| All the pictures here are "happy" ""children dancing about, playing, lovers carefree... Haven't you tried to shake the world? |
| Yes, I suppose my pictures are happy. I don't think people want to see disturbing pictures or have them on their walls. I've just had an exhibition at La Galerie Tachile in Paris of blind children moving their hands over the works of art at the Louvre, trying to feel them. People are clearly disturbed to see blind children. |
| You've shot young Tibetan lamas, the Paris theatre, the Gaelic community on Tory island....is photography art or is it a way of documenting reality? |
| A bit of both. It is a witness to the times we live in. |
| All your pictures are in black and white. Don't you work in colour? |
| Yes, some, although I am best known for my portraits and studies in b&w. There's something too larger-than-life, too distracting about colour. I reserve colour for the theatre, especially the Theatre du Soleil which has a lot of Oriental influences from the Japanese Noh, the Indian Kathakali. But in a sense b&w is the more difficult since the composition has to be just right. |
| What is the work you've been doing with the Henri Cartier Bresson Foundation? |
| We've been collecting and preserving his vintage prints, colour sheets, rare books, posters. When we first proposed the foundation, my husband didn't want a mausoleum to him. So, we have exhibitions of other photographers, painters and so on. We also give out an award to promising photographers to undertake a project; at the end, there's an exhibition and a book. Fazal Sheikh won the award in 2005 for his work on the widows of Vrindavan and the abandoned girl child. |
| Photography has made many technical advances recently. Have you kept pace? |
| No, I still work with my Leica M3. I bought a digital camera last year and use it, but only for my theatre work, especially the rehearsals, since it gives you much more latitude and keeps a check on wastage. |
| Do you think women have a different way of seeing? |
| Not really. Perhaps the only advantage women have is that they are more acceptable to male subjects |
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