The Tank man, stopping the column of T59 tanks, 4th June 1989, Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China, 1989

Stuart Franklin combines a direct documentary style with a strong personal vision. He has photographed some of the most important news events of the 21st century and has produced many acclaimed personal projects exploring subjects related to the Anthropocene. Franklin says his practice “repaints the boundaries of documentary in order to create a sense of freedom.” His primary focus today is on producing work—mostly about the relationship between nature and society—that is open to multiple interpretations.

It was in 1989 that Franklin took his acclaimed photographs in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, where a demonstration for freedom ended in a massacre. After that, he began to shift his focus from news photography to magazine feature photography. Between 1990 and 2008, he photographed approximately twenty stories for National Geographic Magazine. During this time, Franklin decided to pursue a deeper theoretical understanding of some of the issues he encountered by embarking on a period of academic study in 1995. Franklin was awarded a professorship in documentary photography in 2016.

Franklin joined Magnum Photos in 1985 and has been a full member since 1989, serving as the agency’s elected president from 2006 to 2009.