Right Far right RPS Journal

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Cornelia Sparks
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1 the best is y Giles Duley was awarded an Honorary Fellowship at The Society s 2013 Awards ceremony in September. device in Afghanistan in 2011, and the incredible accomplishments that have followed Right Rohingya s Refugees. Fatima, 10 with brother Noru. Noru has skin infections caused by malnutrition. Far right murle generation dance. 524 RPS Journal November 2013

et to come He speaks to David Land about the challenges he has faced since stepping on an improvised explosive T rapher: it s about the ability to tell he best documentary photography has nothing to

2 et to come He speaks to David Land about the challenges he has faced since stepping on an improvised explosive T rapher: it s about the ability to tell he best documentary photography has nothing to do with the photog- the subject s story, says Giles Duley Hon- FRPS, who has spent the last decade giving a voice to those who need it most. Giles lost both legs and his right arm while on foot patrol with a unit of American soldiers from 101st Airborne in Afghanistan in I was waiting outside a compound with soldiers who had made a perimeter around it, Giles recalls. The area had been searched by metal detectors and troops, so it was relatively calm. I turned around to talk to one of the soldiers, and triggered an improvised explosive device with my right foot. I remember a sense of weightlessness and flying through the air, and then landing on my side. I realised what had happened almost immediately, but I was bewildered and disoriented. I had little sense of pain, which I assumed meant I was on my way out. The guys got to me quite quickly with tourniquets. They managed to stabilise me, and then we just had to wait for the medevac helicopter to come and take me to Kandahar, where I finally passed out. Giles was transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, renowned for its pioneering treatment of war wounds, where he spent 46 days in intensive care, suffering infections, collapsed lungs, kidney failure, and internal injuries. After six months in hospital, he started rehab, and then had to go back for more operations. If I d gone anywhere else, I wouldn t have survived, he says. The Queen Elizabeth is the only place with the understanding and the practice with injuries like mine. Triple amputees now normally survive, where only a decade ago, even those with double amputations would normally have died. When there s a moment that really you should have died, and you have a second chance, you reassess where you were at that point. I remember thinking that I d not achieved anything near what I d hoped for. It made me so much more focused on what I do. There are very few photographers who ve gone through the same experience as those injured by landmines. In a strange way, I feel a greater sense of responsibility for telling their stories now. I d always thought that, working with charities, I was doing the right thing but, as an able bodied person, when you re photographing somebody who s been shot, or who is starving, it would be wrong or weird if you didn t feel slightly like a vulture for being in that position, and slightly uncomfortable about it. Now when I m photographing someone who is injured, they see that we ve been through something similar, and it opens up a trust that wouldn t otherwise be there. When I was injured, I remember thinking that, on a practical level, it was going to be harder for me to work as a photographer, but I was also very aware that I would have some strengths as a photographer which RPS Journal November 525

3 Right Nuer man with Kala Azar during the recent outbreak in south sudan. Far right, above Farid, who was injured by a Us grenade, enjoys the sun and fresh air outside his ward at the emergency hospital, Kabul. Far right, below syrian refugees in Jordan, someone with all their limbs wouldn t. When it happened, I was told I d never walk again, never work again, never live independently I felt in many ways like the life I knew was over. But it would have been pointless to focus on the things I couldn t do. I had to look at it and say, It s happened. What can come out of this? Giles first experience with photography was aged eight or nine, at a school photography club, when developing black and white film left a lasting impression. Then photography took a backseat, until he travelled to America on a scholarship to play American football when he was 18. Then a traffic accident only a few months later cut short his sporting career, and took his life in a new direction. I was in hospital for four or five months, he recalls. I was a bit lost as to what to do next. Then his godfather died, leaving Giles his Olympus OM10 SLR, and Don McCullin s biography, Unreasonable Behaviour. I read it lying there in my hospital bed, he says. I was inspired by the travel and adventure, and also the power of photography to tell stories. I was hooked. It was fortuitous that, by having the accident, I discovered what I love most. It was one of those weird twists that, if I hadn t had that accident, I might never have found photography. Aged 19, Giles accepted a place on the Photography HND at Bournemouth, but was thrown off after a matter of months, after he handed in a tub of coleslaw in lieu 526 RPS Journal November 2013

how to get work! Giles moved to London and set himself up as a freelance.

