Through the lens of Czech-British photographer Liba Taylor: The power of photography

A refugee from Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia spent her life documenting other refugees

Originally published on Global Voices

Global Voices interviewed Liba Taylor, a Czech-born photographer, renowned for her extensive work documenting humanitarian efforts around the globe. Since fleeing Czechoslovakia in 1968 due to the Warsaw Pact invasion, she has specialized in capturing the lives of women and children in challenging conditions across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She has worked with organizations such as UNICEF, UNHCR, and Save the Children Fund to highlight the resilience and strength of her subjects, aiming to raise awareness and generate support for humanitarian causes. Currently, she teaches a digital photography course at the University of New York in Prague.

Interviewed by Global Voices, she describes her journey as a photographer,  an as exile and a woman in her long career:

I expect the students to understand that pictures have stories. I'm a documentary photographer. I like the fact that you can tell stories with photography. My scene is to go somewhere, be with the people, and document their everyday lives, problems, and happiness.

Taylor was inspired by prominent photographers like Steve McCurry from the US, Brazilian Sebastião Salgado, and Czech–French Josef Koudelka for their unique approaches to documenting refugees and conflicts, as well as Czech documentary photographer Antonín Kratochvíl‘s artistic style. In comparison, she describes her photography style as straight and almost commercial.

What it takes to be a documentary photographer

Taylor used different approaches to making pictures for NGOs or UN agencies, both candid and announced, from a car or static, of individuals or groups. For the kids she photographed, it was fun, as “the blond devil with the machine” would bring something different into that boring routine of village life.

A reason why people in her pictures look kind, warm, friendly, and even positive despite their difficult circumstances is because Taylor emphasizes the importance of making them feel comfortable.

When you can’t communicate with language, you mime. You become a pantomime artist. People are generally friendly, even in post-war situations, as in Zimbabwe, when they had terrorist attacks all the time, people were friendly, open, and smiling. Or Indigenous people in Mexico, in survival conditions, old women with huge bags walking somewhere high in the mountains, disappearing from the eye, still very friendly.

Sometimes, to make a good picture, it was enough to take just three to five shots, and sometimes the best one was done on the first shot. One of such lucky shots, taken in Kenya, is Taylor's favorite.

One from my first trip to Africa, in Samburu land. I took a picture of a kid standing in front of his house. It was amazing. But the film rewound after the last picture. Someone in London stole all my negatives, but I had one print, and this picture even won first prize.

Taylor describes her approach to taking photos for the UN and other NGOs.

I have this instinct, but you also must concentrate a lot. It’s not that you lift your camera and click. I used to go with a writer occasionally, but I preferred going off on my own to concentrate on taking pictures. Most of these people were very poor and couldn’t speak English, so someone local usually helped. Often, the best picture is a moment in between posing and doing whatever they were doing. It’s unpredictable, and I have no control over it. There have been situations when I was shooting for UNHCR: refugees, people on the run, people who have settled in another country, they were remaking their life all over again. I've been to the lakes after the Rwanda massacres. You stand there and think, what the hell is going on? This is really, it's almost biblical, the exodus from a country. People coming on boats, being carried because they are too weak, old people and kids crying, and everybody is dirty and hungry. And, the world needs to see what desperate state they are in, to help. Because it's money from donors. It is emotional and difficult.

Taylor noted that serving as a voice of those who need to be heard is important because people in the West often avoid confronting poverty. As for the eternal question of whether she intervened:

Aid workers come before us. It's their job; they know how to deal with it and speak the local language. If I saw someone collapsing, I’d call for help but wouldn’t move them myself because I'm not medically trained. I remember in Congo, after the Rwanda massacres, a photographer said he couldn't take pictures because he was so shocked. But we’re there to take pictures. Other people come to feed them and provide medical help.

At the same time, she believes that a photographer needs to have sympathy and sensitivity towards people while managing their emotional responses.

