Portraits of Power: Platon

It’s a rare chance to see close, honest and artistic portrayal images of  world leaders and Platon’s photography does exactly that. In September 2009, New Yorker Staff photographer Platon set up a small studio off the floor of the General Assembly where world leaders had gathered  in New York for the United Nations meeting. He assembled 50 of these Photographs for an article in The New Yorker and more recently his new published book “Power Platon.”  We choose to highlight just the African Leaders in Platon’s reveal of these power character personalities.

The anxiety in taking images of  leaders in government is well know by photographers. In Africa there often are restrictions in the way one takes a photograph of a leader and  some press agents even dictate how to take these photographs blocking one’s artistic value and limiting their results. Platon points out that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asked the photographer before the shutter clicked, he said, “make me look good.” Platon gets a small window of opportunity and does quite well with these small moments.

There is an audio narration along side the pictures of Platon describing the moment when he took the photographs, some keywords describe the power individuals as “tough, tense, warm, icy, intimidating and young.”  The Youngest and Oldest Power Leaders were both from the African continent, 36  and 87 years old. For more take a look at the article here.