Philip Jones Griffiths RIP
One of the most important figures in the history of Welsh photography died on Wednesday. Philip Jones Griffiths, born in Rhuddian, was a member of the Magnum Photo agency, and was a war photographer most closely associated with his ground-breaking work in the Vietnam war. This may seem a little off topic for this website whose focus is Senghenydd, but bear with me, there is a connection, I had met with Philip on occasions in the course of my work, and had a tentative plan to meet with him again during his next visit to New York in a couple of months. Among other, more important things, I had wanted to mention this modest project on Senghenydd to him, and listen to what he had to say. I hoped that our shared mutual memories of the very unique thing that is Welsh village life might have forged us a closer bond.
Alas, Philip lost his long battle with cancer and never made it back to New York.
I will forever wonder what this giant of photojournalism might have thought of my little project during our meeting that never happened. Here is a link to an obit and an edit of his work that I did for Newsweek yesterday. http://www.newsweek.com/id/124403
Photograph courtesy of Magnum Photos