These strange and disorienting photos are by Richard Mosse of Eastern Congo. Here’s the New Yorker Photobooth blog’s explanation of his process:
Mosse used Aerochrome, an obsolete technology, to create an alternative image of the complex social and political dynamics of the country. The film, designed in connection with the United States military during the Cold War, reveals a spectrum of light beyond what the human eye can perceive. He aims “to shock the viewer with this surprising bubblegum palette, and provoke questions about how we tend to see, and don’t see, this conflict.”
“I saw this soldier lingering as his commanders talked nearby, and became intrigued by his character; his posture seemed cocky yet vulnerable. His gaze defies the camera,” Mosse wrote. “I knew the vegetation would turn bright pink, and I felt this imposition on his masculinity to be a kind of double violation.”
Generally, I don’t like “gimmicky” photos. Fish eye lens drive me crazy, over saturated images can hide poor composition, and stylization can trump content. But I really like these images. As a photographer interested in Africa, I’ve seen a billion of photos of Eastern Congo. Few stick with me but these ones do. They utilize an alternative process for a purpose and a reason. And in my eyes, they do so successfully.
Readers — do you like these photos? Or do you think they don’t say all that much?
6 Comments
I think they’re great. I guess they don’t pass a “faithful representation” test to qualify as “photojournalism”, but I don’t think that matters either. They provoke the reader and conjure up a wildly different visual image of scenes that have been shown dozens of time before.
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Sad for Mosse, he mistook his culture for the soldier’s culture. Over here, pink is androgynous, if even a bit over-masculine on occasion.
Otherwise, good pictures.
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THIS IS ACTUALLY GLENNA (Scarlett Lion) using Jina’s computer in Freetown:
27, I think that while pink is androgynous in many places in the world, the people most likely to see these arty photos are in the West and have the association. And they might find the feminine pink, contrasted with they highly militarized content, jarring and thought provoking. And like Ben says, they’re different from the millions of other Congo photos people see.
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I really don’t get it…Soldiers, war zoon, Pink?
Well, I guess it is only my mental picture.
However, I love the photos minus the color.
Thanks
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I came across these photos a few weeks ago, and can’t get them out of my head. I keep going back to the site to look at them again. I’m with you: i don’t really like gimmicky photos, or photos that smell of heavy editing. For some reason, I don’t see these as being gimmicky. I think its a clever way of using available – if obscure – technology to document an important theme in a completely different way. If for no other reason than simply to make a potential viewer sit up and say ‘what the hell is going on in this photo,’and evaluate what they are seeing.
I also don’t see the pink as being a feminine thing, as what I think 27th Comrade is insinuating. Just powerfully different.
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Oooh. I love these. I don’t know why.
But I also looooove my $23 fish-eye lens and click the “increase saturation” button on iPhoto like it is a drug and I am an addict.
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