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A Photograph’s Diary, the first ever monograph dedicated to this photojournalist, makes us cross the world’s turmoils, from Nicaragua to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from Chechnya to Poland, from China to Slovakia. His iconic images of the recent history are accompanied by his personal work which is sensitive and intimate; a moving look at his family history. This book with over 200 photographs contains texts issued from the photographer’s eponymous blog.

”When I was young, I walked to the end of the slopes at Orly airport to watch the planes land. They made me dream about all these far-off lands my geography books were full of, and which seemed unreachable to me. My first flight brought me to Scandinavia marking the beginning of my future adventures. But it’s Friday 30th of August 1968 at 11:53 p.m. at the Gare de Lyon that would remain the day of the real break. It was the train to Istanbul which I took to leave France, determined to never come back. After having photographed the world’s tumult for many years, I felt a need of a return on the intimate, getting close to my aging parents. It was at that time that my mother lost her memory.

Memory, loss, identity are the subjects constructing this photographic work in the footsteps of my origins. The image is a way to keep the life anchoring the events for ever, be they small or big, close or distant, and of which we are witnesses and sometimes actors. If it’s not a photograph, what would remain from our memory?”

Alain Keler was awarded the Paris Match Photojournalism Grand Prix in 1986, the World Press the same year and finally the W. Eugene Smith Award in 1997.