Eyewitnessed

© Manoocher Deghati

From October 4 to 31

Manoocher Deghati

“Manoocher Deghati’s life is an extraordinary story of curiosity and courage.
It is a journey in relentless pursuit of the truth, starting in his native Iran, from where he was exiled for daring to show the outside world the realities of the revolution and the war with Iraq.
From there he landed in Costa Rica where he organized the fledgling photography of Agence France Presse in the region, a polyglot magician with a camera, a portable darkroom and uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time.
And then, during clashes in Ramallah, an Israeli sniper’s bullet nearly ended his life, shattering his leg so thoroughly that at first it seemed amputation was the only recourse. He spent 18 months of excruciating recovery and physical therapy in the Hotel des Invalides military hospital in Paris where lesser men might have succumbed to the pain and the opiates used to dull it.
Not Manoocher. He used the time to recover his strength, order his photographic archives. During this time he also obtained his French nationality (from the President Chirac).
From his new base in Paris he continued to travel, even returning to Ramallah to photograph the French Premier being pelted with stones by protestors. In the ensuing melee an official car ran over his leg, re-breaking the very bones shattered in the shooting before.
Always resilient, Manoocher headed to Afghanistan after the collapse of Taliban rule where, along with his brother Reza, he founded the Aina photojournalism school in Kabul, starting the vital and hugely important work of training Afghan journalists to tell the story of their own country.
Kenya was next, where he worked for the United Nations news agency in Nairobi.
He was packing up his belongings to leave Africa and start afresh in Azerbaijan when I called wondering if he’d be interested in running the Associated Press photo operations in the Middle East.
With his usual impeccable timing he started work in Cairo the day before the Egyptian revolution began, spending the next several years coordinating AP’s coverage of the revolutions and upheaval throughout the region.
Manoocher captained the AP team that won a Pulitzer prize in photography for coverage of the civil war in Syria, testament, once again, to his ability to find and cultivate photographic talent all over the world.
In 2014 he decided to re-based to Puglia in Italy from where he is planning the next stages of his extraordinary life.
Throughout our 25+ years of friendship, starting in Central America, I have watched Manoocher Deghati at work and marveled at his richness of experience and generosity of spirit. The world is privileged to have had him as one of its storytellers.” — Santiago Lyon

This exhibition was created in association with

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Outside in Bayeux
The layout of the exhibition can be found in details at the Office of Tourism