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.

United Colors of Benetton's "Unhate Foundation"

     This!! This is pretty sweet. Thanks to United Colors of Benetton's new foundation, Unhate, I can now gaze at my favorite world leaders as they make out. Claiming that universal tolerance is one of their "underpinning values," this luxury fashion brand professes that it is on a mission to combat hatred. Before concluding that another group of incredibly wealthy people have come up with a new ploy to make a whole lot of money, check out the images under the "Campaign" section of the Unhate website. Sure, they could be trying to get back on top of the market, but judging by these pictures, UCB is not messing around.

     Let's look at the images themselves. All of the campaign images are essentially close-ups of international leaders locking lips. Additionally, each pair of leaders kissing is currently involved in some sort of foreign conflict with the other leader.
     For example, the first image to appear under "Campaign" on UCB's website is one of United States President Barack Obama hooking up with the Paramount Leader of the People's Republic of China, Hu Jintao. It is no secret that things haven't been so hot between China and the U.S. recently. Not only have tensions been rising between the two leaders, but President Obama has reassured us at least once that he does not fear China's recent developments in advanced weaponry.
     Another image shows Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-il kissing President of South Korea Lee Myung-bak. Just months ago North and South Korea were firing their share of artillery shells over each other's respective borders. That happened a few months ago though. For UCB to really be pushing the limit, they would have to target an incredibly hostile and volatile conflict. Israeli-Palestinian conflict, anyone?
     This is simply the historical/current events aspect of the campaign. It doesn't analyze the images by themselves as much as it does the people who are in them.

     As I said before, these images are close-ups. There is no avoiding their sense of intimacy and physical closeness as an audience member just due to their size. When these ads have been put up in cities such as Milan, Paris, Tel-Aviv, and New York, they look to be at least/almost ten feet wide and six or seven feet tall. They are put up on projector screens and held by people as banners. UCB refers to this action on their website as "guerilla action."

     This entire campaign reminds me of Gillian Rose's article titled Visual Methodologies in her discussion of sites and modalities. She talks about the three sites at which images are made: sites of image production, the site of the images themselves, and the site of the images seen by various audiences. These are manipulated images of world leaders sharing a subjectively intimate experience for everybody to see. Unfortunately, and sort of ironically, many people in countries such as North Korea and possibly even China may never be able to see these images.
     As far as aesthetics are concerned, I don't think that these images were overly produced to have a "beautiful" appearance. In fact, they are pixelated and, in my opinion, pretty visually unsettling. However, that sends a message from UCB to their audience, to the world.

     I'm not sure how I feel about the campaign morally or ethically speaking, especially because it is likely just a plan to get back in the market for UCB. However, this is bold. In a way this is revolutionary.  Even in "liberal" Western cultures, billboards of men and women kissing is not generally acceptable. Men and men kissing? Forget about it! To think that some of the most significant and relevant leaders of out time, most of who are all males, are kissing on the lips, is such a foreign idea to all of us around the world.

     I think that this time UCB did it right. If world leaders are offended by these images, then it is clear that UCB has everybody's blood boiling - not the West, not the Far East, but the world at large.

   

Are You Disappointed?

     I remember when I first found out that there were allegations as to whether or not one of Robert Capa's Spanish Civil War photos  was "real" or staged. Well, I don't remember where I was or what I was doing. But I remember thinking about the possibility that a war photograph of such intensity was staged. It made me feel sick to my stomach. I didn't suddenly garner a deep hatred for Robert Capa, but I was fairly torn. Why would Capa go through that effort to create a war scenario that never actually happened? Would it have been for fame or recognition? It's hard to say. What I really though about, though, was the idea of staging battle for photojournalistic purposes. Does it still make it a war photograph? Sure, it might represent what was happening in the war at the time, but it simply isn't a real event. One of the main points of war photography - and I can't imagine that many people would disagree with this - is to capture the events taking place during a war. Specifically in the case of real battle, however, there is no worth in recreating something that may have happened or that could have happened. It either already happened, or it never did, and I think that as a photographer one must live with that truth. In my opinion if you missed that perfect moment during a battle then you should under no circumstances recreate the scene unless you specify that you are doing so.

     Then I think about other photographs that have supposedly been staged in the history or war photography. In Elliott Leyton's article "Touched by Fire: Doctors Without Borders in a Third World Crisis", Leyton makes mention of a few of these photos. He brings to the table the timeless photo of an American soldier kissing a woman in Times Square, as well as the photo of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. In mentioning these photographs, Leyton is questioning the need for people to criticize the practice of staging scenes. He then references the Canadian journal of record, which, in response to such criticism, poses the question: After finding out that these scenes were recreated, "are you disappointed?"

     To answer Leyton's question, yes, I was fairly disappointed to find out that many of these scenes were staged. In photojournalism, and specifically in war photography, there is often a great degree of spontaneity. Part of the reason why the photograph of the sailor kissing the woman in Times Square is that much better is because we assume that it is candid. The idea of it being staged removes much of the natural emotion contained in the image. I almost feel as an audience member that I am being duped. I'm not suggesting that a photojournalist can't take creative license with his photos, but rather that he be honest about the moment in which he captured an image. That piece of information changes the photo's message.

     The reason I left a link to Carl Mydan's photograph (click the title link) of American troops in the Philippines during WWII is because I find it to be one of the only acceptable examples of staging war history. Initially, when I read that it was staged, I simply cared less for the image. It didn't move me as much as it might have had it been completely natural. However, this is not a time of battle. Neither is it a seemingly spontaneous kiss. It is almost clear that this photograph is staged. Even if LIFE.com hadn't explicitly broken the news to me, I could have guessed that Mydan asked all of the troops to look at the camera. Yes, just like Robert Capa, Mydan was trying to communicate a message with his staged photograph. The major difference for me, however, is that Mydan's image suggests that it was staged while Capa's does not.

     I can't accuse Robert Capa of actually having staged that photograph, but in a hypothetical situation in which he did, I would expect more of a photographer of such journalistic prowess. I think that every photojournalist has the duty to provide the truth about their images, whether they were staged, manipulated, and/or both.

Hell and Back Again: Dangfung Dennis

     I've seen Dangfung Dennis' still photography in the past and I was intrigued and incredibly impressed by the quality and starkness of his images. Dennis' most recent work, Hell and Back Again is a documentary about the war in Afghanistan and the effect it has had on American soldiers as well as Afghan natives. In the attached article published by The New York Times' Lens blog, writer Michael Kamber discusses Dennis' role as a filmmaker and how his artistic choices affect the messages being conveyed in the film. Kamber points out that the film blurs certain lines between documentary and "other" because of aesthetic factors used by Dennis, such as depth of field and color saturation. This is reminiscent of the article on Damon Winter's award-winning Hipstamatic series, coincidentally shot in Afghanistan. Kamber also mentions that while documenting the lives of a returned soldier and his wife in the United States, Dennis chooses not to intervene in situations that may have called for his assistance.
     This all relates to what it means to be a journalist and a filmmaker, as well as what can be considered a documentary.