Images of one common human race

If you were strolling along the Sliema/ St Julians promenade last week, looking at the large photographic prints displayed there, and noticed from the corner of your eye a quiet discreet man taking pictures, you may have been photographed by one of the world's greatest masters of photojournalism, Reza.

Reza, born Reza Deghati in Iran in 1952, is in Malta to promote his exhibition One World, One Tribe, in which he tells the human story from birth to death, using people from all races, ethnic groups and nations to demonstrate the commonality of human kind.

He dropped his last name as the Iranian Shah's rule collapsed in the late 1970s, when he saw that the new Khomeini regime had even less respect for freedom, particularly that of the press.

I was invited to join him for dinner earlier this week at the perhaps aptly named Paparazzi restaurant (never mind the fact that "paparazzi" is very much a derogatory term if used to describe most serious photographers).

Reza may be the man who's photographed the most National Geographic cover stories (25 and counting!) and has the sort of job that thousands of photographers like me can only dream about. Yet, I found him to be extremely approachable and down to earth.

We talked about the differences in working on a daily newspaper and on a publication like National Geographic. Many photographers claim that the only reason National Geographic photographers take the amazing pictures the magazine is renowned for is because they have several months to work on a single story. Reza strongly disputes this: "It's true you might spend a long time to do a story, but, in reality, you don't really have that much time to get a picture because it's actually lots of little stories that you're shooting and putting together into a package. You have so many places to go to, so much research to do, so you might still have only an hour or half a day to get the definitive shot in a particular location, much as it is on a daily newspaper".

His first story for National Geographic was about "real life" in Cairo. He found he'd been booked into a five-star hotel and found the disparity hard to handle, going from that luxury to shooting the poorest of the poor, then back into the luxury hotel at the end of the day. So he changed hotel to a no-star hotel, and that's when he started to get his best pictures. "You have to have passion for what you're doing and immerse yourself into that culture, live with the people whose lives you're documenting," he explains.

"Having said that, the photographer does need the little comforts - you need electricity at the end of your day, for example. But sometimes, not even that is possible. In Afghanistan with the mujahedin, I lived with the fighters in the trenches and in the mountains for months, sleeping when they slept, eating when they ate."

Sometimes the job can get dangerous. He's been wounded several times while covering conflict and social turmoil in Europe, Africa and Asia. On over 100 occasions he's said to himself: "OK Reza this is the end of your life".

Looking back, he can find the funny side to a particular incident. "In Beirut, I saw an Israeli air raid coming in. I ran for shelter, and dived into a gully passing under a road. Bombs exploded either side of the road, and then I noticed that the ground beneath me didn't feel right. Suddenly I realised I'd wrapped himself around an unexploded bomb from a previous day's air raid. In every language that I knew, Farsi, Arabic, French, English, I kept telling the bomb: 'You will not explode, you will not explode'".

Like many photographers, Reza is irked when asked about the photographic equipment he uses. "When a beautiful poem is written, do you ask the poet what pen he used?"

He feels it is important that photojournalists give something back to society. After several years training local photojournalists in places he'd travelled to, in 2001 he founded a non-profit organisation to train local journalists and set up independent media in Afghanistan - Aina, meaning mirror.

Reza will be giving a talk this evening at 8.30 at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, in Valletta. A short DVD presentation about his work will follow. Images he took will be on sale with the proceeds going towards various charities. The event is free of charge, but strictly by invitation. Those interested in attending can call the event co-organiser, Keith Marshall, on 9947 1813.

Reza would welcome the opportunity to meet Maltese photographers at his exhibition. He's interested in knowing about the photography scene in Malta, what training opportunities there are, what seminars, workshops take place, what sort of work local photographers do, what the standard of photography is like.

One World, One Tribe will be mounted at the Mediterranean Conference Centre between tomorrow and the end of the month.

dzlupi@timesofmalta.com