconsin, USA, 2007. Soldiers take part in a combat lifesaving training course in South Carolina, USA, 2011. A man and boy take cover under a tree from a sudden rainstorm on the war ravaged Gulu-Kitgum Road, Uganda, 2008. All images © Peter van Agtmael/Magnum Photos.
“I hate big cameras. They’re too loud, too intrusive, too noticeable. I feel more spontaneous with small ones I can always carry with me.” documentary photography because you can keep exploring it, whereas I usually only find the more conceptual work interesting in the short term. [Deutsche Börse nominee] Chris Killip’s work I can keep looking at again and again, but do I want to look at Cristina De Middel’s Afronauts again and again? No. These conceptual photographers are trying to kill the traditions, but they’ve been informed by them; the institutions they’re criticising aren’t going away. It’s good that they push its limits, but documentary photography is always going to exist. Even if it can sometimes be clichéd, there’s always a core of it that is going to be great. 9