4 of an essay on surrealism! That was the last straw, he says. I was starting to get work from clients such as music magazines Select and Q, which was conflicting with my studies, and I thought it was a bit strange to turn down work to do a course to teach you how to get work! Giles moved to London and set himself up as a freelance. I never set out to be a music photographer, he says, but I loved it, because I was always interested in music, and photography was a passport into that world. This was in the 1990s a really exciting time for British music, with Oasis and Blur at the forefront of Britpop. For the next 10 years, Giles worked for publications like GQ, French Vogue, The Telegraph and The Times, doing mainly portraits and some small fashion shoots. But he says, After a decade or so, I had become a bit cynical and disillusioned, and I wasn t very proud of the work I was doing. It was around the time of the whole birth of celebrity culture, where you were famous for being famous. I was doing stuff like photographing contestants from Big Brother, and I began to think a lot about the documentary work that I d first wanted to do, inspired by Don McCullin. Aged 30, and unsure whether he was too old to make a change to shooting documentary, Giles gave up his career in commercial photography and moved to Hastings. I did all those stereotypical trying to fi yourself type things, he says. I started writing, I did an extreme mad thing across the Sahara, and then got into doing care work. Care work turned out to be something that Giles loved, which ultimately helped him find a new way to use his skills as a photographer. I started to discover that I could use photography as a way of giving a voice to those who don t have one, he explains, whether that be for reasons of mental illness, or lack of media attention. With renewed enthusiasm for photography, Giles began to seek out documentary work. It was a very different process to his previous work, and his priority was finding important stories and telling them to a wider audience. He says, Rather than asking newspapers and magazines what commissions they had, I went to charities and NGOs and said, What stories are you struggling to get out there? What stories aren t being told? I d then come back and show my pictures to magazines and say, Here s something people aren t talking about. Giles self-funded his projects, using stints in care work to pay for trips abroad. His persistence eventually paid off. Initially, I would give away the stories as a way to get them out there, and then they started to win awards, he says, which gave editors further confidence in my ability. For the next eight years, Giles produced documentary work across the globe, in places such as Bangladesh, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, and Angola. RPS Journal November 527

He had decided that his next step would be to create a limited edition high quality printed journal of his work, which would come out two or three times a year.

5 He had decided that his next step would be to create a limited edition high quality printed journal of his work, which would come out two or three times a year. The idea was that people would give a donation toward my work, and the magazine would be a reward for that, he explains. For the first issue, I wanted to do a story on Afghanistan. It was a place I d always avoided, mainly because I try to find stories that aren t already being widely covered. However, I d always felt that we weren t getting to see much about the impact of the conflict on the civilians caught up in it, and also, while I m certainly not a war photographer, I wanted to do a story about a group of American soldiers. It was during this trip that Giles life-chang- ing accident occurred. It is hugely impressive that he retains such a positive outlook toward both his work and life in general, and he tells me that having a dark sense of humour helps. I make jokes as soon as I can, to put people at ease, he says. In many of the countries I ve travelled to, people with disabilities are perceived as having no part to play in society, which is one of the biggest stigmas I would like to change. I recently showed pictures I took at a Qatari refugee camp on the border of Syria and Jordan to some schoolkids. At the end, I asked if any of them had thought about the photographer when they were looking at these pictures, and they all said no. When I m taking pictures, I feel like I m on a level playing field. I hope that, in 20 years from now, my pictures will stand up in their own right, and people won t refer to the fact that I took them with only one arm. In October 2012, just a year after his accident, Giles went back to Afghanistan to continue with his work a clear reflection on his tenacity and strength of character. Having dealt with injuries similar to those that many of his subjects have experienced, Giles is very aware of portraying them in a way that shows that they aren t defined by their injuries. I photographed a stonemason in Afghanistan, who had lost both his legs on his way to work, he says. He was there in his wheelchair, coming to terms with the loss 528 RPS Journal November 2013

I haven t changed. Having successfully overcome any mental hurdles to resuming his work, the physical ones meant adjusting the way he worked as a photographer.

