one small seed » photographer | one small seed

FlashBack | Pieter Hugo Nollywood and the Death of Photography | Issue14

one small seed — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 09:04:23 +0000

Pieter Hugo is quickly gaining notoriety as Africa’s premier photographer for his reinvention of the representation of Africa to the West. Frequently quoted for declaring the death of photography, Hugo is indicative of a generation whose sensibility is fine-tuned to the delicate role of the photographer, realising that to photograph is by no means to capture the truth. “I have a deep suspicion of photography,” he says, “to the point where I do sometimes think it cannot accurately portray anything, really. And I particularly distrust portrait photography.

I mean, do you honestly think a portrait can tell you anything about the subject? And, even if it did, would you trust what it had to say?

Azuka Adindu (2008)

The Cape Town-based artist’s keen awareness of his vocation’s complexities is reflected in the quality of his work that has the mark of a perfectionist and an aesthetic so deeply sublime that can only have happened at the hand of the finest of artists. Hugo has produced numerous captivating monographs documenting the cultural nuances of Africa, with subjects including the Rwandan genocide, people with AIDS and Tuberculosis, and a range of characters symptomatic of their cultural domain, from Afrikaans farm boys and people with albinism, football supporters and taxi washers, to the enigmatic West African ‘Hyena Men’. His most recent series, Nollywood, explores Africa’s largest film industry and the third largest in the world, the cinema of Nigeria.

The real ‘Nollywood’ is booming, churning out around 1500 films a year – more than Hollywood can boast – and at just fifteen years old is already a $500-million industry. Nigerian films have surpassed American films even in popularity all over Africa, dealing with topics that concern ordinary modern Africans and relayed in traditional story-telling modes using the symbolism and mythology of much older beliefs. It is a salient instance of self-representation in Africa, singular in the adept utilisation of mass media to retell the tale of a rich cultural heritage on its own terms, a tale that otherwise has so often been misrepresented in its telling.

Escort Kama (2008)

Hugo’s Nollywood is a collection of portraits staged to capture the essence of Nigerian cinema in all its melodramatic voodoo-horror-flick glory. He and the actors work together to recreate the stereotypical myths that inspire their cinema, producing an incarnation of Nigeria’s cultural core, a project that is effectively as viscerally real as it is visually surreal.

The staged nature of the portraits lends them an element of humour that is a departure from Hugo’s earlier work. Hugo is frequently accused of romanticising and exploiting his subjects for their exotic otherness, and resolving this debate is no simple task. Nollywood however is more of a re-presentation than a representation, portraying the so-called ‘marginalised other’s’ self-representation: The exotic characters we see have been reflexively created by the people in the photographs who have chosen to present themselves in this way, not for the voyeuristic lens of the Western photographer but for their own idiosyncratic and flourishing film industry. Hugo is not ‘mastering the exotic’ through his photography but rather being allowed to enter a space of simulation and play with it.

And if the results seem bizarre, it perhaps says more about the viewer of the photograph than the photographer himself.

Gabazzini Zuo (2008)

The final product is a poignant commentary on the problematics of photography as we see the increased difficulty in distinguishing simulation from the real, fiction from fact, accuracy from truth: these are photographic records of real actors in a contrived setup, imitating their real vocation which is itself an imitation of life. This poignant undercurrent is a common thread binding Hugo’s body of work ultimately isolating him as a forerunner in his field. Ironic then that a photographer so convincing in his mistrust of photography can nonetheless use a camera to create images so moving that they at once reaffirm the overwhelming value of the person behind the lens.

Omo Omeonu (2008)

Ibegbu Natty (2008)

Words: Sarah Jayne Fell
Images: Courtesy of Pieter Hugo

www.pieterhugo.com

Read the rest of issue 14

Open publication – Free publishing – More south africa

Click here to view our #FlashBack selection for October.

Click here to view all our #Flashbacks.

Kirsty Mitchell’s “Wonderland”

one small seed — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 08:09:44 +0000

In 2009 photographer Kirsty Mitchell created her Wonderland series in memory of her mother, who had passed away from a brain tumour the year before. The three-year-long series became a way for Mitchell to heal from her loss; she combined her own work with the memories of fairytales that her English-teacher mother read to her as a child.

The Reign of King Gammelyn (Behind the Scenes) from Kirsty Mitchell Photography on Vimeo

‘In the months that followed real life became difficult to deal with, and I found myself retreating further into an alternative existence, through the portal of my camera,’ says Mitchell.

This escapism grew into the concept of creating an unexplained storybook without words, dedicated to her, that would echo the fragments of the fairytales she read to me constantly as a child.

Her dramatic photography, similar to that of legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz, is not just a heartfelt piece of art, but a combination of many elements of art that goes beyond just photography. Mitchell – who has studied photography, fine art, history of art, costume for film and theatre and fashion design – designed and created all the costumes herself, by hand.

