Raymond Depardon

Depardon, Raymond (b. 1942), French photographer and filmmaker who took his earliest photographs on his parents' farm in 1954. By the time he was called up for military service he had done various photographic jobs, including moonlighting as a paparazzo for the Dalmas agency, and served as a war reporter in Algeria 1960-2. Back in Paris in the mid-1960s, he founded the Gamma agency with Gilles Caron, Hubert Henrotte, and Hugues Vassal. By 1970 he had made the first of some twenty films (Jan Palach). There followed editorial work for, principally, Life and Paris Match. In 1970 he spent a month in a Chad prison with three other European photographers. When his friend and colleague Caron disappeared in Vietnam, Depardon took a brief break from photojournalism, photographing nudes for magazines like Lui and Playboy.

In 1971 he returned to covering world events, and shared the Robert Capa Gold Medal with Chas Gerretson and David Burnett for their book Chili (1973) on the Pinochet coup. He also became director of Gamma, but in 1978 switched to Magnum. Subsequently he continued travelling, publishing, and film directing. He moved into fiction films, being selected for the Cannes Film Festival in 1985. He photographed his native Villefranche-sur-Saône for the DATAR project, and increasingly produced books with established writers. In 2003, he brought all three disciplines together in Un homme sans occident, a film, stills exhibition, and book made with Louis Gardeland about the lives of desert nomads.

— Amanda Hopkinson

Bibliography

• Depardon, R., Khemir, M., and Virilio, P., The Desert (2003)