Editing Marc Riboud (section)

==Photography==
One of Riboud's best known images is ''Eiffel Tower Painter'', taken in Paris in 1953. It depicts a man painting the tower, posed like a dancer, perched between the metal armature of the tower. Below him, Paris emerges from the photographic haze. Lone figures appear frequently in Riboud's images. In ''Ankara'', a central figure is silhouetted against an industrial background, whereas in ''France'', a man lies in a field. The vertical composition emphasizes the landscape, the trees, sky, water and blowing grass, all of which surround but do not overpower the human element.

An image taken by Riboud on 21 October 1967, entitled "[[The Ultimate Confrontation: The Flower and the Bayonet]]," is among the most celebrated anti-war pictures. Shot in Washington, D.C. where thousands of anti-war activists had gathered in front of [[the Pentagon]] to protest against [[Vietnam War|America's involvement in Vietnam]], the picture shows a young girl, Jan Rose Kasmir, with a flower in her hands and a kindly gaze in her eyes, standing in front of several rifle-wielding soldiers stationed to block the protesters. Riboud said of the photo, "She was just talking, trying to catch the eye of the soldiers, maybe trying to have a dialogue with them. I had the feeling the soldiers were more afraid of her than she was of the bayonets."<ref>[http://festival.magnumphotos.com/60_years_1967.php "Marc Riboud 1967"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081211033316/http://festival.magnumphotos.com/60_years_1967.php |date=11 December 2008 }}, Magnum Festival '07: 60 Years. Retrieved 14 November 2011</ref><ref>[http://www.deccanherald.com/CONTENT/Nov302008/finearts20081129103619.asp ''Deccan Herald''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081204233332/http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Nov302008/finearts20081129103619.asp |date=4 December 2008 }}, 30 November 2008</ref>

In contrast to the images in his photo essay, ''A Journey to North Vietnam'' (1969), Riboud says in the accompanying interview:
"My impression is that the country's leaders will not allow the slightest relaxation of the population at large [...] it is almost as if [...] they are anxious to forestall the great unknown – peace."<ref name="Riboud">''Newsweek,'' 20 October 1969: 35</ref> In the same ''Newsweek'' article, he expanded further in his observations on life in [[North Vietnam]]:

<blockquote>I was astonished, for example, at the decidedly gay atmosphere in [[Hanoi]]'s Reunification Park on a Sunday afternoon [...] I honestly did not have the impression they were discussing [[socialism]] or the 'American aggressors' [...] I saw quite a few patriotic posters crudely 'improved' with erotic graffiti and sketches.<ref name="Riboud"/></blockquote>

There is a divide between what is photographed (or published) and what Riboud had to say by way of his interview. Commenting on this in 1970, the author [[Geoffrey Wolff]] wrote:

<blockquote>Riboud's photographs illustrate the proposition. The French photographer has been to North Vietnam twice [...] and he is most friendly, on the evidence of his pictures, to the people and the institutions he found there. His photographs are of happy faces,[...] An Air Force ace illustrates how he shot the American "air pirates" from the sky [...] Who knows the truth about these places?<ref>''Newsweek,'' December 7, 1970</ref></blockquote>

American, revolutionary political [[Rap Metal]] band, [[Rage Against the Machine]] used two of Riboud's photographs for their second single "[[Bullet in the Head (song)|Bullet in the Head]]". Both photographs carry strong political and social messages, but are very different. The front cover is a picture of American school children pledging allegiance to the 'flag' ([[Flag of the United States|Stars and Stripes]]) in a classroom; the back cover picture, is of a young (probably [[Vietnamese people|Vietnamese]]) boy, who is pointing a pistol, while soldiers stand on parade in the background.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.discogs.com/release/1643053 |title="Bullet in the Head" at |publisher=discogs |date=7 February 1993 |accessdate=13 September 2014}}</ref> It is unclear who or what the boy is aiming at and whether the gun is real or a toy.