"News Portraits:" the Photojournalism of Gilles Caron (1965-1970)
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n°24/1 - 2023
Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative
imageandnarrative.be ISSN 1780-678X
Varia
Gilles Caron, American soldier, Vietnam, 1967.
“News Portraits:” the
Photojournalism of Gilles Caron
(1965-1970)
by Clara Bouveresse
Image [&] Narrative is a bilingual peer-reviewed e-journal on visual narratology and word and image studies in the broadest sense of
the term.
Image [&] Narrative est une revue en ligne, bilingue, à comité de lecture, traitant de narratologie visuelle et d’études texte/image au
sens large. Image [&] Narrative is part of / fait partie de Open Humanities Press et DOAJ.
Chief Editors / Editrices en chef : Anne Reverseau, Anneleen Masschelein & Hilde Van Gelder.
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Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
Abstract
This article explores the five-year career of French photojournalist Gilles Caron
(1939-1970), who produced iconic photographs of major events such as the Six-Day and
the Vietnam war at the end of the 1960s. Caron developed an art of portraiture applied to
news topics, which became his trademark. This personal “style” and his critical approach
towards journalism were emphasized posthumously to distinguish him from his peers
and promote him to the status of an artist. But these specificities were an integral part of
his practice as a photojournalist, and only demonstrate that if Caron produced an œuvre,
it was within the realm of his profession. This article retraces the development of his ap-
proach and its success in the illustrated press; it then analyzes his reflexive stance towards
image making, as evidenced in his tribute to the techniques of film when he worked on
movie sets and in the ethical questions raised by his coverage of the Biafra war. Drawing
on his archives – press prints, contact sheets and publications that were extensively digi-
tized by his foundation, it offers an overview of the production of this well-known figure
of post-war photography.
Keywords
Gilles Caron, Photojournalism, Journalism, War photography, France, May 1968, Biafra
Résumé
Cet article explore les cinq années de carrière du photojournaliste français Gilles
Caron (1939-1970), auteur de photographies iconiques d’événements célèbres comme la
guerre des Six Jours ou la guerre du Vietnam à la fin des années 1960. Caron développa un
art du portrait appliqué aux sujets d’actualité qui devint sa marque de fabrique. Ce « style »
personnel et son approche critique du journalisme furent soulignés de façon posthume
afin de le distinguer de ses pairs et de le promouvoir au rang d’artiste. Mais ces particu-
larités faisaient partie intégrante de sa pratique de photojournaliste ; elles démontrent au
contraire que si Caron produisit une œuvre, ce fut bien à l’intérieur des institutions du
journalisme. Cet article retrace le développement de son approche et son succès dans la
presse illustrée ; il analyse ensuite son positionnement réflexif sur la fabrique des images,
dont témoignent son hommage aux techniques cinématographiques lors de ses reportages
sur des plateaux de tournage puis les questions éthiques soulevées par sa couverture de la
guerre du Biafra. En s’appuyant sur ses archives – tirages de presse, planches-contacts et
publications largement numérisés par sa fondation, il offre une vue d’ensemble de la pro-
duction de cette figure renommée de la photographie d’après-guerre.
Mots clés
Gilles Caron, photojournalisme, journalisme, photographie de guerre, France, mai 1968,
Biafra
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To quote this article
Clara Bouveresse, « “News Portraits:” the Photojournalism of Gilles Caron (1965-1970) »,
Image & Narrative n°24/1 - 2023, 163-186.
Please submit your texts for the Varia section to anne.reverseau@uclouvain.be
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Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
“News Portraits:” the
Photojournalism of Gilles Caron
(1965-1970)
by Clara Bouveresse
French photojournalist Gilles Caron (1939-1970) produced some iconic press pho-
tographs, covering major events such as the May 68 students’ protests in France or the
Vietnam War. His five-year career came to an abrupt end when he disappeared in Cam-
bodia at the age of thirty. His pictures had appeared on the cover of Paris Match magazine
and in the European press, exemplifying an effective photojournalistic production that
was eulogized after his death.
When Caron died in 1970, French cultural institutions started exhibiting and
promoting the figure of the “author-photographer,” stressing the creative value of photo-
graphs rather than their journalistic use (Morel 2006). Breaking away from the chivalrous
mythology of risk-taking reporters, “authors” were celebrated for their ability to go beyond
spectacular events and explore behind-the-scenes, long-term stories. Yet most exhibitions
and catalogues on the work of Caron, in reverse, still connected him with the legacy of
Robert Capa, a father-figure of war photography, highlighting his pictures of violent ac-
tion and his moral integrity. Caron thus epitomized a different recognition, the institutio-
nalization of photojournalism as a collective visual heritage (Morel 2012).
Recently, art historian Michel Poivert departed from the limited selection of iconic
news photographs usually associated with Caron to revisit the photographer’s contact
sheets. He analyzed his approach and his style at a personal, intimate level, revealing his
conflicted responses to the world he documented and framing his career as an aesthetic
quest for innovative visual compositions (Poivert 2013, 2018). He also insisted on Ca-
ron’s critical approach towards his profession, distancing him further from the business
of photojournalism. A former classic example of the journalistic hero, Caron now appears
as an “author-photographer” ahead of his time, who created photographs deserving to be
interpreted as artworks, and consequently exhibited on museum and gallery walls.
