RENOWNED photographer Platon captures like no other the mythology and humanity of the world's political leaders.
Book : Power Platon
Author: Platon
Reviewer: Mpikeleni Duma
Publisher: Wild Dog Press
-------------------------------------------
Collected here for the first time are more than 100 presidents, prime ministers, dictators and revolutionaries from across the globe - an extraordinary portrait of power at highest level.
In this book of portraits, most of them taken over a few days at the the United Nations building, Platon has included images of nearly every ruler on the globe.
It is a fascinating and endlessly memorable project.
Since 1970 the number of democratically elected leaders has tripled, even if many of them, Russians for instance, are only nominally democratic.
Here are all kinds of politicians, from the most benign to the likes of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya; Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe; and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, tyrants who pack their opponents into prison and have pretensions to the sort of spell once cast by Lenin.
Platon did not have much time with his subjects.
In almost every case he was given just a few minutes to place them in front of his camera.
But despite the constraints, there is no mistaking Platon's photographs for the kind of images that the leaders themselves would prefer to distribute.
David Remnick, reporter for the Washington Post bureau in Moscow, who wrote the foreword of the book describes Platon as a charmer, using a kind of apolitical, jokey facade to win the cooperation of his subjects. He is far more than a technician with a knack for access. He does constant battle with the subject's practiced capacity to evade a penetrating eye.
It must also be said that this project makes it plain that a face tells only so much. This is part of the fascination of these portraits of power.
The portrait of Russian leader Vladimir Putin reveals him for his steely arrogance; this is the face of a prototypical officer of the Soviet secret service.
Book review: Portraits of power
RENOWNED photographer Platon captures like no other the mythology and humanity of the world's political leaders.
Book : Power Platon
Author: Platon
Reviewer: Mpikeleni Duma
Publisher: Wild Dog Press
-------------------------------------------
Collected here for the first time are more than 100 presidents, prime ministers, dictators and revolutionaries from across the globe - an extraordinary portrait of power at highest level.
In this book of portraits, most of them taken over a few days at the the United Nations building, Platon has included images of nearly every ruler on the globe.
It is a fascinating and endlessly memorable project.
Since 1970 the number of democratically elected leaders has tripled, even if many of them, Russians for instance, are only nominally democratic.
Here are all kinds of politicians, from the most benign to the likes of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya; Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe; and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, tyrants who pack their opponents into prison and have pretensions to the sort of spell once cast by Lenin.
Platon did not have much time with his subjects.
In almost every case he was given just a few minutes to place them in front of his camera.
But despite the constraints, there is no mistaking Platon's photographs for the kind of images that the leaders themselves would prefer to distribute.
David Remnick, reporter for the Washington Post bureau in Moscow, who wrote the foreword of the book describes Platon as a charmer, using a kind of apolitical, jokey facade to win the cooperation of his subjects. He is far more than a technician with a knack for access. He does constant battle with the subject's practiced capacity to evade a penetrating eye.
It must also be said that this project makes it plain that a face tells only so much. This is part of the fascination of these portraits of power.
The portrait of Russian leader Vladimir Putin reveals him for his steely arrogance; this is the face of a prototypical officer of the Soviet secret service.
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