He first became known in Switzerland for work focused on his
hometown, including the
Swiss Parliament, where his pictures of members of parliament looking sleepy, or caught in unflattering poses, assured him a reputation for insolence. The American photography critic
Vicki Goldberg wrote about his use of humor in
The New York Times and drew comparisons with
Robert Frank and
René Burri. It was his work on
Algeria, which made his reputation internationally. For ten years, he regularly traveled the country, which was plagued by
civil war, and took pictures with an
old panoramic camera held at waist height, operating it without using the viewfinder. His panoramic work, which has become his signature, has been the subject of several books and an exhibition at La Villette in Paris in 1998, before being presented in Algiers in 2000. He also produced the movie War Without Images – Algeria, I Know That You Know, with the director Mohammed Soudani. The documentary film sees him go in search of Algerians he had photographed during the
civil war. In 2002, the film was presented at the
Locarno International Film Festival. Von Graffenried originally worked for the printed press, where he was able to have strong control over the use of his pictures. To justify the trust placed in him by his photographic subjects and to maintain his independence and integrity, he has always refused to join a news agency or publishing company. He then shifted to a more
conceptual approach to his photography, erecting
large format, panoramic versions of his work on
billboards in major Swiss cities:
CocaineLove on
(illegal) drugs, and
Eye on Africa (Cameroon). The curator and interviewer
Hans-Ulrich Obrist commented on Graffenried's method of working with the old panoramic
Widelux, saying that his body becomes the camera and that his photographs do not have an Inside or Outside anymore. The viewer is Immersed. Graffenried does not hesitate to use his fame to express his political views. He was an outspoken supporter of the "NO" vote during the
Swiss minaret referendum, the popular initiative approved by a majority of voters on 29 November 2009. The
minaret ban is now part of the
Constitution. Between 2006 and 2021 he made a portrait of
New Bern, a little town in North Carolina, USA which was founded by his ancestor
Christoph von Graffenried. His series,
Our Town, named after the
American play by
Thornton Wilder is a both a document of a community and a call for increased integration and understanding at a decisive moment in American history. In 2014, he joined the team who created sept.info, a Swiss online news site. Here, he instigated the publication of a weekly printed magazine, cut in the exact shape of an
iPad. This allowed readers to place the magazine inside their iPad, where they could then choose to either read their printed copy or the sept.info online content on screen. He was the
art director of sept.info until 2015. Many of his photographer friends participated in this publishing experience. == Personal life ==