This article does not aim to promote Caron to the status of a reporting champion
nor to that of a newly-discovered artist. Both attitudes rely on the singling-out of ex-
ceptional, pioneering or unique photographs, framed as historic icons of an event for
the front-pages of magazines or as rare objects to be collected and cherished. Yet the
opposition between the political and aesthetic values of documentary photographs is ar-
tificial, since they always stem from a combination of both (Azoulay, 2012). Navigating
between the personal level of Caron’s biography and the broader context of the market in
which he operated, this article analyzes how he developed an art of portraiture applied
to news topics, which became his trademark. These portraits were not side projects; they
contributed to his success and participated in the assertion of the personal signature of
photojournalists as a defining feature of their profession. Later celebrated and exhibited
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Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
for their artistic value and removed from the professional context in which they had been
taken, they formed at the time an integral part of his production for the press. The alleged
opposition between artistic and journalistic purposes is often emphasized posthumously
and for the sake of promotion, to distinguish one reporter from his peers. Yet aesthetic
aspirations were intertwined with journalistic endeavors throughout Caron’s career. Simi-
larly, his critical approach towards photojournalism has been enhanced and interpreted
as a sign of “higher,” that is artistic, ambitions. But the questioning of photojournalism
ethics never was the exclusive realm of outsiders; it was in fact embedded in the practice
of photojournalists themselves, Caron being no exception.
His contribution may be read as an “œuvre” deserving artistic recognition in light of
its aesthetic qualities and its critical dimension. This article posits that these specificities
were shared by other documentary photographers working in the field of journalism, and
cannot serve to frame Caron as an artist. Instead, they demonstrate that Caron produced
a journalistic œuvre, based on the acute perception of news events and on his ability to
encapsulate them with force and detail, particularly in his approach to portraiture.
This article analyzes Gilles Caron’s production in the context of shifting photojour-
nalistic practices in France at the end of the 1960s, shedding light on the constraints and
ambitions experienced by reporters in the field. Complementing the existing exhibition
catalogues published in French and the research articles focusing on his coverage of May
68 in France and of the Biafra war, it provides an overview of his career and evolution.
Drawing from the study of his archives, including the press prints, contact sheets and pu-
blications that were digitized by his foundation, it contributes to recent research initiatives
exploring the business of photojournalism (Gervais, 2015; Hill and Schwartz, 2015).
A taste for adventure and a critical mind
In December 1959, Gilles Caron, aged twenty, was drafted for military service and
sent the following year to Algeria among the paratroopers. A skilled horseman and sports-
man, he had passed his parachute license and found himself enrolled in the corresponding
division. His letters to his mother show that the war disgusted, shocked and bored him,
as he met “sheer uncontrolled violence, with cruelty thrown in.”1 He spent two months in
a military prison after having asked not to take part in operations anymore. He also sent
his mother anonymous photographs, obtained secretly, that showed the army’s exactions,
making an early use of the pictures’ ability to offer testimonies against violence and op-
pression.
Caron had studied journalism in Paris in 1958 and travelled to Spain, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Turkey and India. He was not sure what he would do next, and entertained the
idea of becoming a gallery-owner. Close to painter André Derain’s son and a profuse
reader, influenced by Sartre philosophy, he was in touch with his time’s intellectual and
artistic creation. His letters reveal an existential questioning:
1 Gilles Caron to his mother, 5 Aug. 1960, in Gilles Caron. Scrapbook (unspecified translator for all quotes
from this source), Paris: Lienart. 2012, 51. Original quote : “un véritable déchaînement de violence, de
cruauté aussi.”
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There’s no reason why I should feel obliged to take on this imperfect, annoying
world I was born into and do my best to improve it. We’re always putting up with
things, but in different ways. Not to do anything at all is distressing. To play a real part
means taking your century in hand, being permeated by it.2
The mere refusal of the world as it was, shared by many young people at the time, did
not satisfy him. Yet if action was required, it had to be radical – “taking your century in
hand,” and no less. He finally chose a photographic way to be “permeated,” using the filter
of his camera as a sensitive surface, his presence half masked by the lens.
As a sports and travels enthusiast, Gilles Caron undoubtedly appreciated the adven-
tures of a reporter’s life. Yet his profession involved documenting war, confronting him
with the violence he had rejected in Algeria. His war photographs remain amongst his
best-known pictures: Vietnam and Israel in 1967, Biafra in 1968, Chad and lastly Cam-
bodia, where he disappeared in 1970. He also photographed the May 68 protests in Paris,
the uprising in Northern Ireland and the 1969 demonstrations in Prague.
Moving from one theater of operations to the next, he witnessed the conflicts of
these years marked by decolonization and students’ protests. On his last contact-sheet,
family pictures appear next to shots of Cambodia, a telling indicator of his nomadic li-
festyle. Between 1964 and 1970, he photographed in eight countries, went eleven times
abroad and took a total of about 100,000 images, in black-and-white but also in color,
which was favored for magazine covers.
Learning news photography
Caron’s first models were his wife Marianne, whom he had met at the age of thirteen
and married in 1962, and their two daughters, Marjolaine and Clémentine. His contact
sheets show how he had them pose to test his camera settings. He made his debut in 1964
in the field of advertising and fashion, training with photographer Patrice Molinard. He
joined Apis agency in 1965 and started waiting outside music halls and cabinet meetings,
capturing figures of the politics and art worlds on the fly. Half journalist, half paparazzo,
he learnt to weave his way into the crowd to catch the right face expression. This interest
in human figures marked his entire career.
