John Burke (19) (–1900)

Simon Norfolk’s Afghanistan: chronotopia established his reputation as a leading international photographer with the work being exhibited in more than thirty venues worldwide.
A few year later Simon returned to Afghanistan. This time to follow in the footsteps of the nineteenth century Irish photographer John Burke, a superb, yet virtually unknown, war photographer. This book, Burke + Norfolk is the result.

The book presents a unique juxtaposition of historical and contemporary photography show more of Afghanistan. It combines the works of Burke with those of Simon Norfolk offering a profound visual narrative that bridges past and present conflicts in the region. Norfolk explored what happens when you add half a trillion US war dollars to an impoverished and broken country such as Afghanistan. Very loosely re-photographic in nature, the work is presented as an artistic collaboration between Burke and Norfolk.

Burke’s eloquent and beautiful photographs of the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880) provide an extraordinary record. Using unwieldy wet-plate collodion negatives and huge wooden cameras Burke shot landscapes, battle-fields, archaeological sites, street scenes, portraits of British officers and ethnological group portraits of Afghans in what amounts to a richly detailed record of an Imperial encounter. The range is tremendously broad, yet suffused with a delicate humanism. These are also the first ever pictures made in Afghanistan.

Simon Norfolk has received innumerable awards for his work including The European Publishers Award for Photography, The Olivier Rebbot Award (Foreign Press Club of America), and The Infinity Award (ICP, New York). His work is in major public and private collections throughout the world. An exhibition of the work that was shown at the Queen’s Palace in the Bagh-e Babur garden in Kabul was supported by The World Collections Programme and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. It incorporated both Norfolk and Burke’s photographs alongside work resulting from a series of workshops by Simon Norfolk with Afghan photographers. show less