Tom Stoddart's exhibition of photographs of war, death and disease, which brought London's South Bank to a standstill last summer, opens in Dublin next week. Penelope Dening meets the man who regards his work as 'a tool to inform and communicate and move people.'
Last summer an exhibition of photographs drew tens of thousands of visitors to an open space on London's South Bank. The large prints created a force field of emotion as visitors moved slowly around them in total silence.
From time to time, exhibition staff would direct people to the photographer Tom Stoddart, who, unusually in these circumstances, was close at hand. "Working for a newspaper or a magazine, you never see the reaction the picture produces. And one of the dangers of being in the media industry is that you talk only to other photographers or other writers. So, it was a privilege to listen to what people had to say. What came across was this feeling of people being disempowered by politicians and frustrated that in this day and age, we still allow this kind of stuff to go on."
The 100 prints were taken from his book, iWitness, published to mark 40 years of the UK's Disasters Emergency Committee, which co-ordinates fundraising in times of international crisis. The pictures, shot by Stoddart since 1992, are a harrowing testimony to the ravages of war, death and disease that continue to devastate the lives of millions of people across the planet. The subject headings are damning: famine, scourge, exodus, cleansing ... the photographs numbing in their bleak intensity.
Next week the exhibition moves to Dublin. Sponsored by Concern, it serves to honour, he says, the generosity of the people of Ireland, who give more to charity per capita than any other country in the world. Though slightly smaller in scope, and hung within the enclosed space of a traditional gallery, Stoddart hopes that the same spirit of accessibility will be retained.
A total of 125,000 people are thought to have visited the London exhibition - from schoolchildren to City boys, African bishops to Muslims from London's East End. Responses varied from the tearful to the robust, Stoddart recalls, the only cavil being why was he taking pictures when he could have been doing something to help. "Don't shoot the messenger," was his reply.
Born into a small fishing community in Northumberland, Tom Stoddart's career began, when he was 16, on the local newspaper. The job he'd seen advertised - junior reporter - had already been filled, so he was handed a camera instead. Friday-night dinner dances became his speciality, snapping pictures of local worthies.
Thirty-five years later, Stoddart is a veteran of just about every conflict, famine, flood and earthquake the world has witnessed over the past quarter of a century. Yet, far from being inured to the suffering and misery, he remains as committed as ever, though sometimes it's hard to persuade other people.
"A kind of inertia has set in, with picture editors saying, 'There's no point going there, Sebastien Salgado has already done that, and anyway, these people are not as thin as the people he photographed.' " And anyway, photo essays as raw as these are not deemed suitable for today's magazines, whose focus is lifestyle, consumerism and celebrity.
"But when you put pictures like this in front of ordinary people, as I did, they become very angry. And that's what photographers need to remember." Photographs can change history, he maintains. "You only have to think of Vietnam: Nick Good's picture of the girl running down the road and Eddie Adam's of the kid being shot dead in the street." And if anyone still doubts the power of photography, they should look no further than "this shambles in Iraq", he says.
"There was a faction of people who didn't want military pictures in this book. But I was determined to have them there." He turns to a photograph of a handsome young man, whose eardrums are now completely shot. "When this guy went to war, to fight, I'm sure his mother felt he was going to do something worthwhile. And he did. What people forget is that for 20 years, British military and UN soldiers have acted as peace keepers, and given their lives acting as peace keepers, in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Bosnia, which has cleared the way for aid agencies to do their stuff." Yet the image that will remain in our minds for ever, he says, is "that terrible picture of the man standing on the tin can, his arms outstretched, and wires stuck to his hands and a hood over his head" - a trophy picture from the torture camp.
"A small digital camera and the Internet; these are the real weapons of mass destruction. I mean, in what other situation would Donald Rumsfeld have come and apologised?" The result, he believes, is that press freedom will be even more limited. "But it proves once again how powerful stills can be; and for people like me, photographs can continue to be the tool to inform and communicate and move people, which is what it's all about."
Witness, by Tom Stoddart, is published by Trolley Ltd, €59. His photos will be at the Gallery of Photography, Temple Bar, Dublin, from December 3rd until January 30th