Journal

First edition of Journal by Marc Riboud. First impression. Medium format hardback in cardboard slipcase, in near fine condition. Some very minor shelf wear to the slipcase and some soft creasing to the bottom corner of some pages. Otherwise, all pages and spine are clean and intact.  text in French

About

Born in Saint-Genis-Laval near Lyon in 1923, Riboud was an active member of the French resistance during the war, and then a factory engineer in the post-war years.

He always had a keen interest in photography and a tendency to shoot amateur photographs wherever he went, but it was a chance encounter that sparked his career as a photographer. During a visit to his brother Jean in a sanatorium, he met a young student, poet and communist named Nicole Cartier-Bresson. Shortly after, he met her brother, Henri.

Having expressed his interest in photography, the great French photographer ‘ordered’ him to go to museums, to look at the compositions of paintings, and to take photos with the lens upside-down. Riboud headed north to the French capital a few years later, in 1953, and was there introduced by Cartier-Bresson to the rest of the Magnum family.

That same year, the young freelance photographer climbed the Eiffel Tower’s old spiral staircase with a Leica slung across his shoulder to photograph Zazou, the landmark’s painter, at work. It became the very first of his images to be published — sold to Life magazine by Robert Capa — and sealed his formal invitation to join Magnum as a nominee, and then a full member in 1955.