I worked at Leo Burnett Hong Kong in the mid-90s as an associate creative director, shortly after Stefan Sagmeister's and Stuart D'Rozario's time there. I took the spot Stuart vacated when he went to Cole and Webber. It was a magical time and one of my magical clients was United Airlines. 

I wrote a campaign for them that called for a subtle anti-advertising take on what made them special and my art director Ferdy Van Alphen and I, felt photojournalism was the only way to do it.

We contracted Bruno Barbey, the Magnum legend, to shoot the campaign and it turned out to be a bit of an award winner. I even hired a few of my friends as talent for a couple of shots when the local Indian talent pool ran dry briefly. 

Bruno was a soft spoken but intense man who endeared himself to me forever when he admitted he chose to do the book on my hometown Bombay for Time-Life's iconic series, rather than Bangkok.

Bruno Barbey made our campaign incredibly powerful because he made it incredibly real in a human way, a gift that informs all his photographs.  

Bruno has shot war and peace with equal insight and here are few photographic fragments that show how he uses colour and composition to bring the human into focus.