LET ME IN.
A Magnum Photos Curation
From post-truth to the pandemic, climate crisis and global conflicts, current times seem dominated by distrust and division. Yet it also makes room for seeking connection – to each other and the world at large.
There’s so much we don’t know about the people closest to us, how can we begin to relate to the experience of others – whether that be from living in a different country, or from experiencing the horrors of a war zone or natural disaster? The photographer’s role, particularly as a photojournalist, is to get under the surface, to break down barriers and get to ‘the truth’.
‘Let Me In’ features 6 Magnum photographers that move beyond traditional documentary photography through subtle narratives, merging fiction and reality, with intense emotional and psychological engagement.
CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON
b.1970, Canada. Joined Magnum in 2007.
Exploring truth & intimacy.
Christopher Anderson’s work is emotionally charge. Though rooted in war reporage, today his work captures more intimate and personal moments with his family – all linked in its ability to position the viewer as part of the scene. Anderson’s work invites ‘us’, the viewer ‘in’, sharing how he felt during these carefully chosen moments.
His photographs of his daughter ‘Pia’ are beautiful, yet mysterious. We’re drawn into her world by her presence, but so much remains unknown, emphasized by a shadow hiding her features or an enigmatic far-off gaze.
CHRISTOPHER ANDERSEN
b.1970, Canada. Joined Magnum in 2007.
Exploring truth & intimacy.
Christopher Anderson’s work is emotionally charge. Though rooted in war reporage, today his work captures more intimate and personal moments with his family – all linked in its ability to position the viewer as part of the scene. Anderson’s work invites ‘us’, the viewer ‘in’, sharing how he felt during these carefully chosen moments.
His photographs of his daughter ‘Pia’ are beautiful, yet mysterious. We’re drawn into her world by her presence, but so much remains unknown, emphasized by a shadow hiding her features or an enigmatic far-off gaze.
“I finally understood what a picture can be about – it’s about responding to a moment that’s important to you… I wasn’t trying to make a good photograph, or tell a story. I was literally communicating how I felt.”
_ CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON
TRENT PARKE
b.1970, Canada. Joined Magnum in 2007.
EXPLORING IDENTITY, PLACE & FAMILY
Trent Parke is recognised for his dramatic and highly emotive images of his home country, Australia, shot in stark black & white tones. In his series ‘Minutes to Midnight’ and ‘The Seventh Wave’, he places us, the viewer, at the heart of the action. In ‘After the Rodeo’ the energy of the horses is palpable, their restless intensity captured in seemingly perpetual motion. In ‘Bondi Beach’, his swimmers similarly twist and turn. He invites us to share in this intense and turbulent moment, as if we were swimming alongside them.
TRENT PARKE
b.1970, Canada. Joined Magnum in 2007.
EXPLORING IDENTITY, PLACE & FAMILY
Trent Parke is recognised for his dramatic and highly emotive images of his home country, Australia, shot in stark black & white tones. In his series ‘Minutes to Midnight’ and ‘The Seventh Wave’, he places us, the viewer, at the heart of the action. In ‘After the Rodeo’ the energy of the horses is palpable, their restless intensity captured in seemingly perpetual motion. In ‘Bondi Beach’, his swimmers similarly twist and turn. He invites us to share in this intense and turbulent moment, as if we were swimming alongside them.
“For me, it’s all about emotional connection.”
_ TRENT PARKE
CRISTINA DE MIDDEL
b.1975, Spain. Associate Magnum Member since 2019
EXPLORING PHOTOGRAPHY’S AMBIGUOUS RELATIONSHIP TO TRUTH
Cristina de Middel is part storyteller, part scenographer and part documentary photographer. Moving away from traditional photojournalism, she has embraced fantasy and the surreal to build a more nuanced portrayal of reality. De Middel’s series ‘This Is What Hatred Did’ is are imagination of Amos Tutuola’s 1954 novel ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’, set in the streets of Makoko, a floating village in the city of Lagos, Nigeria. Weaving fact with fiction, she shines alight on the challenges of navigating trust, in times of conflict and abuse of power. Through a collaborative process, De Middel gives her subjects agency in how they wish to be seen.
CRISTINA DE MIDDEL
b.1975, Spain. Associate Magnum Member since 2019
EXPLORING PHOTOGRAPHY’S AMBIGUOUS RELATIONSHIP TO TRUTH
Cristina de Middel is part storyteller, part scenographer and part documentary photographer. Moving away from traditional photojournalism, she has embraced fantasy and the surreal to build a more nuanced portrayal of reality. De Middel’s series ‘This Is What Hatred Did’ is are imagination of Amos Tutuola’s 1954 novel ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’, set in the streets of Makoko, a floating village in the city of Lagos, Nigeria. Weaving fact with fiction, she shines alight on the challenges of navigating trust, in times of conflict and abuse of power. Through a collaborative process, De Middel gives her subjects agency in how they wish to be seen.