The series was the first time in my life I had found a vehicle to incorporate all aspects of my creative training into one form.

With very little budget to work with in creating the work, she shot the series in the woodlands surrounding her home and the help of hair and make-up artist Elbie van Eeden.

‘There were no stylists, designers or large teams of helpers; it was just us and a few friends who would help out on occasion. Everyone worked for free, nothing was commissioned, I paid for what I could out my wages every month and just begged and borrowed the rest.’

With a plan to incorporate all rainbow colours and capture the beauty of nature, some pictures took months to make, waiting for flowers to bloom and other processes of nature to create the perfect picture. No such thing as a ‘perfect picture’? Mitchell begs us to differ.

Wonderland’s “The White Queen” from Kirsty Mitchell Photography on Vimeo

words: Amava Kamana

source: trendland.com, kirstymitchellphotography.com, vimeo.com

images: © Kirsty Mitchell Photography Ltd.

WATCH: one small seed magazine’s issue 25 preview

one small seed — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:31:14 +0000

one small seed magazine issue 25 – “The Bigger Picture” – out now! Check out our content preview and keep posted to onesmallseed.com for full interviews, videos and much more coming this week… Length 02:18

one small seed’s 25th issue Content Preview from one small seed on Vimeo.

Screenshot

Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre: “The Ruins of Detroit”

one small seed — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 07:49:19 +0000

The Ruins of Detroit is a five-year collaboration between French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. Together they have documented Detroit’s abandoned buildings, bringing to light the current state of ‘Motor City’ through a cinematic series of starkly beautiful photographs.

Shooting with a large format, custom-made camera and taking advantage of natural light using long exposures, the images embody the unique atmosphere of each location. Marchand and Meffre’s work retains a formal quality and is conceived as a document, giving the viewer a surreal glimpse of Detroit’s former glory. Like the great civilizations of the past, we interpret them through their remains.

Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension. (Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre)

The images bring to mind a Biblical disaster; it is as if all Detroit’s citizens had fled. The abandoned factories and buildings, vacant schools and derelict ballrooms, to name but a few, are a poignant reminder of the fragility of the modern world and, possibly on a different scale, of a now ‘broken America’. These beautiful, but disturbing, images look un-compromisingly at the remains of the once-astonishing Detroit, as a then global center of capitalism and its following, even more extraordinary, descent into ruin. One is reminded of Detroit’s prophetic motto: Speramus meliora, resurget cineribus (‘We hope for better things, which shall rise from the ashes’)

Source text: www.tristanhoare.co.uk

Source Images: www.marchandmeffre.com

Akif Hakan Celebi: Living Anime

one small seed — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:44:21 +0000

Digital photography has allowed us all to become self-proclaimed photographers. Except, the majority of our images never seem to have that lingering presence that makes an image memorable.

In the latest edition of one small seed, issue 23 “Cult of Self”, we showcase the work of Janine Kuschke-van derTuin, first runner-up of our Selected Creatives competition. She comments that,

…each photograph [is] a little piece of my soul.

It’s no wonder that there is more to photography than our compulsive clicking…

Photographer Akif Hakan Celebi continues his Asian cinema-inspired love affair in his newest work. His objective is to avoid all fashion photography clichés, except the usage of skinny girls, and introduce his own expressionistic point of view.

The Turkish-born, Hong Kong-based ‘photo-surrealist’ started his career in TV Production but felt the need to be more individually creative and so, embarked on hissolo photographic voyage. His work has an element of sincerity, which he produces by using alternative poses, moody lighting, contrasting tones and most importantly, the models. Celebi admits that he is likely to hunt you down and use all methods of persuasion, if you have that all intriguing element to him.

Avoiding archetypal beauty and using models that he says ‘have a natural innocence to them,’ it’s how he produces his powerful imagery. The nudity in his photography is just another technique he uses to show his female subjects in an independent and confident light.

From behind the lens, Celebi loves to improvise, believing in the power of happenstance, chemistry and reflecting life in its rawest form. He uses colour as a tool to enhance mood of the image and create various emotional responses from the viewers. His scenes are recreations from his favorite Far Eastern films and thus, the usage of exotic Asian models are prominent. Celebi’s photography is borderline fine-art but his ability to extract our emotionsis why we keep saying, ‘please sir, I want some more.’

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: OCTOBER, WEEK 01

one small seed — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:02:09 +0000

one small seed network member Janine Kuschke Van Der Tuin, a photographer from Cape town created an astonishing series of images titled Flesh & Soul, where nudity, movement and lightning are central themes. Janine was also one of the winners in the last Selective Creatives competition in issue 23 – “Cult of Self” - along with two other talented photographers. Who are they? Click HERE to find out!