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Dn the brotherhood of war photographers, they occupy a special place. And not only because at 66, Peter and David Turnley are veterans among image-making journalists regularly present in conflict zones. These two American reporters have been part of most of the armed explosions of the past forty years. Of the Somalia to Bosnia via the Rwandal’Iraq and Chechnya, these twins have walked the most dangerous frontlines since the 1980s.
The two boys, knighted in the early 1980s by the legendary cinematographer of the New York TimesJohn Godfrey Morris (1916-2017), have alone accumulated dozens of prestigious awards: from Pulitzer to World Press Photo of The Year not counting the Overseas Press Club. Their colleagues are used to saying that when the two brothers are on site at the same time, it means that the crisis they are covering is major… At the beginning of March, they were both in Ukraine without having had to consult each other.
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major crisis
It was their instinct that pushed them to take the same route, justify the two men. These reporters, born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on June 22, 1955, began photography at the same time, in the early 1970s, sharing a single camera to shoot a subject on McClellan Street, one of the poorest in their home town. Their mentor Howard Chapnick (1922-1996) often told them that the first quality of a photojournalist is to know how to “be in the right place at the right time”. All their life, they have applied this adage, as evidenced by one of their photo books: times of war and peacepublished by Abbeville Press in 1996.
“By mid-February, I had become convinced that war was inevitable. Despite the diplomats’ soothing remarks, I found it hard to imagine Putin massing nearly 190,000 men just for a military exercise,” Peter slips. When a source warns him that stocks of blood are being transferred en masse by the Russian army to the border with Ukraine, the outbreak of hostilities is then no longer in doubt. He prepares his bag.
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Peter is the first to go. He who divides his time between France and the United States is in New York when the head of the Kremlin launches the invasion of Ukraine. He jumps on a plane for Paris, then takes off again for Krakow on March 6. Then, from there, join the border by train. He is heading for Lviv, a city where he has already produced several reports in the 1990s, when the iron curtain came down. “At the time, in particular, I photographed what remained of the city’s thirty synagogues. A poignant testimony to the cultural history of this region before the Holocaust,” he recalls.
David follows suit. The two men work on their own, but feel the same on the spot. “What struck me the most was the dignity of these men and women,” says Peter. “There is in their eyes, beyond the feeling of loss of everything that made their life before, a pride and a courage difficult to express in words”, he adds. The two men may no longer be twenty years old, but they don’t regret for a second exposing themselves like this. How can you stay at home when the most serious European geopolitical crisis since the Second World War is unfolding on your doorstep?
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Unforgettable encounters
The twins make unforgettable encounters during the trip. On the way out, in the wagons, only men returned to the Ukraine: either to fight, or to cover the event. “On the way back, it was only women and old people. I will remember some faces for a long time. In particular, that of Antonusc, a 58-year-old invalid,” says Peter, who makes this journey of more than ten hours by train, standing in the aisles.
“Shortly before arriving at the Polish border, I sat down on the ground. Antonusc then began to sing a soft melody. I watched him silently. Despite the language barrier, I understood what he was feeling. I later learned that he had been a boxer in his youth but that illness had left him handicapped. He couldn’t get off the train alone. Nurses came to help him. His family had sent him west for safety; he was alone and desperate. I wonder what became of him,” concludes Peter.
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