Does De Middel’s veil of mysticism allow us to get closer to the truth?
JACOB AUE SOBOL
b.1976, Denmark. Joined Magnum in 2012.
& THE COMPLEXITY OF CONNECTION.
Jacob Aue Sobol has developed a unique, high-contrast style of black & white photography, which is both poetic and raw. He gets up close to his subjects using the camera as a way to connect and capture intimate, yet unsentimental images. In ‘Tokyo’ 2007, a girl on the subway is pressed into a confined space, her raised hands reveal an attempt to push all that surrounds her away. Amongst the close proximity, even stifling claustrophobia at times, we can sense the loneliness and distance between people.
JACOB AUE SOBOL
b.1976, Denmark. Joined Magnum in 2012.
EXPLORING CLOSENESS & THE COMPLEXITY OF CONNECTION.
Jacob Aue Sobol has developed a unique, high-contrast style of black & white photography, which is both poetic and raw. He gets up close to his subjects using the camera as a way to connect and capture intimate, yet unsentimental images. In ‘Tokyo’ 2007, a girl on the subway is pressed into a confined space, her raised hands reveal an attempt to push all that surrounds her away. Amongst the close proximity, even stifling claustrophobia at times, we can sense the loneliness and distance between people.
“In spite of photography’s seemingly concrete form, I hope to expose layers in people that are not immediately visible, but nonetheless shape who we are and give meaning to our lives.”
_ JACOB AUE SOBOL
ALEC SOTH
b.1969, USA. Joined Magnum in 2008
EXPLORING SUGGESTED NARRATIVES & ISOLATION
Alec Soth is a documentary photographer and poet. His large-format colour images of people and scenes from America’s disconnected communities drill down to the essence of his subjects. His series ‘Niagara’ portrays a town, where people go to get married – known as the ‘romance capital’. But the reality is something else, drawing an inevitable comparison with the hollowness of the American Dream. Symbols of romance such as the kissing swans in ‘Two Towels’ 2004 become bleak set against the beige, cracked walls of a motel room. His portrait of ‘Misty’ 2007 is striking. There’s a power to her mystery, the suggestion of a narrative, but so much is left undisclosed.
ALEC SOTH
b.1969, USA. Joined Magnum in 2008
EXPLORING SUGGESTED NARRATIVES & ISOLATION
Alec Soth is a documentary photographer and poet. His large-format colour images of people and scenes from America’s disconnected communities drill down to the essence of his subjects. His series ‘Niagara’ portrays a town, where people go to get married – known as the ‘romance capital’. But the reality is something else, drawing an inevitable comparison with the hollowness of the American Dream. Symbols of romance such as the kissing swans in ‘Two Towels’ 2004 become bleak set against the beige, cracked walls of a motel room. His portrait of ‘Misty’ 2007 is striking. There’s a power to her mystery, the suggestion of a narrative, but so much is left undisclosed.
“The longer I spent there, the darker it got. Part of that is down to me and my nature, part of it is down to the place itself. But I also find a real beauty in that darkness.”
_ ALEC SOTH
INGE MORATH
& SAUL STEINBERG
1923 – 2002, Austria & 1914-1999, Romania. Morath joined Magnum in 1953.
COLLABORATION EXPLORING CONCEALMENT
Inge Morath was a prolific writer and photographer. In 1956, she met the cartoonist Saul Steinberg, and they began a fascinating creative collaboration, titled the ‘Mask Series’. The images offer at first glance a playful and even humorous take on New York’s Upper East Side grandeur in post-war America. Both European, Steinberg and Morath were outsiders looking in. By concealing their subjects faces, in some ways they end up telling us more, revealing a far eerier and suggestively sinister side to the 1950s American Dream.
INGE MORATH
& SAUL STEINBERG
1923 – 2002, Austria & 1914-1999, Romania. Morath joined Magnum in 1953.
COLLABORATION EXPLORING CONCEALMENT
Inge Morath was a prolific writer and photographer. In 1956, she met the cartoonist Saul Steinberg, and they began a fascinating creative collaboration, titled the ‘Mask Series’. The images offer at first glance a playful and even humorous take on New York’s Upper East Side grandeur in post-war America. Both European, Steinberg and Morath were outsiders looking in. By concealing their subjects faces, in some ways they end up telling us more, revealing a far eerier and suggestively sinister side to the 1950s American Dream.
“Of course [a mask is] something that’s useful, it’s necessary, but it’s also something ugly, because it takes away all the poetry, the spontaneity of life from people.”
_ SAUL STEINBERG
“Photography is a strange phenomenon… You trust your eye and cannot help but bare your soul.”
_ INGE MORATH
In partnership with the Magnum gallery.
