A lens into the past

They say a picture is worth a thousand words But talk to Pulitzer Prizewinning documentary photographer David Turnley and you realise that even this oftquoted phrase hasits exceptionsNelson Mandela visits the Robben Island cell where he spent 19 years in prison in 1994 Pics CourtesyDavid TurnleyHis descriptions of past assignments mdash which include the Gulf War revolutions in Eastern Europe the Tiananmen Square protests Indira Gandhis funeral and the Rwandan genocide among others mdash are evocativeMuch like his awardwinning photographs his words bring you closer to the frenzied cheers of half a million people in South Africa when Nelson Mandela walked a free man in 1990 after spending 27 years in jailOfficers dispersing people by whipping in South AfricaYou almost hear the cries of a twoyearold boy stuck to the side of his fathers corpse and feel the morbidity of those mornings when cholerastricken refugees were too ill to carry the bodies of their children who had died in their sleep in genocideravaged Rwanda You also smell the smoke that spiralled from a riothit Delhi in 1984And tremble from the shelling in Chechnya during the war which could have killed Turnley had he not moved from the spot due to a mysterious twitch in his neckBeing at the warfrontBorn in 1955 in Fort Wayne Indiana Turnley joined the Detroit Free Press in 1980 He was stationed at South Africa from 1985 and 1987 which was still under the Apartheid ruleThe Berlin Wall in 1989 during the revolutionThe assignment Turnley is no fan of the word mdash he explains it was much more than an assignment saw him photograph Nelson Mandela or Madiba as he calls him and the family for almost 30 yearsHe remembers the ease with which Mandela struck up conversations with the shyest people in a room mdash like the domestic help or chauffeurs Madiba maintained direct eye contact with the person he spoke to and treated everyone with respect recalls TurnleyIn one of Turnleys most popular pictures of the Persian Gulf War an American soldier breaks down in an evacuation helicopter after hearing that his friend the driver of his Bradley Fighting Vehicle was killed in a friendly fire incident that he himself survived The soldiers were exposed to depleted uranium as a result of the explosion They and the body of the dead man are on their way to a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital Pic1991 David Turnley World Press Photo of the YearOther assignments quickly followed At the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in Beijing mdash which international journalists were banned from covering mdash Turnley was perhaps one of the few photographers who managed to capture the eventI remember feeling very curious as I could not see other photographers at the scene I didnt know this at that time but the Chinese government had declared that photographers seen covering the protest would be arrested or even shot I continued to work and later my main concern was getting the film out of the country he saysFamily members grieve around the coffin of a child killed in an earthquake that shattered Armenia in December 1988 More than 25000 people died in the quake Pic1988 David Turnley World Press Photo of the YearHe describes the late 80s and the early 90s mdash which was also the time the Soviet Union collapsed as did the Berlin Wall during revolutions in Europe mdash as a euphoric time when he constantly found himself in the midst of historical changeIt felt a bit like living in John Lennons song Imagine on a daily basis he says It was an enormous privilege and I knew that I had to do my humble best with as much dignity as possible I wanted to do whatever I could as well as I could adds TurnleyIn Delhi and DharamsalaTurnley says that posttraumatic stress disorder was probably a concept unknown to photographers of his generation mdash it certainly was to him Still therapy unexpectedly came in the form of a short stay at Dharamsala while directing the Emmynominated film The Dalai Lama At Home and in Exile for CNN during which he stayed with the Dalai Lama I dont think I was aware of an intention to seek therapy from the visitDavid TurnleyBut it was incredibly therapeutic he remembers India however was not new to him then He had been to Delhi earlier in 1984 to photograph Indira Gandhis funeral I remember how Rajiv Gandhi circled the body and touched her lips with the flame for cremation I remember the smell of the fumes and the sandalwood I was so touched by it he addsTalking about his trip to Goa for the festival till February 21 mdash where he is a participant mdash Turnley says he would love to catch up on works by Indian photographers It is a glorious time to be a photographer as you have greater accessibility to the world and a larger audience via the Internet Photography is a powerful voice to say what we feel he concludes