TV shots

by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Jean-Philippe Toussaint (Préface)

Harry Gruyaert (born in Belgium in 1941) began his career as a Director of Photography in television production, but by the early 1970s he had moved over to still photography. He picked up editorial assignments from National Geographic, Fortune and Vogue, among others, and his total immersion in the color and landscapes of Morocco earned him the 1976 Kodak Prize. Gruyaert's break from television wasn't all peaceful, though: his first serious body of work contained photographs of distorted TV images. By following events such as the 1972 Munich Olympics from home, he created a distressed parody of the current-affairs photo-story. The work caused controversy, both for its disrespectful assault on the culture of television and for its radical challenge (both formally and in terms of content) to the conventions of press photography. Gruyaert views it as the closest thing to journalistic photography he has ever made.

Genres: Photography

240 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2007

About the author

Jean-Philippe Toussaint (born 29 November, 1957, Brussels) is a Belgian prose writer and filmmaker. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages and he has had his photographs displayed in Brussels and Japan. Toussaint won the Prix Médicis in 2005 for his novel Fuir. The 2006 book La mélancolie de Zidane (Paris: Minuit, 2006) is a lyrical essay on the headbutt administered by the French football player Zinedine Zidane to the Italian player Marco Materazzi during the 2006 World Cup final in Berlin. An English translation was published in 2007 in the British journal New Formations. His 2009 novel La Vérité sur Marie won the prestigious Prix Décembre.