© René Burri
The Myth Eats the Photograph
I’ve been staring at this image for a while, and I have to be honest. I can’t fully separate what I see from what I know. And I’m not sure anyone can.
René Burri. Havana, 1963. Che Guevara at the Ministry of Industry, cigar in mouth, gaze aimed somewhere above and beyond the lens. A photograph that has been on flags, t-shirts, and bedroom walls for sixty years. One of the most reproduced images of the twentieth century.
The problem isn’t the image. The problem is that the myth got there first, and it never left.
And yet, when I try to look past what I know, past the icon, past the ideology, past everything this face has come to represent, something precise remains: power built without eye contact. Guevara doesn’t look at the camera, doesn’t acknowledge Burri, doesn’t perform for the lens. For two hours he simply ignored the photographer moving around him. And that indifference is exactly what makes the image so hard to escape.
Most powerful portraits work through confrontation, the subject looks at you and holds the gaze, but here it’s the opposite. The power comes from the absence of interest, you are irrelevant. That’s what you feel, and it’s unsettling in a way that has nothing to do with politics.
Burri didn’t build this. He found it. He stayed quiet long enough not to disturb it, and he recognized it when it appeared. That’s the job, no direction, no staging. Patience and recognition. Most photographers would have tried to get his attention. Burri understood that the power was precisely in being ignored.
The harder question is this: when you look at this photograph, are you seeing the image or the legend? Because if you can’t tell the difference, that’s not a failure of attention. It’s what happens when a photograph gets completely consumed by what it represents.
Some images stop being photographs. This one did, a long time ago.
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibé’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.