© Bernard Plossu, 'Turkey (1989)'

What lead you into a photographic career?

Bernard Plossu (BP): I never thought of a ‘career’, I don’t have a degree; I began taking photographs when I was 20 because it was the only thing I kind of knew how to do! I was lucky to start life in interesting places, and to be part of the beat / hip generation, India and all that, you know! My only knowledge was of the images in films that I watched at the Paris cinémathèque, during my teenage years.

Is there a photograph you love from those early days?

BP: My favourite pictures from my youth were all those that I took of my girlfriend Michele, who was even more beautiful than the movie actresses I saw on the screen! I also filmed her using 8mm film, and she enjoyed being filmed. I photographed and filmed her all the time! My very first favourite picture was of a young Indian girl at a market in Mexico, where I was living at the time, it was taken in 1965.

Your photographs communicate a sincere attraction for the world, for the human being, beyond descriptions, and explanations. Your photography is full of life and evokes feelings, beauty, and mystery. Was it the chance to capture the magic of life that fuelled your fascination with photography?

BP: Yes, the magic of life fed me and gave me the desire to look at the world. It is true that my pictures don’t describe but evoke. I’d like to say that they are non-decisive moments, instead of the famous school of the decisive moment!

© Bernard Plossu, 'Egypt (1977)'

You have travelled the world, during the time when computers, phones and digital thinking had not overwhelmed our vision. Photography could unhinge a person's imagination, unleashing dreams and visions of distant lands. Still, today looking at your photographs one feels the desire to travel and set off on a journey. What's the secret?

BP: Is there a secret? I can’t tell. My pictures are so simple, so unsophisticated! I guess the strength of them is due to the fact that I use a very direct non-spectacular lens, just a normal 50 mm lens on an old Nikkormat camera: No effects, direct language. No theatre such as the wide angle, I avoid all effects.  If I can stir up the desire to travel, then I am happy, of course! Other photographers also give that feeling; I think especially of my friend Max Pam, or my wife Françoise Nunez.

© Bernard Plossu, 'California (1978)'

What about the deserts you crossed and photographed? What made them special to you?

BP: The desert provides you with a chance for self-reflection, at last, quietly; to learn through silence that all noise and fame are illusions. Deserts smell, speak of silence, teach that when you go up a hill, you will see other hills, to keep going on and on. You need little, some food, tomatoes and fruits, water to avoid dehydration – you learn survival! Deserts are so far from fashions, and there you learn to be doing things not to please or succeed, but to be! They teach you that reaching the top of a mountain is unnecessary and stupid: it’s probable better not to climb to the top!

© Bernard Plossu, 'Santa Fe, New Mexico (1982)'

The roads and landscapes. The great spaces. What has America meant to you?

BP: The southwest in the US is indeed fascinating because of its wide, open spaces, but I also found that sense of space in Africa, India, Turkey, Aragon (Spain), and even on a mountain here in old Europe! Rocks teach you more than books, I also don’t frequent movie theatres, I prefer real life.

If you could choose a photographic assignment today, what would be your first choice?

BP: An assignment today? I am still dreaming of some faraway places to visit, Balouchistan, Meroe in Sudan, and Northern Scotland, always empty and immense. But I am 77 years old now…

A selection of works by Bernard Plossu is included in the exhibition 'those eyes - these eyes - they fade' curated by Anne Immelé opening next July in Malta at Valletta Contemporary. The group show gathers also the photographers Nigel Baldacchino, Bénédicte Blondeau, and Awoiska Van der Molen. 

Bernard Plossu (ICP archive)