Facial Hair Portraits
I don’t have facial hair myself..but there is something fascinating about those that do and when I found myself caught up in a convention just recently I took the chance to snap these simple street portraits……
The Pure Vision of John Hicks
The Pure Vision of John Hicks – Interview with The Smalls
We tend to forget that the sport of boxing is inherently lonely.
The fighter – even though with an opponent, and surrounded by supporters, fans, and detractors – is really on his or her own journey.
John Hicks’ ‘The Hardest Fight’ looks at a former champion in the autumn of his life, and we can almost reach out and touch the solitude of this quiet hero:
The use of voice over further enhances the atmosphere of this beautifully put together film. While his body may only be a shadow of its former self, it is still formidable, and incredible to watch. With Dave Payne’s own weathered voice narrating as he trains by himself in a warehouse, we gain incredible insight into his background, drive and state of mind in a mere three minutes. Kudos.
An award-winning DoP and film director, John Hicks continues to stun us all with his sharp eye for story and character. We asked him to share a little bit of himself and the story behind The Hardest Fight.
” I started out in photojournalism before realising that the cut and thrust world was not for me and then moved into a very successful commercial career in fashion and sport advertising. Along the way I dabbled in film but wasn’t able to get seriously into it until the Canon 5D burst onto the scene. Before that video was not a cinematic option and 16/35mm film was just so expensive and involved such a big team that I couldn’t dedicate myself to it along with my photography career. So to have a professional level film option like the Canon 5D in the camera that you use for stills and to be able to employ the same lenses to create amazing quality HD footage just made filmmaking accessible to anyone with a camera and a computer.
Technology helped me get back into film, but my photography already had a very cinematic style. I’ve always like to shoot stills on the horizontal because and I’m known for shooting motion capture on location so all this combined to make my move from stills to film that much smoother. I think my background in photography is a strong element in my style of film making and the way my eye sees the world. I want to tell visual stories and the first short film I made was the story of Dave Payne – a 70 year old champion boxer and bare knuckle fighter.
First I set out to find a location because visually I wanted to avoid the cliché of the gym or the ring and to look beyond the brutality and violence associated with a sport like boxing. I found the abandoned warehouse and one of the first things that struck me was the incredible light it gave – it was almost cathedral like. It seemed like a lonely place – a place where a man like Dave would go to train and instinctively I knew straight away that I would film the solitary figure skipping from that high observer vantage point as the intro to the film.
I made up a storyboard – which is something I always did as a stills photographer and that really helped with the edits. I knew I wanted to film certain sequences but it was the work I put into the storyboard that enabled me to piece it all together like a jigsaw.
At first I made the classic mistake of working like a stills photographer but I soon realised that to tell a story it’s not enough to simply record the action. You have to create drama and suspense by moving the camera, you have to involve the viewer emotionally as well as visually and you have to get as many interesting angles of the same shot as you can to sustain interest.
So primarily I worked the images because I’m visually minded, then the edit pretty much followed the storyboard and finally I worked on the narration and music. I knew from the outset that I wanted a voiceover but Dave was reluctant so I just got him to talk by asking him a series of questions and recorded his responses. When I asked him about the hardest fight he ever had his spontaneous reply sent shivers down my spine and I knew I had my title and a killer quote.
For me it’s a very personal, honest film and I made it because I wanted to so I was surprised when it received such a great reaction – first from the Converge Film Festival 2011 where it was selected as one of only 3 finalists to be shown on the big screen at the British Film Institute and then again at the London Short Film Festival 2012 and just recently at The Smalls Film Festival 2012.
Because of its success and the emotional response it gets I’m about to embark on a fund raising campaign to source finance to make ‘The Hardest Fight’ into a full length feature film. The brutally honest true life story of a boy born into East End post war poverty who survived bullying, cruelty and rejection before finding some kind of redemption through the noble art of boxing and the journey that it took him on is a fascinating account of one man’s trials and ultimate triumph over adversity.”
The Forgotten Cowboys by John Ferguson
The Forgotten Cowboys by John Ferguson
The Forgotten Cowboys by John Ferguson
Yesterday my attention was caught by a great project which needs support on the Kickstarter fundraising platform.
I personally backed it because I read the objective and I believe it’s a story that needs telling and will be well told by photographer and film maker John Ferguson
In an age where editorial can no longer fund image makers to create personal projects of value and significance,
I hope you you will take the time to read more about The Forgotten Cowboys by John Ferguson and consider a small donation.
