"Learn first, judge later" – photographer Platon on making portraits of dictators and the downtrodden

Vladimir Putin loved the portrait, photographer Platon said, he liked how it showed him as a tough nationalist. But Putin's opponents liked it too: "It gave them a banner to hold up to the world, to show everything that they believe is wrong with power and authority in Russia". The same picture meant very different things, depending on who was looking at it.

Platon, who created some of the most memorable portraits in the history of photography, has been nose-to-nose with most of the most famous and powerful people of the last half-century. So what has he learned about power, frailty, and leadership? He shared his insights on the World Economic Forum podcast Meet the Leader.

"There's nothing objective about my work. It's completely subjective. It's collaborating with my sitters. And we make that moment together, and then we send it out to the public, and it's up for the public to decide," Platon tells Meet the Leader.

Platon has a method for getting a great a portrait. He brings people into his studio and sits them on a wooden box, gets up close, and tries to make a human connection.

"It's just a simple apple box that all film studios, photographers, have in their studio. I was looking round for a chair that was the perfect height for me when I hold the camera and it wasn't too low, wasn't too high, and I like the fact that it strips away all evidence of power.

"And everyone sits on this box, whether they are one of the most powerful people in the world or someone who's been robbed of all power. It's a sort of democratic idea of levelling out, power and treating everyone the same with equal respect, curiosity, and dignity."

"I often will say to my subjects, this moment matters. Right now, there's probably no one on the planet who is as interested in you as I am. So let's work together. We. I can't do it alone. I need you, I need your trust. And I promise I'll earn your trust and be responsible with it. But let's make something together that matters. This is an important moment in your life, and I am very honoured to try to document that moment."

But what if your subject is a dictator or war criminal?

"For me, true curiosity is to think of my subject, care about their humanity, even if I fundamentally disagree with some of their policies. And I have photographed many people, many dictators, who I disagree with fundamentally. But what's really important is to tune in to their frequency."

Platon tries not to judge his subjects.

"It took me a lifetime to deal with judgement. And to get the balance right with judgement and curiosity. Judgement just chips away at your capacity to see and understand and learn. So, curiosity has to rule.

"And that's the risk: we all feel better if we're making judgements.

"But my job is to learn. To learn first. Judge later, learn first. And you can't learn if you're making judgements. Your judgements are basically part of your brain saying, I already know this, so I don't need to learn."

"Of course, I have my own value system, but, I am not there to judge. I am there to collaborate with my sitter and try and find a moment that's authentic, as authentic as I can possibly find. And my sitter is collaborating with me to get there. We're in it together, and sometimes it's a bit of a battle for both of us."

The viewer of the picture, though, will judge – and that judgement can change over time, as a person's reputation changes.

"I photographed Harvey Weinstein and his brother as well, quite a few times, and I remember when I took that picture it represented a kind of bad-boy Hollywood swagger when he was top dog and had immense power.

"Now that same picture means something completely different. It's the same picture, but now it represents an absolute monster who abused his power and authority in the media.

"So I think these images, if we get it right, it's timeless. Their legacy will change. History will change the facts that we know change. But then you see a new side of that picture that you weren't seeing before."

And those pictures, which perhaps once spoke of power and strength, should not be 'cancelled' when the subject falls out of favour, Platon says.

"I don't believe in hiding the pictures when things turn sour. I believe in keeping them up.

"Many famous people fall from grace, and we quickly cancel them and wipe them off, as if we'd rather not see that picture anymore, and we'd rather not discuss their name, or we'd rather not see their movies or, we we must have a debate about our own values. And often if you look at the clues, the signs were always there in plain sight."

"To be human is to struggle between right and wrong. And if someone takes a hard turn in the what we might think is the wrong direction. That doesn't mean they're not human. I've seen a lot of people who hold immense power in their hands, and they still have the capacity to do terrible harm and to be very charming at the same time. I find that really chilling that they can do that. And that's the most dangerous thing."

And some of the most powerful people, Platon believes, are also the most scared.

"Famous people, sometimes they appear to be trapped in a prison of their own making… If you have a brand of success, strength, invincibility, perfection, gradually you start to separate from that brand because you can't live up to it and you start to live a lie. And that is like living in a jail."

Someone Platon did idolise was the boxer Muhammad Ali - from whom he received a surprising confession.

"It's one of the most important shoots in my life. For many reasons, he was a hero of mine. But he was very ill when I took that picture. And in fact, I think it's certainly one of the last shoots he ever did, if not the last portrait session before he passed away.

"I remember feeling very moved and I said to him, Muhammad, you are The Greatest. Teach me to be great. How can my generation be as great as your generation had to be during the civil rights era in America?

"Now, he couldn't speak very well because of Parkinson's disease, so I had to get really close to him. And he whispered something in my ear and he said, I have a confession to make. What is it, I said? He said, I wasn't as great as I said I was. Holy shit, I said. That's the biggest confession I ever heard in my life, man. The whole world knows you as Ali, The Greatest.

"And then he said, you misunderstand me. He said, I'll tell you what was great. It wasn't me. It was that people saw themselves in my struggle, that people saw themselves in my story."

Platon's lesson from that conversation? "If we can get people to see themselves in the stories that we put forward, then we achieve greatness. But that greatness is never us personally. That's something much bigger, called bridge building.

"A light bulb went off in my brain. Because with a human story, we can build bridges. Right now we are so obsessed with research and data that helps us measure everything. But numbers mean nothing without a human story."

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