Harry Gruyaert

We sit down with one of the world’s greatest exponents of colour photography, who has just published a new book of his images of India. Steve Fairclough finds out more…

- Steve Fairclough

Harry Gruyaert is first and foremost a visual storyteller. Perhaps that’s hardly surprising: his career began as a freelance director of photography for TV. Some of his groundbreaking stills work saw him shooting the 1972 Olympic Games and the first Apollo flights as they were broadcast on his TV set. The resulting pictures became the exhibition TV Shots, published as a book in 2007.

Gruyaert is widely regarded as one of the great European colour photographers; his work stands beside acknowledged US exponents of the art such as Stephen Shore, William Eggleston, Saul Leiter and Joel Meyerwitz. Indeed, alongside Alex Webb, Gruyaert was amongst the first photographers in the Magnum Photos agency to shoot mainly in colour.

His penchant for colour photography is an ideal fit for his latest book, India. Back in 1976, Gruyaert was offered a job as a director of photography for a documentary film project in Rajasthan. Once in India, he took the bold decision to leave the project and instead pursue the more instantaneous art of shooting stills in India. His 200mm lens was stolen during a train journey, forcing him to use a shorter-focal-length lens and get closer to people than he had before.

In over a dozen visits, spread across five decades, Gruyaert has documented India, and the new book on this work showcases more than 120 of his images. With text by the recently deceased writer and scriptwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, the book paints a picture of a magical land of mystery, colour and intrigue.

Family affair