For nearly half a century, the Franco-Iranian photojournalist Alfred Yaghobzadeh has been traveling the world, keeping up with current events. The Visa pour l’image festival in Perpignan is dedicating an exhibition to him, “Alfred’s Journey,” which retraces a life dedicated to photojournalism. Portrait.
6 mins
From our special correspondent in Perpignan,
It is difficult to retrace more than 40 years of a photojournalist’s career in a single exhibition. Yet this is exactly what Alfred Yaghobzadeh has attempted to do in this 36e edition of the Visa pour l’image festival to promote his latest book, “Alfred’s Journey,” which bears witness to nearly half a century spent traveling the planet to bear witness to the tumults and joys of the world.
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Alfred Yaghobzadeh’s first encounter with photography was almost by chance. He was only 19 when the demonstrations against the Shah of Iran broke out. It was the first time that Iranians demonstrated and took to the streets, it had never happened under the Shah. “, recalls the photojournalist. With a group of friends, he went there, but this son of an Assyrian Christian mother and an Armenian Christian father quickly distanced himself. It wasn’t my thing, I didn’t believe in the revolution or in Khamenei, but like everyone else, I was curious. ” he says with a mischievous smile.
Destiny turned upside down
If for some it is a bad fault, Alfred Yaghobzadeh’s curiosity will take him much further than he imagined. I don’t believe in destiny, but the Revolution changed mine. If it hadn’t happened, I would never have become a photographer. ” he concedes. Because in the streets of Tehran, young Alfred notices these foreign journalists taking photos. He asks his mother for a little money to buy a camera and decides to do the same thing as them.
Alfred Yaghobzadeh already had a credo: ” I don’t do politics, I’m just a witness “For 444 days, he will cover the hostage-taking at the American embassy in Tehran and chance will change the young photojournalist’s career. I met Thierry Campion from the Associated Press agency and he liked my photos, so I gave them to him. ” This is where Alfred’s journey began.
” The war was in the movies or on television »
In the process, Iran-Iraq War breaks out and the young Iranian is brought to cover his first conflict. For me, war was in the cinema or on television, Hollywood films… “Alfred Yaghobzadeh knew practically nothing about the war at the time and its violence would particularly mark him. Soldiers were fighting in trenches, there were mines everywhere and 14 or 15 year olds were ready to die as martyrs for their country… It’s something I never understood. ” laments the photographer.
For over 40 years, the Iranian photojournalist will witness all the major conflicts. As you walk through his exhibition, one thing stands out: Alfred’s lens has immortalized all the major events of the last fifty years. The war in Afghanistan, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Chechnya, the return from exile of Yasser Arafat in 1994, or more recently the return of the Taliban and the war in Ukraine… Nothing is missing, or almost nothing. The photographer has only one regret, ” Not being able to cover the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, I was stuck in Palestine ” he explains.
” A job like any other »
This job almost becomes his reason for living. I sacrificed my privacy for photography, I was gone all the time, I never took vacations, but I still came home to at least spend Christmas with my family. “, he says. A perfectionist, Alfred Yaghobzadeh makes a point of honor to treat all his subjects from A to Z. ” You have to spend a lot of time in the field to find subjects and better understand what’s going on. It requires a lot of sacrifices. “He spent nearly ten years documenting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” For me, it was my responsibility to show what was happening there. ” he confides.
A total dedication to his work that he would pay dearly for. A Hezbollah hostage in Lebanon in 1985, he was injured by a grenade and then by two lead bullets during the Arab Spring demonstrations in Cairo in 2011. In 1995, he was hit by shrapnel from a Russian tank in Grozny. Seriously injured, a laptop battery he was carrying deflected the shrapnel and saved his life.
Are all these risks really worth it? Alfred Yaghobzadeh has a hard time answering this question. I don’t do this work for myself, I do it for people. It’s up to them to judge. ” he believes. ” It’s a job like any other. I could have been an accountant or a taxi driver, I chose photojournalist, that’s how it is ” he smiled.
” Every moment in life is worth photographing »
Having settled in France where he has lived for 40 years, Alfred Yaghobzadeh, now aged 66, has asserted his rights to retirement. A purely administrative process which allows him to have ” financial security ” while it is increasingly difficult for photojournalists to make a living from their work today. Photographing wars now seems to be part of a bygone era for the Iranian photojournalist, but Alfred Yaghobzadeh, who also tried his hand at fashion photography for several years and who also covered the 1998 Football World Cup, does not rule out anything.
” For me, every moment of life is worth photographing. It can be photographing a concert or a pretty girl. And if ever, I have to photograph war again, why not, admits the photojournalist. I really like to show the different colors of our world, so if I can use my camera until I’m 90, I will. », says Alfred Yaghobzadeh, laughing.