Pieter Hugo and James

I'm a bit of a schizophrenic person. One day I like this then another day I like that. I really used to get heavy under the eyes with portrait photography, I'm also, like, a little bit very much misanthropic. Then the portrait turned modern (contemporary...or whatever). Well what does that mean? I really am going to avoid talking about Avedon, I might just nod off (sorry)...... I guess, what I mean is, suddenly you get your subject standing in the middle of the frame, kind of like in a measured way, just standing there almost as though to say I am what I am, here I am. That's why I suppose I like Pieter Hugo's 'subdued' portraits besides the obvious nature man in his environment thing. It's refreshing for me not to see an old car, a signboard, street, a mundane sparsity or a weird over ambiguous 'meaningful' gesture.

These images remind me of a guy I knew called James, last time I saw him he'd got into a drunken fight and lost two of his front teeth. James was not to bright, in the 'educated' sense of the word, i.e. he couldn't read nor write. He had trouble putting a three pronged plug into a wall socket, he spent an awful lot of time, in an HIV world, sleeping with prostitutes and anyone else available (consequently he found himself followed by a string of kids), and he spent every penny he earned the same day he received it. But he'd come from another world completely. Give him a panga (big chopping knife) and a thick branch and he would carve out the most delicate cooking spoon. He knew all about honey and bees and what fruit certain birds liked and what animal made such and such mark on the ground. He was, just, like so many Africans today, being crowded out by a world that has enforced western style education and lifestyle.

Submitted by Philip Cartland on 11 November 2006 - 1:29pm.