He also gained experience by working briefly for a “charm” agency specializing in ero-
tic pictures, before joining Gamma. This new cooperative imitated the model set after the
war by Magnum Photos, participating in the promotion of photographers to the status of
authors in their own right, equal to journalists writing texts (Bouveresse, 2017). Owners
of their agency and of their pictures, they sought to defend their copyright and to be paid
for each publication instead of giving away their negatives to their clients. This strategy
2 Gilles Caron to his mother, 6 May 1960, in ibid, 50. “Il n’y a aucune raison pour que ce monde imparfait et
ennuyeux qui m’a été donné à la naissance, je sois obligé de l’assumer et de l’améliorer dans la mesure de mes
moyens. On subit toujours, mais de diverses façons. Ne rien faire, c’est désolant. Jouer un rôle, c’est prendre
son siècle en main, en être imprégné tout entier.” His letters were also collected in Caron, 2012.
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was based on the circulation of sequenced photographs in order to recount a story just
like an article. Gamma’s members aimed to make the cover of Paris Match, the popular
magazine revolving around this lucrative genre of the photo essay laid on several pages,
celebrating star reporters. Caron became one of Gamma’s signatures and successfully pu-
blished his work in various European magazines.
Joining Gamma meant adapting to the working habits of post-war photo agencies
(Leblanc, 2015, Guerrin, 1988). Caron usually went free-lance on subjects that were dee-
med promising by the staff, even though some assignments could also be obtained befo-
rehand. This commercial risk-taking then enabled Gamma to retain the copyright of his
stories and sell them to the highest bidder, negotiating geographic exclusives: the same
pictures would thus be simultaneously published in various countries, at full price.
At the time, the young cooperative gathered a dozen photographers and permanent
staff. Photojournalism was a men’s business, with the male gaze, seen as neutral and ob-
jective, being the default calibration of reporting. Typically, Caron’s portraits often favor
young photogenic women, be they soldiers or demonstrators that will look “good” on
magazine spreads.
In the field, photographers were in quest of the “icon” (Lavoie, 2010, Leblanc, 2018),
which could make the cover, but they also produced an in-depth coverage of various
topics. Meticulous and tenacious, they could not stop after a few shots and had to keep
working in search of new angles, photographing side topics that were a little removed
from hot news but that could illustrate articles in the long run. Pictures were then ship-
ped as quickly as possible to the Paris office where they were sequenced and captioned
by editors before being sent to potential clients. Reporters had to be swift, efficient and
precise to meet strict deadlines and sell on a competitive and international market. These
demanding constraints forged Caron’s work.
First field abroad in Israel
Caron’s first story abroad took place in May 1967, when he accompanied the popular
singer Sylvie Vartan in Israel, where she was to showcase a fashion collection of her own
design. He took pictures of the show and of the star signing autographs, playing volleyball
at the beach or visiting tourist attractions. When the Six-Day War started on June 5th
after his return, he decided to go back.
Israel’s speedy victory and the conquest of new territories prompted feelings of eu-
phoria and national cohesion, shared by many Jewish around the world (Greilsammer,
1988, 335-340). This success was then compared with that of David against Goliath, and
seen as an exceptional feat as many had feared the country would collapse. The conflict
was largely covered by the international press, which contributed to the circulation of the
positive image of a young and brave country defeating stronger opponents, with pictures
playing a central role in the shaping of this narrative (Sela, 2007, Razi and Sheffi, 2008,
Bourdon, 2012).
169Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
Fig. 1: Israeli soldiers embrace the Wailing Wall during the Six-Day War, Jerusalem, 1967.
Typically, Gilles Caron photographed jubilant civilians waving the national flag, as
well as the conquest of strategic and symbolic sites: soldiers reaching the Suez Canal, and
their emotion as they touched the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, the famous Jewish holy
place. Other reporters, such as Micha Bar-Am, recorded the scene. Despite this compe-
tition, Caron took several pictures that were widely published in European magazines.
Gamma managed to secure double-spreads in Paris Match with the dramatic caption:
“They had waited for 2,000 years.”3 Caron’s photographs feature a man carried trium-
phantly and playing the shofar, a horn used in religious celebrations, and the Minister of
Defence Moshe Dayan, a symbol of the victory. One of his close-ups shows a soldier seen
from behind, embracing the sacred stones (ill. 1). His face is not visible and the eye is at-
tracted towards his expressive gesture, in the foreground, while other soldiers in the same
pose can be seen in the distance. Caron’s contact sheets and recent research also reveal that
the wall was then surrounded by houses, which were destroyed in the night of June 10 to
create the empty square now facing it (Otero, 2020, Lemire and Salenson, 2018).
Caron kept moving from one place to another and often returned to some parts
of the city, taking hundreds of photographs. With fellow journalist Frantz Goetz, they
rented a car upon their arrival to travel on their own across the country and avoid being
walked around in the buses chartered for the press.4 He photographed Egyptian soldiers
found dead in the desert or made prisoners. He also covered lesser-known dimensions
of the conflict, such as Palestinians being arrested or female Israeli soldiers – one of the
country’s specificities being its military service compulsory for both men and women.