6 of his limbs, and I took a portrait of just his face. I was trying to work out if I would have taken that image the same way before my injuries. I ve noticed that when people are photographing me for stories these days, they ll always say, I ll have to get your legs in, or I ll have to get you in the wheelchair. But inside I m the same person. I haven t changed. Having successfully overcome any mental hurdles to resuming his work, the physical ones meant adjusting the way he worked as a photographer. Giles shoots on a Canon EOS 5D MkII, as he did before the accident. I did think about changing to a lighter camera, he says, but it seemed more important to stick to the one with Left young boy being prepared for heart surgery at the salam centre for cardiac surgery. Khartoum, sudan Above Ataqullah trying his new leg at the icrc limb fitting centre in Kabul. which I was familiar. It s hard for me to get around, and photographs are harder to take, but it s made me stronger, because I m much more thoughtful about each picture. At the point when he started working out how to take pictures again, Giles tried to find ways of making a tripod attachment for the stump where his left arm is severed, to attach a camera onto. Eventually however, he realised that this wasn t necessary, and now works in a simpler way, although it can be tiring and painful at times, owing to the fact his right hand was also injured. I can take pictures if I hold the camera with my right hand and balance it on my stump, he says. It s a fortunate time to be one handed. Twenty years ago, without digital and auto focus, having to change rolls of film and all, it would have been almost impossible. The hardest thing for me is keeping balance, because typically your sense of balance comes from three bits of information: from your feet, your inner ear and your eyesight. My inner ear was quite badly damaged, and I ve lost my feet, so all the information has to come from my eyes. If it s dark, I struggle to keep upright. When I shut my eye to take a photograph, it s really RPS Journal November 529

Above Kutupalong camp, bangladesh, 2009. With no official status, the Rohyingas refugees in the camp are denied medical aid and education. Right Gino strada, from A hundred Portraits before i Die.

Now I use a 28-70mm zoom, because moving around can be difficult, but having had that discipline of using a fixed focal length lens makes me a better photographer.

7 Above Kutupalong camp, bangladesh, With no official status, the Rohyingas refugees in the camp are denied medical aid and education. Right Gino strada, from A hundred Portraits before i Die. hard to keep my balance. I always tended to use a 50mm lens before my injury, because I preferred moving rather than zooming in and out. Now I use a 28-70mm zoom, because moving around can be difficult, but having had that discipline of using a fixed focal length lens makes me a better photographer. An important aspect of Giles work telling other people s stories is ensuring they are seen and heard by the right people. As a re- sult of his own personal story, he is now in a stronger position to see that this happens. His work for the Channel 4 documentary, Walking Wounded: Return to the Frontline, on the lives of Afghan people coping with the effects of war and landmines, was exhibited in Parliament at the beginning of September, a huge personal triumph. If someone s trusted you with their story at a time of real difficulty, it s important that the right people see those images, he says. Because of the attention my story has received, I had the opportunity to have an exhibition of my photographs of Afghanistan in the waiting lobby in Parliament, where MPs gather every day. Social media and the internet have changed the landscape greatly since Giles started out. How has this affected his career, and photography in general? I didn t even have a website as a music photographer, he says, and now I think, How did anybody know you were out there, without a website, Twitter, Facebook, and ? It s something that I wasn t really into that much until my injury. Being in a hospital bed for such a long time, it was a great way of reaching out to the world. Ten years ago, you could have a great image, but unless it appeared in a newspaper or a magazine, nobody would know it was there. Now, even if that picture isn t great, it can still be seen around the world. I don t know if that s good or bad. It is what it is, but you have to embrace it. Looking to the future, there are a lot more stories to tell, and while Giles documentary work will remain his priority, he is also working on a collection of portraits he planned while still in hospital, entitled A Hundred Portraits Before I Die. During my time in intensive care, I couldn t communicate with the outside world, he says. You go a little bit crazy. The lights never go off, and you think you might die. You create little scenarios in your head to keep yourself sane, and one of them was imagining all the people I wished I d done portraits of, and wondering why I didn t contact them when I had the opportunity. I decided that, if I recovered, I would ask the hundred people I most wished I d done portraits of to see if they would sit for me. They are famous people, but famous because of their art rather than because they re celebrities. So far, Giles has photographed Gino Strada, a war surgeon and the inspiration for his going to Afghanistan, and the novelist Ben Okri. In the coming weeks, he ll be photographing the musician P J Harvey, Thomas Heatherwick, designer of the Olympic cauldron, and Don McCullin. It seems only fitting that he should have the opportunity to photograph the man who first piqued his interest in photography all those years ago, setting him on a path that has encompassed the very best and worst of human experience. In conversation, Don asked me how old I was, and I told him I was about 40, says Giles. He said that was great, because all my best work was still to come. As a man, I m in a much better place than I ve ever been to do that work. Losing my legs and arm has given me the key to certain doors that would never otherwise have been open to me. Once I m inside those rooms, it s very much up to me what I do. David Land RPS Journal November 2013

My Children s Journals

My Children s Journals When I learned that I was going to have my first child in 2003, I knew I had to join the digital age, which meant purchasing a digital camera. I had been one to be slow on the uptake