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#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}PERPIGNAN, France â€" An exhibition of the first 20 years of Joao Silva’s photography, from 1990 to 2010, is on display here this week at the Visa Pour l’Image festival, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary under the direction of Jean-François Leroy.
Mr. Silva, a New York Times staff photographer, lost his legs after stepping on a land mine in Afghanistan in 2010. He is currently based in South Africa and recently photographed the riots in Zamdela in January and the anniversary of the Marikana miners’ strike massacre in August. His conversation with James Estrin has been edited.
Tell me about your show at the festival. How did this come about?
Jean-François Leroy has been amazingly supportive. He had a show for me curated by David Furst [The Times's foreign picture editor] while I was in the hospital, and Jean-François invited me to do another show this year. I spent months and months, while recovering between surgeries, looking at my negatives and going through my body of work. It’s re-looking at your work in a very different way, because obviously I have changed very much in the past few years.
After all that time and going through pretty much every single negative that I have â€" I’ve lost a lot of work, sadly â€" but in the end, the show ended up only being about three countries. I was looking at this body of work, which Greg Marinovich had helped me to edit in several sessions, and it included Iraq, Somalia, Georgia and Sudan â€" pretty much every single country where I shot a decent frame. And when I looked back, the only work that really stood out from the rest was the body of work from South Africa, obviously, and Iraq and Afghanistan.
No irony intended, but those were the three countries that shaped me as a human being. And it was an interesting process of rediscovery.
How so?
You’re reliving a lot of memories, especially with the South Africa work. Even two decades later, so much of it is still pretty raw. And all of it is in the images, including the day when Ken [Oosterbroek] was killed and Greg [Marinovich] was shot. There are images of all that. It becomes difficult. It becomes really difficult. And I was in a deep funk for the first month of the process.
Joao Silva Zulu women attacked another woman at the entrance of a hostel in Thokoza, South Africa, which housed Inkatha Freedom Party warriors during the escalated violence between them and the African National Congress after the apartheid regime lifted its ban on political parties. Circa 1990.I decided to start with South Africa because that was my beginning. We’re looking at reams and reams of negatives, some in envelopes, some just lying loose. Negatives, positives. I hadn’t been the greatest when it came to taking care of my physical archive. So it was a complex thing, and of course I changed.
How have you changed?
There’s been a readjustment, and I’ve come to terms with my new place in the universe, my new role in the universe, because of the physical changes. It’s been complex. As you can imagine, this has been a life-changing event on every single level, and I think that extends to my photographic persona and my professional persona. It’s been a complex little trip.
So in this exercise of going through your work, really every negative, and in a sense reliving these experiences, what did you learn?
I discovered that I’ve taken a lot of crappy pictures over time.
I discovered that I photographed more dead than the average person. I came across reams and reams of endless corpses â€" faces, people who I have no idea who they are, what their names were â€" I have no clue. In many cases memories are linked to those images; in some cases not.
I learned that I still have a long way to go.
What do you mean?
Well, I mean, I’m not finished, I’m not done. I still have lots to accomplish. And as you know, I’m back at work. I’ve been running around. This last operation has been successful, so I kind of got back on the bandwagon with [the former South African president Nelson] Mandela. So I’m shooting riots and whatever else comes my way. It’s good to be out and about again. I walk free now. I no longer have a cane. That was the key to shooting pictures freely again. Both hands are free to grab a camera, and that’s just amazing.
It’s also great just to see my name again in the paper.
Joao Silva Residents of Boipatong, South Africa, surrounded a man whom they accused of being an Inkatha Freedom Party supporter. They killed him as the rest of the community was preparing to bury more than 40 residents who had been massacred days earlier by I.F.P. warriors. 1992.And what has it been like been shooting again?