Caron then returned to Israel in October 1969. He covered the trial of Denis Mi-
3 Paris Match (17 June 1967).
4 Gilles Caron, interview with Jean-Pierre Ezan in Zoom (March-April 1970).
170Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
chael Rohan, an Austrian Christian who was convinced to be God’s messenger and ac-
cordingly tried to set fire to Al-Aqsa Mosque. Aside from this news story, Caron made a
portrait of David Ben Gourion, Israel’s first head of state, and Shimon Peres, then former
vice-minister for defense and future president. Pictures of political figures formed a lu-
crative archive for an agency like Gamma, which would be able to sell them in the long
run to illustrate regional news. The same was true of other topics covered by Caron such
as the Israeli police, a prison, the continuation of his work on young women training for
military service, as well as everyday life in the city of Tel Aviv or the olive harvest in the
countryside. On one occasion, he departed from the genre of reporting to capture the geo-
metric choreography of parachutes spread out in the sky, which probably reminded him of
his youthful hobby (ill. 2). These contemplative photographs border on abstraction, even
though they also illustrate the constant military preparation of the country.
Fig. 2: Parachutes, Israel, 1969
171Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
Fig. 3: Military service for women, Israel, 1969.
Caron’s color and black-and-white photographs from Israel gave prominence to hu-
man figures and young women in particular. He highlighted one soldier in her battalion,
enhancing the singularity of her features amongst the ranks, as seen in illustration 3. He
applied the same method when shooting prisoners or civilians being searched, focusing on
their gaze and separating them from the crowd.
Caron thus developed his trademark genre, creating portraits out of news topics.
These “portraits” were not posed, unlike the ones he took during formal sessions with
politicians. Yet the presence of the photographer was often acknowledged by the subjects,
in the form of a smile or an inquisitive gaze. Some of his later photographs look similar,
despite their various contexts: they were all produced to fit the expectations of magazines
looking for legible illustrations, giving pride of place to individual figures embodying the
news, such as stone throwers in action or soldiers petrified in their heavy uniforms.
172Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
Portraits of the youth
Caron became known as the photographer of the youth, singling out a face amid
the bustle of unfolding events. After he had earned recognition with his coverage of the
Six-Day War, he went on to cover the Vietnam War in November and December 1967,
where he continued his exploration of close-ups. He also took portraits of prostitutes
working for the army, focusing on their faces rather than their bodies and profession (ill.
4). Notwithstanding these efforts to draw attention to the individuality of each woman,
the accompanying story written by Gamma editors and visible on the back of the prints
circulated by the agency, reverts to classic stereotypes:
The problem is as old as warfare, and while the war continues in Vietnam, there’s no
way of avoiding the almost natural occurrence of prostitution, as more and more Vietnam-
ese girls turn to the profitable trade of pleasing lonely, battle-weary, sex-starved G.I.s. A little
charm, a smile, and a minimum English vocabulary is all they need (…) once the soldier is
lured in, voilà! (…) Venereal disease is widespread, and often a G.I. is ruined for life. (…)5
Fig. 4: Prostitute, Vietnam, 1967.
Prostitution is presented as inevitable and the men’s viewpoint prevails. Soldiers appear
to be the victims of manipulative seducers and the main problem is that their health is at
stake; the experiences of and consequences for the women are not mentioned.
5 “Prostitution problems in South Vietnam.” Gamma/566:H0325. Back of a press print, stamped:
Pix incorporated, New York. Reference 5352/3Aab, Gilles Caron Foundation archives.
173Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
Fig. 5: American soldier, Vietnam, 1967.
In another photograph, Caron shows a soldier lighting up a cigarette, a burning
house visible in the background (ill. 5). His casual gesture contrasts with the violent sce-
ne behind, but the lighter also seems, somehow, to set fire to the entire house (Seniuta,
in Blanc et al., 2020, 24). A closer look reveals that the two are indeed connected, as
the “Search and Destroy” operations, which involved burning down villages suspected of
hiding opponents, were also called “Zippo Raids.” The caption visible at the back of the
press print circulated by Gamma stresses the point: “US G.I.s become either an hero or a
murdered [sic]. Here, a soldier of the First Cav. enter [sic] a burning village.”
When he was home, Caron routinely covered politics and naturally documented the
May 68 protests. His photograph of students’ leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit (ill. 6) is now
seen as a symbol of the events, even though it was not widely circulating at the time, as
color pictures were preferred (Leblanc, 2010, 2016). The contact sheet helps to understand
how his typical “news portraits” were created: while they look spontaneous, they often re-
sulted from a “dance” between the photographer and his subject, as Caron moved around
the scene to find the best angle (Blanc, 2020, 60). The subject became increasingly aware
of his presence, and was encouraged to play his own role for the camera – in Cohn-Ben-
dit’s case, a theatrical, photogenic and provocative smile to the helmeted policeman and
the larger audience of viewers who would be shocked or amused by his gesture.
174Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
Fig. 6: Student leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit, La Sorbonne, Paris, May 1968. Press print with
cropping marks, published in L’Express on 11 April 1977 (p. 115).
Fig. 7: Catholic protester, Northern Ireland, August 1969.
Caron covered the event with great thoroughness, variety and “visual sophistication”
(Cookman, 2007). He captured the larger scenes of protests, enhancing the daring gestures
of demonstrators facing the police. He specialized in shots highlighting the “choreogra-
phies” of urban battles taking place in Paris, and later in Ireland and in Prague (Poivert,
2013). These strikingly similar photographs were sought after by magazines because they
were full of action and drama, as evidenced in a Paris Match August 23 headline: “Ireland
175Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
on the brink of civil war.” Caron secured many pages in the magazine’s issue, as he had been
lucky enough to arrive in Derry on August 11, on the eve of a week of battles opposing
Catholics and Protestants, marking the opening of a three-decade civil war (Vermare, 2019).
