Meet the Photographer – Talk on Gilles Caron – August 30, 2010

Forty years after he went missing in Cambodia, Gilles Caron remains a role model for photojournalists. Marianne Caron, his wife, Marjolaine Bachelot-Caron, his daughter and Louis Bachelot, his son-in-law,were interviewed by Caroline Laurent-Simon this morning at the Palais des Congrès in Perpignan. They talked about Gilles, the photographer and the man, about his career and the foundation they established for “his work to live on.”

Marianne Caron says : " When Gilles started taking pictures he already knew what he wanted to do: show the world what was going on". He wouldn't say much about what he'd seen to his wife and two daughters when he came back home because "it was just too horrible." However, over the five years of his brief and brilliant career, he documented a great many events.

At APIS agency, he did fashion shots, portraits and "charm." Then came Gamma and his war reporting years. The Six Days War, May 1968, Vietnam, Northern Ireland and Biafra. He took interest in everything, especially in war. He had fought as a paratrooper in Algeria. "Fighting in Algeria was no choice of his, and he later tried to capture what he had experienced there in every picture he took. As he covered the daily lives of soldiers, he was actually attempting to portray himself back then."

"For each assignment, his main drive was to show what was happening and draw attention to it." Louis Bachelot, visual artist, highlighted the artistic dimension of Caron's work. «His pictures could easily be displayed in a modern art gallery, and his work could be compared to Caravaggio's. « A beautiful picture is always staged »... A murmur ran through the audience.
Gilles Caron never staged the scenes, said Bachelot, but he did have "the eyes of an artist and of a journalist". Marianne added, "He did have an eye for art. Before becoming a photographer, Gilles wanted to open a gallery."

Though the legacy he left behind is vast, his work is not well known.
Three years ago Louis and Marjolaine Bachelot created the Gilles Caron Foundation in Switzerland with very little money - "We're broke", they say. The foundation struggles to find venues to exhibit his work, as well as publishers, to present it to the general public. With minimal resources and maximum patience, they are trying to bring together all of Caron's films : more than 5000, scattered in magazine archives all over Europe.

Caron loved his work, but wanted to stop. It had become too hard; so he told his friend and colleague Robert Pledge, and his wife in a letter she received on April 6. But it was too late. On April 5, 1970 Gilles Caron went missing on Route 1 between Vietnam and Cambodia. Marianne heard the news at 6.30 am when she turned on the radio. "I called the agency and they told me it wasn't true. They couldn't believe Gilles had gone missing." No further information was ever given ; no official search or investigation was ever carried out. "Forty years later, all I have is the statement I heard on the radio : Gilles Caron has gone missing."