“As a ten-year-old boy playing cowboys with friends at school in England, I was never allowed to be a cowboy; I could only be a Native American Indian. I was told: “Black boys were never cowboys” or “Have you ever seen a black cowboy?” I had to admit that I had never seen a single black cowboy.
The only cowboys we ever saw were your white archetypal squared-jawed, American gun-slinging heroes. Think of our screen legends; The Lone Ranger, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Roy Rogers, Clint Eastwood, right up to The Marlboro Man, the list is endless. Not one black cowboy amongst them.
Indeed Hollywood played a big part in keeping the cowboy myth alive. In fact where American history and identity has been projected by Hollywood and the mass media, the non-white settlers have largely been left out of the story.
Thirty years later and enjoying watching those same legends with my own children, I have only just learnt the truth; many of the first cowboys were black.
I have now made it my metier to discover these forgotten cowboys. And I have been both surprised and excited to find a thriving African American cowboy community.
There are many reasons why the history books fail to mention the contribution of the black cowboys. Oral tradition had preserved stories in the past, but illiteracy played a major role in their exclusion from America’s written history. Those who were literate always wrote their history, those who could not simply disappeared.
The original term ‘cowboy’ was a derogatory slight against the black man often born into slavery. The terms house boy, field boy, kitchen boy and ‘cow boy’ were commonly used. Ironically, because of the abilities of these early stock handlers, the term became associated with strength, skill and tough, manly ruggedness.
After the American civil war many black cowboys and former plantation slaves enlisted in the army cavalry and were known as Buffalo Soldiers.Once they left the military they stayed in the Western territories and became ranch hands or cowboys. Non-military black men simply went West, seeking a better life, signed on with ranches and learned on the job. They were often brilliant horseman or sharp shooters, and many went on to become ranch foremen and managers, while others were hired as guides or federal peace officers in the Indian territories. It is estimated that as many a a third of all cowboys contracted to drive cattle to markets across America were either black, Indian or Mexican.
As well as the physically hard lifestyle, African American cowboys, often had to endure discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice. To counter this they learnt to excel at their work. They were most often the best at roping, bronco busting, taming mustangs, calling the brands, controlling the herd, or topping off horses.
I found it thrilling to see how these skills have been passed down through the generations. From New Mexico to Texas and as far up as the San Francisco Bay Area, many African Americans can trace their lineage right back to the old South.
I will continue my work and am anxious to discover more about some of the amazing characters, meeting the new breed of 21st century black cowboys working on the many ranches scattered around the Southern states today.
I hope to document the lives of the men women and children who compete in the hundreds of rodeo events across the country. Shockingly many black cowboys from communities across the US were banned from competing at the main rodeos right until the late 1980’s.
Even with that hardship I have found that black cowboys were fundamental to the evolution of the western narrative, which has been so central to the identity of mainstream or “White America”.
When I came across this community of black cowboys recently in Texas it surprised me how little I knew and also how little was known about these true pioneers of the Wild West.
For too long now, the contributions of the African-American cowboy has been overlooked and almost forgotten in the great history of the American West. I would like to recognize these unsung heroes.
My aim is to produce a multimedia exhibition, which will consist of one full length documentary feature film, three short video stories, a photographic portrait series and a photographic book, all under the title of ‘The Forgotten Cowboy’.
I want to realise the widest cultural and educational exposure for this captivating and vastly unexplored subject matter globally.
My responsibility as a documentarian photographer/filmmaker is to translate what I see and to produce an objective project, which enlightens, entertains, stirs emotion, educates, and hopefully leaves an indelible impression. And as a visual artist I have a keen curiosity in every new story that comes my way.
With your help and support I can create an extensive chronicle on this much over-looked community that has served it’s nation well over the centuries, without recognition or reward.
These cowboys and cowgirls are proud of their heritage and background and have seen their stories gradually, if very slowly, entering mainstream American history. I would like to help promote and document their stories.”
To find out more about The Forgotten Cowboys by John Ferguson press play on the image below
wayfaring stranger
a musical collaboration between filmmaker John Hicks and musician Mark Baynes of Lady Winwoods Maggot
Wayfaring Stranger by John Hicks from John Hicks on Vimeo.