On August 12, he photographed a Protestant march commemorating the 1689 resistance
of the city to the Catholic troops of James II, which sparked off the uprising, and he then
recorded helmeted policemen facing barricades, Molotov cocktails and demonstrators. Like
in Israel, one of his most striking pictures amounts to a counter-portrait, as it does not show
the face but the back of a person, focusing on a protester’s fist clenched upon a few peb-
bles (ill. 7). The framing enhances the makeshift weapon and the creased, ill-fitted jacket,
showing the involvement of ordinary, lower-class people. Caron took numerous portraits
of protesters, with a particular attention to women, as always, but also children for whom
playing at war had turned real. Many photographs show people set against the background
of damaged landscapes, emphasizing the contrast between ruined streets, destroyed build-
ings and daily life still going on. His photographs contradict the euphemistic expression of
“The Troubles” used to describe the events, with a caption on the back of one of his prints
stressing that the situation “seems to have become a genuine civil war.”6
In Northern Ireland, many journalists were attracted to the Catholics’ cause, stressing
the social foundations of their claims, as evidenced in an article illustrated with Caron’s
photographs, describing them as “a population who was denied education for centuries,
and who was reduced, in the past, by any means, to the status of an underclass.”7 Always
a portraitist, Caron highlighted the faces of Protestants and Catholics alike, even though
he felt closer to the latter and took more pictures of them:
Deep down I’m often on the side of the people I photograph. In Ireland, for exa-
mple, while I was totally impartial, at the same time I was really taken by the energy
and drive of the Catholic demonstrators. When the cops charge, you always have to run
for it and that’s humiliating – even for a photographer, I mean. Whereas in Ireland, the
demonstrators regrouped and charged back against the cops. I’d never seen that before.
It’s not that I’m anti-cops, but that was unexpected and interesting. Real empathy is
mostly an individual thing: you find yourself next to a cop who’s just been hit in the
knee with a paving stone, and he says to you, “I’ve had enough of this,” and you can’t
help feeling for him. Not for the cop, but for the human being. And it’s the same when
you’re on the other side.8
6 “Religious Street War in Northern Ireland.” Gamma-Caron/10819, August 18, 1969. Back of a press
print, stamped: Pix incorporated, New York. Reference 16369/35A, Gilles Caron Foundation archives.
7 Translated by the author. Original quote: “une population à qui l’instruction a été interdite pendant des
siècles, et qu’on a cherché autrefois, par tous les moyens, à réduire à l’état de sous-prolétariat.” Story by
Jacques Le Bailly, André Lefebvre, Philippe Le Tellier and Colman Doyle, Paris Match (30 Aug. 1960).
8 Interview with Jean-Pierre Ezan, 270. “Je suis souvent de tout cœur avec les gens que je photographie. Par
exemple en Irlande, même en étant tout à fait impartial, j’étais quand même très, très emballé par l’énergie
et l’allant des manifestants catholiques. Quand les flics chargent, on est toujours obligé de foutre le camp et
c’est toujours humiliant de se retrancher, je veux dire même pour un photographe. Tandis qu’en Irlande les
manifestants se regroupaient et rechargeaient les flics. C’était la première fois que je voyais ça. Ce n’est pas
que je sois contre les flics, mais c’était un phénomène inhabituel, donc intéressant. Les vraies sympathies
sont plutôt au niveau individuel. Vous vous retrouvez à côté d’un flic qui vient de prendre un pavé dans le
genou, vous lui parlez, il vous dit « ça ne va pas, j’en ai marre », vous êtes forcément pour ce mec-là, vous
176Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
His humanist empathy, his training as a paparazzo and the expectations of his clients
all explain why Caron developed his own brand of “news portraits.” One week later in
Prague, he would continue in the same vein, this time spotlighting whistlers, demonstra-
tors who chose to express their political dissent by booing soldiers in the streets.
A well-known photographer, Caron considered giving up reporting at the end of
1969, shortly before his untimely death. He was perhaps tired of his ceaseless travels, and
he may also have reached a form of completion. Having achieved early success, he may
have felt that his approach had become repetitive, his portraits and urban battle photo-
graphs of the years 1968-1969 bearing some resemblance. In addition, the demanding
existential questions he had experienced during his military service may have led him to
reconsider his role.9 His career had offered him opportunities to take a step back, as he did
not only cover news events, but also movies in the making. This confrontation with other
image production techniques contributed to the development of his own reflexive stance,
as evidenced in some of his set photographs.
A connoisseur’s look at images in the making
Photojournalists had started documenting movie productions in the 1950s.10 Set
photographs were used to promote a film before being stored in agencies’ archives to be
republished over the years, depending on the actors’ news, creating a long-term resource.
The process was advantageous for producers: they gave up their copyright over the pic-
tures but they could bet on a large circulation thanks to the agencies’ networks and the
comings and goings of picture editors using their archives. Magnum Photos pioneered the
filed, followed by its competitors, including Caron’s agency Gamma.
Movie producers were also interested in the reporters’ ability to convey action and
emotions. They shot faithful reproductions of the camera’s framing, showing the film’s key
scenes as they would appear on the screen, but also explored behind-the-scenes topics, just
like when covering a news story, their “author’s gaze” contributing an additional viewpoint.
