The Photographer

The Photographer is a three-part mixed media performance accompanied by music (also sometimes referred to as a chamber opera) by composer Philip Glass. The libretto is based on the life and homicide trial of 19th-century American photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Commissioned by the Holland Festival, the opera was first performed in 1982 at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam.

Subject

Eadweard Muybridge was an English-born photographer who relocated to the American West and was an early pioneer in photographic technology. He photographed well-known landscapes of Yosemite that pushed the aesthetic and technological boundaries of the medium. His early photographic motion studies conducted in association with Leland Stanford led to the earliest moving photographic images.

In 1874, Muybridge murdered Major Harry Larkyns (referred to as 'Colonel Harry Larkyns' in this work), whom he suspected of being his wife's lover, and was acquitted by a jury against the instructions of the judge on the ground of justifiable homicide. His trial is well-known because his defense argued that a head injury incurred in a stagecoach accident altered his personality, which modern neuroscientists believe could have been caused by certain types of brain damage.

The Photographer (film)

The Photographer is a 2000 comedy film directed by Jeremy Stein. It revolves around a photographer who has a single evening to find ten magical photographs, or else he stands to lose everything that is important to him.

Plot

A year after becoming the toast of New York City's art scene, photographer Max Martin has lost his ability to take a decent picture. On the night before his make-or-break gallery opening, surrounded by the trappings of success but devoid of inspiration, Max embarks on a bizarre trek through the city in search of ten mysterious photographs that could save his career. Accompanied by an unlikely crew of strangers he meets along the way, Max trips through a modern-day Oz, and rediscovers the easily forgotten value of seeing magic reflected in everyday life.

Cast

The Photographer (comics)

The Photographer: Into War-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders is a nonfiction graphic novel by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, and Frederic Lemercier.The Photographer tells the true story of Didier Lefèvre, a French photojournalist, who accompanied a Médecins Sans Frontières mission during the height of the Soviet war in Afghanistan in 1986. The book interweaves Lefèvre's black-and-white photographs and Guibert's illustrations — combined with captions and word balloons — to create the narrative.

First published by Dupuis in three volumes from 2003 through 2006,The Photographer sold 250,000 copies in France and won the Essentials of Angoulême award in 2007. It has been translated from the original French into 11 languages. First Second published the English edition in 2009.

Background

Lefèvre returned from the mission with 4,000 photos. (He also lost 14 fewer teeth due to malnutrition and exhaustion.) The vast majority of Lefèvre's photos remained unpublished for decades after his return. Lefèvre's friend, cartoonist Emmanuel Guibert, encouraged Lefèvre to combine his photos with Guibert's artwork to make a book about the experience. The project was synthesized (and colored) by designer Frédéric Lemercier.