The Chechen Insurgency by Eric Bouvet

The Chechen Insurgency

General News, third prize stories

1995

At dawn a Chechen position is captured, sprayed with automatic weapons and finally blown up with a missile. For two weeks the photographer accompanied Russian special forces of infiltration and intelligence on their mission. Using night-glasses to see in the dark, they occupied strategic positions behind enemy lines. Villages were raided for food and subsequently burnt down.

Commissioned by: Le Figaro Magazine

Photo Credit: Eric Bouvet

Eric Bouvet (born 1961) began his photographic career in 1981 after studying art and graphic industries in Paris.

His interest in photography was sparked when, at the age of 8, he watched the first live television images of the Apollo 11 mission landing on the moon. It was then that he realized the importance of news and historic moments, not to mention capturing them on film.

Bouvet worked as a staff photographer at the French photo agency Gamma during the 1980s, and launched his freelance career in 1990. He first won international recognition with his 1986 pictures of the rescue efforts in the aftermath of a volcano eruption in Omeyra, Colombia. Since then, Bouvet has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Chechnya, Sudan, Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Israel. Northern Ireland, Kurdistan, Surinam, Burundi, Libya and Ukraina.

He has covered major international events including the funeral of the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, the Tiananmen Square in China, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Prague’s Velvet Revolution, the U.S. attack on Libya, the release of Nelson Mandela, and Olympic Games and the migrant crisis in Europe

He has also worked on many ‘society’ stories including life in Russian jails, young sailors on aircraft carriers, French police working in the Paris suburbs, France’s last coal miners, and life at a pediatric clinic for children with cancer.

Since 2011, he work also on documentaries projects with large format camera, 4x5 and 8X10 : first one "Sex, Love..." second about " Peace" and still in 2016 "Chaos".

His work has been published in many international magazines including Time, Life, Newsweek, Paris-Match, Stern, NYT magazine and The Sunday Times Magazine. He has also led photographic campaigns of UN and various NGOs and charities including Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), International Red Cross (ICRC), Medecins du Monde (MDM) and Action Against Hunger (ACF).

Along the way, Bouvet has received five World Press Awards, as well as two Visa d’Or, the gold medal of 15th anniversary of the photography, the Bayeux-Calvados Award for War Correspondents, the Public award from Bayeux-Calvados, the Front Line Club award and the Paris-Match Award.