Caron first encountered the film industry at the beginning of his career, as a paparazzo
chasing stars exiting theatres, parties or airports. As he became a well-published author, he
gained access to movie sets and was able to shoot studio portraits of the actors. In 1967, he
worked on the set of Weekend, directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and photographed the movie’s
stars, Mireille Darc and Jean Yanne, dancing in an open field. The shooting session suggests
the extraordinary plot of this movie which takes as its starting point a gigantic and bloody
traffic jam, the first obstacle in the journey of a couple which ends up kidnapped by a group
of hippie and cannibalistic guerrilla fighters. Caron’s most circulated photograph features
Jean-Luc Godard jumping across a ditch to reach the camera shooting a never-ending line
of cars, using a 500-meters traveling, a technical feat and bravura piece. The photographer
n’êtes pas pour le flic, vous êtes pour l’homme. C’est la même chose de l’autre côté.”
9 As evidenced in his letters, see Caron 2012.
10 See Louis Hochman and Bob Willoughby, September 1957. “Moguls and ASMPers, A New Ap-
proach in the Aesthetics and Economics of Covering Movies.” In Infinity, The Magazine of the American
Society of Magazine Photographers. 13-15.
177Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
highlighted the complex equipment installed to capture this epic scene. He emphasized
the figure of the film director, who was already as famous as his actors and thus as able to
embody the movie (De Baecque, 2011, 367-374, 381-389).
Fig. 8 : Jean-Pierre Léaud and François Truffaut on the set of Stolen Kisses, 1968.
Fig. 9 : Jean-Pierre Léaud and Claude Jade on the set of Stolen Kisses, 1968.
178Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
In 1968, Caron worked on the set of Stolen Kisses by François Truffaut, the third
episode of Antoine Doinel’s adventures, played by Jean-Pierre Léaud, who also appeared
in Weekend. His photographs focus on the couple he formed with Claude Jade in the
movie, but he also showed the bond connecting him with the film director. One picture
emphasizes their likeness, as Truffaut passes by his alter ego and favorite actor in an empty
side-path (ill. 8). Caron continued the exploration of the behind-the-scenes machinery
he had initiated on the set of Weekend, revealing the clapperboard or standing behind the
camera (ill. 9). These imbrications highlight the film director’s vision and contribute to
the New Wave’s defense of authorship. With his eye on the viewfinder, the photographer
could not fail to notice the strategic positioning and framing of the movie camera. His
pictures seem to stem from a sense of kinship between professionals producing pictures.
Paying tribute to the art of film, Caron also defended his own singular viewpoint, that of
an image-maker conversing with motion picture technology.
The limits of photojournalism
Caron’s reflexive stance towards image-making techniques, visible in his movie sto-
ries, gained an ethical perspective during his three trips to Biafra in 1968. The region had
seceded from Nigeria in 1967, initiating a three-year conflict. The Ibo people, historically
favored by the British colons and mostly Catholic, were led by General Ojukwu and de-
manded their independence from the Hausa-Fulani, mostly Muslim. The sea and land
blockade of the region caused a mass famine and the death of more than one million Ibos.
Surrounded by the Nigerian army, Biafra surrendered in January 1970.
The event was covered by the international press and television, marking the ever-in-
creasing role played by the media and NGOs in dealing with humanitarian crises. French
doctor Bernard Kouchner, a member of the Red Cross, departed from this organization’s
rules when he chose to recount his experience in the field. The strategy of testifying to
raise awareness was central to the creation of Doctors without Borders in 1971, even
though the novelty of this approach was overstated as many charities had been using me-
dia campaigns before (Lavoinne, 2005, Desgrandchamps, 2011).
The media coverage reached a peak in the Spring of 1968, and focused on the emer-
gency of the famine, circulating images of skeletal children (Gorin, 2013, Herten, 2017).
Reports also explored the ambiguous role of Western countries, the heritage of colonia-
lism and ethnic divisions, the broader independence movements of the continent and the
issues of oil resource control. Today, the Biafra war is seen as a turning point in the history
of photojournalism and humanitarianism, yet it is taboo in Nigeria, where it is not part of
the school curriculum and not commemorated, as the status of Ibo communities remains
divisive (Korieh, 2012, Achebe, 2013).
Even though the French government did not officially support Biafra, it secretly sent
weapons to thwart the influence of Great Britain, which was in favor of Nigeria (Lhoste,
2008). France used the word “genocide” to raise awareness and facilitated journalists’ travels
to the country. The press adopted a Biafran viewpoint, highlighting the figure of Ojukwu
and the famine, denounced as a geopolitical way of exerting pressure used by the Nigerian
government. Typically, a caption accompanying one of Caron’s photographs read:
179Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
Biafra is a province that is seeking separation and independence from Nigeria, a
West African country that refuses to let go, using every means possible to reduce Biafra
and the rebels. After months of bitter, almost savage fighting, and untold cruelties on
both soldiers and civilians, the Nigerians are convinced Biafra will fall. Indeed, in the
province it is the case of some 14 million people dying slowly but surely from hun-
ger, disease, and injuries. The Nigerians have it bottled up; there is no coming and no
leaving; without proper supplies and medicine the Biafrans are languishing. In Biafra
heroic suffering and resistance are tragically pitted against a dreamed for independence
and possible annihilation.11
Many journalists were “embedded” with NGOs to gain better access to the field.