Well, it’s been good. It’s been interesting, because I’m discovering my limits. I’m discovering how much mobility I have, where I can go, what I can do. I find myself missing images because I can’t get to a certain event quick enough or an incident quick enough. So you find yourself sitting back a little bit more and having to think about your photography and to pick your moments. But the more kinetic stuff that I’ve covered â€" I’ve covered two riots since I’ve gone back to work, and eight people were killed â€" that’s fast-moving pace.
There were bullets and tear gas. So it’s moving pretty fast, and I’ve been O.K. I’ve managed and I’ve been published â€" the pictures are there. I’ve just been slowed down somewhat. And that’s been the process: just planting my feet again and seeing where I am and how much I can endure. Of course, at the end of those days when I’ve been out working from dawn till dusk, I’m in extreme pain. But until that point, I’m able to sustain and I’m quite mobile and I’m quite surprised.
When any photographer gets older, you slow down, you figure out how to compensate, how to be smarter.
I think you just find yourself thinking more about what is you’re trying to do in any given moment. There’s always alternate images to the obvious. The obvious image is always there, but not the alternate images. At times, the alternate image is the better image; at times not, of course. It depends on what it is that’s being photographed.
You find your best possible position to stand and thank God you shoot pictures. I think my body and my soul have been yearning to shoot. I’m just basically doing the day-to-day stuff that’s been happening here until I get the opportunity to get back to the States for new legs. But hopefully this last big surgery was it. Hopefully I will be done. I feel strong, I feel good. There’s the pain, but pain is going to be there for a while, I’m told.
Joao Silva A street scene in Kabul during the years of civil war between rival mujahedeen warlords that followed the withdrawal of Soviet forces. 1994.You said before that you’ve adjusted to your new role in the universe. What role is that?
I guess my new role is what it always was. Because of the limitations and because of my physical condition, I thought that there might have to be something new. But in the end, my place in the universe is going to be as it always was, just maybe a little bit slower and a little bit more calculated out of necessity. You can’t move as quickly, be it through injury or be it through old age.
I’ve been recovering bits and pieces of my old life. I’ve been dedicating a huge amount of time to my family. As you can imagine, my little family has taken a hell of a hammering as a result, and we’re still dealing with a lot of the fallout. But it’s good.
In a way, by choosing only these three countries you’ve made this less of a retrospective exhibit and more of an autobiographical one. Can you describe why each of the countries represented in the exhibition are important to you?
They’ve all had their own emotional impact, and they’ve all left their own mark in their own, very different way.
Of course, with Afghanistan, obviously, I lost my legs there. Not only that, I first went to Afghanistan in ’94, during the civil war. So there’s been this long relationship. South Africa, of course, is my adopted country. [Mr. Silva was born in Portugal.]
It was difficult not only covering that kind of conflict in your own country because of the uncertainty that goes along with it, but also I lost lots of best friends. I saw people getting killed in front of me.
The last time I went to Iraq was in 2010, just before I got hurt later in the year. It was a huge bunch of time and experiences and friendships. Friends lost in Iraq â€" all of it leaves a mark. The camera doesn’t falter that much. The camera captures, and that’s where it stops. But it leaves a mark on you, and in my case, very much so.
Too many memories â€" good memories, bad memories. As a photographer, you’re documenting the heroism of others. They’re the heroes, not us. And we’re there to document those moments of glory in their lives, and we are fortunate to be able to do that in many ways. We are fortunate to intrude on people’s lives and be able to document these most incredible, intimate moments.
So what do you make of Visa Pour l’Image? It’s sort of like a tribal gathering, isn’t it?
Oh, it is. We are very much a tribe. We draw all sorts. If you look through our ranks, we have everything. We have every color, shade, personality. We are, in our souls, amazing people â€" saints and sinners. I mean, we have it all.
Joao Silva for The New York Times On Oct. 23, 2010, Mr. Silva stepped on a land mine while on patrol in Afghanistan. Though critically injured, having lost both legs and sustained severe internal injuries, he continued photographing until he was too weak to hold the camera. These three images were taken just after the explosion.Follow @JamesEstrin and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.