From exile to excellence 

In 1968, amidst rising political tensions and the arrival of Soviet forces, 18-year-old Liba Taylor decided to leave Czechoslovakia. With her father's support, she hitchhiked from the Austrian border to the UK, seeking freedom. Once there, despite her poor English, she attended university, traveled to Mexico, and discovered her passion for photography.

David Hurn from Magnum asked, at some opening exhibition in Bristol, whether all Czechs are photographers, as he was a great friend of Joseph Koudelka, and invited me to join his school of documentary photography in Newport in Wales that he just set up, and where were about 10 people overall… Five years of university education and I ended up being unemployed photographer, because I had to go freelance [laughing]. And, there was no interest in photographers, except for newspapers, but they used to have their own ones.

However, after she proved herself working for different UK NGOs, she was invited by UN agencies, including UNHCR and UNICEF, to capture compelling images for their campaigns. Remembering this journey, Liba mentions, that she herself, as a Czech in exile in England, was de facto a refugee, but with a different official status and better conditions than the ones she captured.

Asked how she was seen by the people she photographed, she said:

I was white because of the reactions. For kids, sometimes I was the first white person they ever saw. Older ones found it hilarious. Little kids would scream, thinking I was the white devil because they'd never seen anyone white.

Taylor observed humanity at its worst in crises, with unimaginable suffering and death. She emphasizes the need for sympathy and awareness of global issues, contrasting the UK's understanding of colonial history with the fear and xenophobia she encountered in post-communist societies. She believes it takes time for such societies to evolve and become more open and accepting.

Taylor explained that she returned to the Czech Republic due to the changes in the photographic industry with the advent of digital cameras, reaching an age where most of her friends had either passed away or retired, and for the love of her country. When she fully returned, she even experienced cultural shocks, as some Czechs didn't fully understand her work, having limited exposure to the world beyond holiday trips.

You realize that the kind of 40 years of communism here just created a certain type of person. It just takes a long time for society to change, develop, and go on into a different world.

On the power of women

Sharing stories from her adventurous life, Taylor mentioned traveling by cargo plane to Somalia and Somaliland for UNICEF, witnessing the devastating effects of war, but even there finding powerful women.

Somalis are beautiful people with fantastic faces. After the war, I went back to Somaliland several times and met with amazing Edna Adan. She worked in Europe, with WHO, has fantastic English, with a perfect British accent. After the war she went back to Somaliland, which was destroyed, people had nothing to eat, and they were dying, so she decided to invest all her savings into a hospital. She built a huge maternity hospital, only for mothers with babies, and it served to help others in need. Edna traveled the world and she spent her life exchanging contacts, requesting sponsorships for this hospital. She is one of the most incredible people in the world, always active and eloquent, but never selling anything, just telling the stories of people. Very touching. She asked for medicines and received them, and they were hard to get, as anything else.

When asked if she sees a special power in women in post-war societies, since women and children are often the subjects of her photography, Taylor said:

The power of women, yes, since I worked [always freelance] for aid agencies and UN, they focused mainly on women. The women did most of the work while the men sat around drinking the local brew.

People often ask me about another powerful woman Angelina Jolie, whom I met in some of my missions. Angelina was amazing — young, modest, and genuinely interested in people. She would sit with locals for hours under the tree and ask questions. She raised a lot of charity support.

Taylor concludes:

Things have changed quite a lot, and now it seems more complicated, the visuals are often misused. I remember people claiming: “You come here, take pictures, and leave, and people who see these pictures think we live in a poor existence, but nobody comes and helps us.” It is a slogan “You help yourself; we help you to help yourselves.” And you should know, that these people are not just sitting and waiting for aid, but in some circumstances, when there’s no condition to survive, they don’t have another choice. They will die if they are not helped. We are the ones, who share responsibility, including for climate change.

Liba Taylor's photographs are more than just her work, tasks, her memory, or captures of lives, they are the history of people, landscapes, and even cities that have ceased to exist.

Written by Elmira Lyapina