Caron apparently benefitted from these opportunities as one of his July 1968 pictures
shows the interior of a plane carrying packages. Like other reporters, he went to Biafra
several times in 1968: in April, he focused on the army and fighting, with a story pub-
lished in Paris Match;12 in July, he covered the famine, the oil production sites and the
troops led by German mercenary Rolf Steiner; in November, he documented an attack led
by European mercenaries.13
His second trip confronted him with suffering and distress. Yet he still had to perform,
and Hubert Henrotte, from Gamma’s Paris office, even advised him to “come back quickly;
lots of people are now in Biafra. If you come back after everybody, we take the risk of not
selling anything.”14 With Gamma’s chief editor, Floris de Bonneville, he published La Mort
du Biafra upon his return.15 Released that same year, it was a publishing “coup” promoting
the signature of the photographer and of his agency, Gamma. The title was intended as an
emergency call, doubled by the poignant gaze of an emaciated child on the cover. The back
cover makes no concessions: the responsibility of this war falls to the “cowardice of the inter-
national opinion” which the book aims to reform. The text recounts the fate of malnourished
children with an implacable journalistic precision. It retraces the history of the region and
of the war, emphasizing the interests of Western powers, and finally concludes that both the
army and the international community are responsible for the genocide.
Photographs of the famine represent an extreme form of Caron’s journalistic prac-
tice, an exception stretching the limits of what the photographer and the viewer can bear.
These images contribute to the long history of debates on the worth of journalistic testi-
monies in the face of violence and pain. According to Caron, his images and their publi-
cations in Paris Match helped make the fate of Biafra visible: “It is good to give people a
guilty conscience.”16 In the only remaining film interview of Caron, for a television show
11 “Biafra: what price independence?” Gamma/763:H0703. Back of a press print, stamped: Pix incorporat-
ed, New York. Reference 7823A/10Aab, Gilles Caron Foundation archives.
12 His first photographs were published in Paris Match on 4 May 1968.
13 This story was published in Jeune Afrique 416 (23 Dec. 1968).
14 Translated by the author. Original quote: “ne pas tarder à rentrer ; beaucoup de monde est actuellement
au Biafra. Si vous rentrez après tout le monde, on risque de ne plus vendre du tout.” Hubert Henrotte to
Gilles Caron and Raymond Depardon, 22 Jul. 1968, Gilles Caron Foundation archives.
15 The publishing house, Solar, also released that same year a collective book on May 68 with Gamma
pictures: Les Barricades de Mai.
16 Translated by the author. Original quote: “Il est bon de donner mauvaise conscience aux gens.” Interview
180Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
upon his return from Biafra, the presenter stated that the photographer had told him he
“had a lump in the throat” and “couldn’t talk about it.”17 Overwhelming images of children
dying were screened during the interview, ending with an appeal to donate to the French
Red Cross and the French Committee Against Hunger, superimposed onto a picture. The
sequence was overtly used to warn the public, a strategy grounding the work of both news
outlets and NGOs. In his analysis of Caron’s production and travels to Biafra, Claude
Cookman stresses that Caron always avoided generalization as he sought to “humanize”
and “particularize” his subjects, choosing “expressions, gestures, and body language that
gave his subjects dignity despite their suffering” to create empathy (Cookman, 2008). Yet
these photographs also provoke a form of shock and stupefaction, which were apparently
experienced by Caron himself, raising numerous ethical questions. How could he keep
shooting in such conditions? Do these photographs really help rally the public to a cause,
or do they just satisfy a morbid fascination, feeding a magazine market where horror and
advertising are juxtaposed?
These issues are encapsulated in one picture showing Raymond Depardon, another
member of Gamma, filming the agony of a child whom Caron had also photographed. The
violence of this situation casts doubts upon the soundness of reporting. The hope that pic-
tures can play a role looks very thin when it is already too late. We are left with the suspicion
of a voyeuristic and cynical business, far from the ambitions of concerned photography.
Revealing the making of news pictures, Caron openly questioned his own practice.
In Biafra, the very act of taking photographs was challenged. Photographing one of his
colleagues, he pointed out the limits and contradictions of his own job. In the 1960s, many
photojournalists participated in this criticism of their profession (Bouveresse, 2017). Fac-
ing competition from television and ever-growing economic pressure, they had to comply
with constraints and deadlines limiting their scope of action. At the same time, the found-
ing principles of concerned photography were also starting to be debated. The post-war
humanist and Universalist spirit would soon be under fire, as it remained the realm of a
few privileged white males. These entitled photographers were accused of traveling the
world as if they were at home everywhere, objectifying the people they encountered and
reducing them to exotic stereotypes. Far from enabling a better understanding between
people, photography was suspected of contributing to colonial power. This analysis led
some photographers to give up the claim of objectivity, now associated with the Western
gaze, and to explore subjective standpoints, in the form of autobiography or collaboration
with their subjects, paving the way for participatory practices.
This criticism of photojournalism was all the more severe in the case of images of
violence or suffering. Reporters were compared to vultures taking advantage of the pain
of others, selling pictures to promote their own fames. The contrast between the formal
qualities of some photographs and the pain they depicted embodied this exploitation
(Reinhardt, 2007). What was worse, the aestheticization of suffering risked, ultimately, to
anesthetize the viewer and provoke a “compassion fatigue”(Moeller, 1999). These concerns
were on the rise when Caron was working in Biafra. In a recent reading of these debates,
Ariella Azoulay pointed out that the opposition between aesthetic and political purposes
with Jean-Pierre Ezan, op. cit.
17 Interview with Pierre Sabbagh, unknown channel, Gilles Caron Foundation archives.
181Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
was simplistic, giving an easy excuse to dismiss the context of a photograph just because
it was deemed too “beautiful” (Azoulay, 2010; Sontag, 1977, Rosler, 1981). The formal
qualities of a picture, indeed, do not necessarily obscure its content; they cannot serve to
exonerate viewers from any reaction. In 2002, Susan Sontag gave a similar warning when
she qualified her first writings and denounced an excessive interpretation of Guy Debord’s
“spectacle” and Baudrillard’s “simulacrum” theories, according to which pictures create an
artificial staging, ill-suited to sustain any political consideration (Sontag, 2002). The privi-
leged viewer may then choose to ignore reality, reduced to a flimsy illusion, forgetting that
injustice, violence and suffering are not a show for the people in the photograph.
