Above Albanian Bathers, 2006. (©Tom Craig/Courtesy of Flaere Gallery, London).

‘The one thing words and pictures have in common is that their craft is all in the editing,’ says AA Gill, a writer who over the last eight years has travelled extensively on assignment with the British photographer Tom Craig; he continues, ‘Out of the streaming confusion of information and images, we have to sift and select the things that make a cogent, coherent, engaging plot...’

The relationship between the writer and photographer is all too frequently a fragile one, but in The Bigger Picture: A story told twice, currently on show at London’s Flaere Gallery, Craig and Gill demonstrate the power of the symbiotic relationship they have developed, as 20 previously unseen photographs are presented, each with an accompanying text by Gill, produced during their various assignments that have seen the pair cross four continents together.

‘We tend to meet over freshly brought-down stories to snarl with scuffed, thin-skinned, professional sensibilities, each offended by the other’s coarse craft,’ wrote Gill in The Sunday Times, of the relationship between ‘hacks and snappers.’ ‘They only want a frozen image, never caring about muddying the context or getting everyone else shot; we don’t understand about light or lingering,’ he continues, ‘But we need each other. We’re necessary parts of the same rolling saga.’ 

‘In his writing, Gill often alights on the modest object, fact or observation and through it unfolds a story that speaks volubly about that place in that time,’ remarks Camilla Zervoglos, whilst, ‘Craig’s photographs create the visual counterpoint, exposing the essence of people and places they come across.’

In a recent talk at London’s Frontline Club, the pair discussed their shared approach to assignments, ‘We have a rule that we both have to see everything. We never split up, and we talk about the story’s arc and narrative constantly.’ Gill, who rarely takes notes whilst covering a story, begins writing several weeks after the pair return home; and only once he has seen Craig’s initial edit of photographs.

In The Bigger Picture, we experience the pinnacle of collaboration between a writer and a photographer that ‘demonstrates how two perspectives and two media tell a different story from the same scene — and how together they make the narrative so much the richer. ‘When we get it right, the image and the writing, when they come together, they make something that is greater than their binary parts,’ says Gill, ‘They’re not illustrations or captions, but a tandem, complimentary work, without repetition or duplication.’

The Bigger Picture is at Flaere Gallery, London, until 10 March 2012.