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[OM] Peter Turnley

Subject: [OM] Peter Turnley
From: Tina Manley <images@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:28:36 -0400
PESO:

For those not on Facebook, here is Peter Turnley's latest post.  I thought
it was very interesting:

I first met Josef in 1975-I had made a phone call to my twin brother David
from Paris on a Saturday morning, and while on the phone, he asked me if I
had come across a Czech photographer everyone was speaking about. Later
that day, I went out to take a walk with my girlfriend Karen, and stopped
in a magazine shop and saw a set of photographs in a French photography
magazine that really caught my eye, made by a man named Josef Koudelka.
Later that afternoon, as I sat on a bench kissing Karen in the Luxembourg
Gardens, Karen said-Pete-did you see that guy just took our picture. I
looked up and saw a man walking by with an amazing Leica, beautifully worn
with gold underplate shining, walking by with his camera at his hip aimed
towards up. I jumped, up and ran after him-excited to meet someone with
such a Leica. I called out in French, "did you make our photograph". The
man stopped, and said a bit nervously with heavily accented english, "I am
a just a tourist". As he spoke, I saw a second Leica hanging from his neck,
as beautiful as the first, and I said, "where are you from". He said, "I am
Czech". I said, "are you Josef Koudelka?". He replied with a laugh "yes". I
patted him on the back and said, "come on, come and join us" and he came
over and sat down with me and Karen. This began a first hand connection and
friendship for me with someone that has profoundly inspired me for now more
than 35 years. A few weeks after this first meeting in 1975, he invited me
to join him in the evening at Magnum in Paris when everyone was gone, and
laid out a newspaper and opened a can of sardines, with some butter and
bread, and opened a bottle of wine, and we broke bread together. He looked
at my photographs and when finished, said, "you have a good eye and a good
heart". "You can do this, but you must find your own way, no one can do
this for you, if it is important enough for you, you will find a way". At
the time, I thought this was possibly the most generous honesty anyone
could offer me and I knew he was right. At one quiet moment that night, he
looked up and said something incredibly powerful and simple, "my idea of a
good life, is that I wake up in the morning, and go out and look around and
make 4 rolls of film a day". I have seen now Josef over the years many
times, in Paris and elsewhere-also the gentleman who has printed his
photographs (and HCB's), Voja, is also my printer, and we speak often of
Josef, always with profound respect and admiration. In my own way, I have
chosen a nomadic life over the past three decades, and the power of example
of Josef, his passion, intelligent curiosity, amazingly personal
penetrating vision, and his way of life, has been a constant inspiration
for me. I don't use superlatives very often when speaking of photographers,
but Josef, is in a class of his own. My thanks to a truly great man, and
photographer.
The above photograph of Josef was made at a Gypsy festival in the Dordogne
in France in 1982. My thanks to a truly great man, and photographer.
© Peter Turnley. All rights reserved. France, 1982.

Tina

-- 
Tina Manley
http://tina-manley.artistwebsites.com
-- 
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