These contributions to the debate on photographs’ worth shift the criticism from the
pictures themselves to the viewer’s role and responsibility.18 The legitimacy of reporting
dwells indeed on its ability to encourage responses. It revolves around the hope that it will
trigger reactions and contribute to political debates, helping to put pressure on governments’
decisions or promote humanitarian action. But the actual mechanisms of this rallying re-
main blurry. Little is known on how pictures are received and interpreted. The power of
photographs is not quantifiable, and this leads to radical conclusions: on one hand, some
hope they can promote decisive change; on the other hand, some fear that they will only
increase a general indifference. In-between those two extremes, a vast political field is still to
be mapped, where images play against all odds an uncertain, tiny and debatable role.
In Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie’s novel Half of Yellow Sun, which
takes place during the Biafran war, one of the characters writes a poem questioning this
doubtful role:19
Were You Silent When We Died?
Did you see photos in sixty-eight
Of children with their hair becoming rust:
Sickly patches nestled on those small heads,
Then fallen off, like rotten leaves and dust?
Imagine children with arms like toothpicks,
With footballs for bellies and skin stretched thin.
It was kwashiorkor – difficult word,
A word that was not quite ugly enough, a sin.
18 Rancière (2007, 2008) also pointed out the paradox of the spectator’s passivity. Azoulay (2008) theorized
new avenues to include the spectator within the photographic community. Such experiments may be seen in
the rise of participatory practices (Bishop, 2006a and b, Kester, 2004, Zhong Mengual, 2019).
19 Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda, 2009. Half a Yellow Sun. London: Fourth Estate 2009: chapter 30. This
poem echoes Chinua Achebe’s “A Mother in a Refugee Camp” (1971). In Collected Poems, New York: An-
chor Books. 2004, 16.
182Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
You needn’t imagine. There were photos
Displayed in gloss-filled pages of your Life.
Did you see? Did you feel sorry briefly,
Then turn around to hold your lover or wife?
The skin had turned the tawny of wheat tea
And showed cobwebs of vein and brittle bone;
Naked children laughing, as if the man
Would not take the photos and then leave, alone.
Biafra was not the only place where Caron faced the limits of his own profession. In
1970, he went to Chad to photograph the armed Toubou rebels of the National Libera-
tion Front (Frolinat). With three colleagues, he followed them in the desert and they were
entrenched in a school under the firing of the official army. The journalists had to walk
across the no man’s land to act as go-betweens, informing the rebels that their enemies
waited for their surrender. Not only did Caron play an active role in the situation he was
documenting, a far cry from his traditional position as a witness, but he also did not work
as usual, as he found very little to photograph. The ambush was dramatic but devoid of
action, amounting mostly to a long wait – visually, a non-event (Blanc, 2020, 100). He
took staged portraits of the rebels aiming their weapons and of the various stages of fi-
gures moving towards him in the empty vastness of the desert, their slowly growing scale
giving a sense of time suspended. For this last story, which offered very few photographic
opportunities, Caron reverted to his preferred genre: portraits.
Conclusion
Caron remains famous today for his photographs of demonstrators in action, throwing
stones or facing armed forces, and for his portraits created out of news situations. This art
of portraiture stems from his training as a paparazzo, his humanist engagement with the
people he encountered, and the expectations of magazines, which favored his ability to
“embody” the event, focusing on the faces of its main actors. By the end of the 1960s, he
had achieved great success and was thinking of giving up his ceaseless travels. The analy-
sis of his production offers various explanations: his work had become somehow repeti-
tive, with these “portraits” turning into a trademark; and he had developed a critical view
towards image-making, evidenced in his photographs of movie sets and in his coverage of
the Biafra war, which was a shattering experience.
Caron’s career typifies the evolution of photojournalism at the end of the 1960s: re-
porters were then recognized as authors in their own right, especially when they worked
for cooperative agencies such as Gamma; accordingly, they started asserting a personal
viewpoint and questioning their own role and profession. Caron became a myth after his
early death, like other photographers, and an inspiring example because he had succeeded
183Image [&] Narrative - n°24/1 2023
to create a journalistic œuvre, with iconic images often republished, a signature style and a
nuanced position, all promoted by his agency, by magazines, and to this day by his foun-
dation, which continues to preserve his legacy.
Acknowledgements
This investigation was conducted in preparation of the exhibition Gilles Caron. Un
monde imparfait (presented by La Salle d’attente at Le Cellier, Reims, 20 November 2020-
7 February 2021; Le Point du Jour, Cherbourg, 6 June-10 October 2021; Médiathèque des
Capucins, Brest, 6 November 2021-28 February 2022; La Confluence, Betton, 22 October
2022-5 March 2023) with extensive research by co-curators Guillaume Blanc (May 68,
Tchad) and Isabella Seniuta (Vietnam, Prague). It benefited from the insight and support
of Béatrice Didier, David Barriet and David Benassayag who published the accompanying
catalogue (Le Point du Jour); Francisco Aynard Clermes for image reproductions; the
Gilles Caron Foundation, Marianne Caron, Marjolaine and Louis Bachelot-Caron.
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