Marc Garanger

Marc Garangers photographic career began during the time of his military service, which he absolved in Algeria in 1960. At the time, the French army was using all the means at its disposal in its efforts to suppress the Algerian independence movement. In order to gain better control of the population, citizens were to be given the assignment of photographing local citizens. He made his pictures outdoors, using a white wall as a neutral background. This resulted in nearly 2000 portraits, at times 200 per day. The majority if the people he photographed were women, who were first compelled to unveil their faces in public. In a sense, this transformed the camera into a weapon with which the population was being culturally demeaned, Later on Garanger made the following comment about these unusual photographs: "I could feel the silent but intense resistance from close proximity. And I want my pictures to be a testimony to that. All the photographs that I made during two years in Algeria shout protest against the terror that I have seen." The photographer published a section of these pictures in his 1982 book Algerian Women.

In April 1989, Garanger traveled to Louisiana at the invitation of Kodak to test its new Ektar color film. As a result of this trip, Garanger, in cooperation with the author Yves Berger, published the photographic book Louisiana, Between Heaven and Earth, in which he documents the fascinating nature and the lively doings of the population of this southern American state.

Information from 20th Century Photography, Museum Ludwig Cologne, Taschen