One of France's most famous photojournalists, Marc Riboud, whose 1967 snap of a protester confronting US soldiers with a flower captured the movement against the Vietnam war, has died aged 93. Riboud, equally famed for a 1953 picture of a workman painting the Eiffel Tower high above the Paris skyline, passed away Tuesday after a long illness, a family member told AFP.
The subject of the "flower power" shot, Jan Rose Kasmir, said on Facebook she had lost touch with Riboud after he began suffering from dementia around six years ago, but could "still hear his wonderful resonant voice". "What a special gift this world has lost," she wrote. "I am so saddened, but KNOW he will greet me on the other side." Kasmir, who was 17 when the iconic photo was taken, added: "I will carry on my work for peace in his name."
A master of black-and-white imagery, Riboud joined the prestigious Magnum agency at the invitation of its founders, photography greats Henri-Cartier Bresson and Robert Capa. Riboud, whose shots appeared in top magazines such as Look, Life, Stern and Paris Match, was among the handful of photographers who managed to enter North Vietnam in the late 1960s. In 1957 he had been among the first Europeans to travel in Communist China.
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