Roger Hicks considers…
‘Hugo, Oklahoma’, 2014, by Peter van Agtmael
Some people have a problem with photography as activism. It’s easy to see why. They are trapped in the belief that photography is wholly objective. They are, of course, completely wrong. Photographers decide where to point their cameras, and when to press the shutter release. The mere act of selection presupposes a point of view. But then, the same people who believe in objectivism (to borrow Ayn Rand’s usage) commonly fail to see that objectivism is itself a narrow and misguided political viewpoint. Such people also tend to believe that news can be ‘ balanced’, even though the very act of selection necessitates choice – and, ideally, passion.
This image is taken from Peter van Agtmael’s book Buzzing at the Sill (Kehrer Verlag 2016), which the press release bills as an ‘exploration of the United States in the shadow of the post 9/11 wars’. Well, yes, it is – but it’s a pretty big shadow, which in van Agtmael’s view is cast both backwards and forwards. This, for example, is a reminder of the Trail of Tears, the displacement of the Choctaw tribe in the early 19th century. This is a remnant of a Choctaw ‘allotment’.
Like many powerful, moving pictures, it could pass for a snapshot. So could others in the book. This one looks as if it was taken with a single light source, perhaps a little too close to the camera: look at the shadows. But neither the light nor the composition draws our attention first. The important part is the content. The jacket, grievously decayed. The mattress, decayed just to springs. The paper, mostly fallen off the walls. This sort of decay takes a long time. In that context, the seemingly pedestrian composition – the jacket dead central, the background split in half between papered and not-papered – is appropriate. The photographer is saying, ‘This is how it was.’ It’s the opposite of the ‘arty’ shot of the everyday subject made exotic by the lighting. It’s an exotic subject, dramatised by its very pedestrianism.
Above all, it’s a testament to the photographer’s vision. ‘Vision’ is undefinable. It’s like the famous definition of pornography: ‘I know it when I see it.’ No, I don’t like all van Agtmael’s pictures. Some come too close to snapshots for me. On the other hand, when I know the stories behind them, more of them mean more to me. They are the exact opposite of working to someone else’s brief. The pictures are his, and the more of them you see, the more you appreciate the way he sees – which is something to which we might all aspire.