David and Peter Turnley: in Times of War and Peace - Tapa dura

"From a low-income mixed race neighborhood in their hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana, to the hotspots of the world made famous by news headlines--Beijing's Tiananmen Square, Israel's West Bank, Cape Town, Somalia, Bosnia, Chechnya--twin brothers David and Peter Turnley have focused their cameras with award-winning results. There are bloodied corpses, angry mobs, and ragtag bands of refugees depicted in this compilation of their pictures, but precious few of the brothers' subjects are anonymous. In the tradition of Robert Capa, they work from the frontlines, resulting in intimate photographs that haunt the viewer. Peter's human interest shots, taken in the Turnleys' adopted Paris, offer a soothing respite. While the brothers write copious notes on the images, their reflections are relegated to small print in the back of the book, ensuring that the accompanying text does not dilute the power of the visuals." --Amazon.com "Through photographic eyes that never flinch, brothers David and Peter Turnley share with us the human spirit and the human condition made wretched by war in poor places. South Central Los Angeles in the fiery grip of rioters looks remarkably like chaotic Somalia. A Sarajevan wedding guarded by a best man with an AK-47 might be a funeral in Siberia. The people who populate so many of the Turnleys' photographs are wary?not of the camera, but of the worlds they live in gone mad. The quality and value of the images result from the Turnleys' decision to eschew gore and the bluntly horrific in favor of the silence and loneliness of lives lived in societies on the edge. The prize-winning photojournalists seem always ready for the moment when a great image emerges, and their work, as collected here, yields a memorable and valuable book. Highly recommended." --Library Journal

As photojournalists since the early 1980s, the Turnleys have covered most of the great conflicts of the past fifteen years, and have been published in the best-known newspapers and magazines. Very often, one of their photographs becomes the iconic representation of the event. This is a result of their spending extended periods in the regions they cover, getting to know the people and the way of life. During the three years David lived in South Africa, he showed apartheid as the prevailing system, its subsequent destruction, and the first elections of the new democratic state. Peter has pursued his interest in documenting the world's fourteen million refugees, and also photographed the fall of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe. Together they photographed student dissidents in the months leading up to the Tiananmen Square massacre; their photographs of the massacre itself are among their most recognizable. Shining through all the photographs is the strength of individual character and hope against powerful social and political conflict.