Hugh Holland: Locals Only

     Photographer Hugh Holland's series "Locals Only" is a very unique piece of history, especially in the world of skateboarding. It is unique not only because it documents the early years of skateboard culture, but also because of who Holland is as an artist.  

     Holland had no formal art education besides his job at a photo lab in Oklahoma in the 1960s. He never studied photography formally. This is certainly one of the reasons why my outlook on these images is changed. Holland's images are beautifully framed, beautifully lit, and full of bright, vivid colors. His lack of training really makes me think about what it means to have a "natural eye," to know what looks "good" and what does not. 

     The other reason this series is unique is because Hugh Holland was never a skateboarder. He was simply an admirer who decided to document this cultural phenomenon of the 1970s. What is significant about this is that today, skateboard photographers are almost always skateboarders. Either that, or they are very close friends with the skateboarders they photograph. Holland's images provide commentary not only on the skateboarders themselves, but on their relationship with their surrounding environment, specifically photographers. It is possible that he befriended some of the skateboarders he photographed, though he was more than 10 years their senior. Not to mention, he was photographing some of the world's  most famous skaters at the time: Stacey Peralta, Jay Adams, Joe Fong, and more. These guys were part of a scene of kids their age, in their late teens and early 20s. 

     What did Holland have to do to get into the scene, to get the trust of these kids? The series as a whole just makes me think of authority and power relations. Was not giving a shit who took pictures a part of the culture? Did they want Holland there? He followed them from pools to competitions for three years until, according to Holland, the sport began to commercialize in 1978. 

     Holland also asserts that he was more interested in the social context than he was in the actual phenomenon of skateboarding itself. Was this clear to his subjects? 

     Lastly, I wonder if Holland's age made it more difficult to really convey what he was seeing. He wasn't necessarily old at all. He was just older than his subjects, and the gap was about 10 years. Considering this point, if Holland was trying to capture the social context of the skateboarders, did his presence as an older man change the way kids acted when he was around, or when he picked up his camera and pointed his lens at something? 

     Nonetheless, this is a really cool series. Whether or not Hugh Holland was trying to capture the hairdos or the skateboards or the skaters' behavior, he definitely picked up on something with these images. 

Ron Haviv: Beautiful Destruction

     It is often very hard to decide how I feel about images like this. Ron Haviv, a renowned photojournalist, took this photograph for Amazon Aid, an organization seeking to protect the Amazon rainforest from human destruction. Before I looked at the caption, I thought to myself, "Wow, that is beautiful. That is absolutely gorgeous. The colors!" But then I read the following: 

The effects of gold mining on an area that was pristine rain forest twenty years ago.

     Woah. So you mean to tell me that the beautiful plateau I'm gazing at in this image was filled with plant and animal life twenty years ago? It was green and flourishing, not blue and dead? I honestly thought I was looking at a photograph of the Arctic or Alaska, or maybe the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah due to the presence of a motorcyclist.  

     Being that I saw this image on Ron Haviv's personal website instead of that of Amazon Aid,  the way I viewed the image was starkly different. I didn't come across it with the expectation that I would be viewing a symbol of destruction, an example of what once was but is no longer. When viewing the website of a photojournalist (especially since this is in his "Commercial Portfolio"), I try to keep as open a mind as possible. I don't go into it with cynicism, because very often photojournalists seek to expose us not only to destruction but also to beauty and culture. If I were on Amazon Aid's website I would have been immediately curious as to what this foreign-looking piece of Amazon land was. When I think of the Amazon I think of immense amounts of greenery. What is seen in this image - this never comes to mind.

     In saying all of this, I don't want to draw too much attention to the meaning of the image, but rather to the way in which it is presented to an audience, as well as the image's need for text to explain such destruction.
     A photographer's personal website and an organization's website are two different sites of viewing the same image. For this reason, they affect how we see the image itself in different ways. In both scenarios, since the image itself is so aesthetically pleasing and serene, it must be explained to us using text that this is not, according to Amazon Aid, beauty, but instead it is destruction.