Belgium, 1981

Belgium, 1981

Harry Gruyaert

Harry Gruyaert, born in Antwerp in 1941, studied at the School of Film and Photography in Brussels from 1959 to 1962. After completing his education, he moved to Paris to pursue a career in photography, while also working as a freelance director of photography for Flemish television between 1963 and 1967. 

 

In 1969, he made the first of many trips to Morocco. From 1970 to 1972 he lived in London. This period presented him with an opportunity for unprecedented visual experiments: he decided to "cover" the Munich Olympics of 1972 and the first Apollo flights. Between 1973 and 1980, he began a long essay on Belgium first in black and white and then in color. 

 

In the 2000s Harry Gruyaert began shooting digital. Very concerned about the quality of prints made previously in Cibachrome and sometimes dye transfer, he experimented with inkjet printing.