Art & the Shaping of Identity

Contemporary artist Danny Lyon never intended to be a photographer. In fact, he was a history major in 1962 at the University of Chicago before he picked up an interest in photography.[i] Lyon, along with several other photographers in the 1960s including Nicholas Nixon, Robert Adams, and David Spear, used the idea of conscience to give their photographs a deeper meaning. These artist captured lifestyles deemed foreign to most audiences which also highlighted the disunity of society at the time. Although their styles differed, their photographs were usually in black and white which emphasized sensitivity and empathy in their subjects. In addition, their photographs usually depicted the lives of groups united in their suffering. This new concept at the time transformed the idea of a documentary photography because many people were unaware of the existence of these subcultures in America.

Similar to that of Lewis Hine, Lyon’s style, in particular, focuses on marginal social groups. Hine one of the first photographers to use empathetic images and used this technique in order to prove the existence and effects of illegal child labor. Unlike Hine, Lyon’s photographs were not used by reform groups to achieve change; his photographs were used to inform the public and make them aware of the disunity found in societies.

Largely self-taught, Lyon began his career working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as a staff photographer. His career with the organization was largely due to a speech given by the group’s chairman John Lewis expressing the group’s determination to revolt against the norm.[ii] Raised in an upper-middle class home, Lyon was a rebel trying to avoid conformity of this lifestyle so the opportunity of working with SNCC was his way of separating from the norm.[iii] He primarily photographed SNCC workers registering voters, SNCC staff meetings and demonstrations, and revolts against the police force in the South.

In his attempt to “revolt” against the mainstream, Lyon published The Bikeriders, his first book in 1968 detailing his experience as a Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club member. The book was created after he spent two years with the club in order to present a different view of American life, a view more focused on those labeled as the “outcasts” of society. Lyon intentionally created this book in an attempt to criticize Life magazine, a media outlet that generally displayed a fake and edited vision of American lifestyle.[iv] The Bikeriders, was just the beginning of a collection of photographs deemed powerful by critics because they captured the true essence of humanity – united as individual groups but separate from the rest of society by means of lifestyle, beliefs, etc. Essentially, his “attack” was highlighting every single flaw that may have been hidden by the popular artists and magazines at the time.

Lyon’s photography focused on those who were “generally unseen or unwanted, even hated, and he has never been able to approach it with a journalist’s distance.”[v] The majority of his images were taken to attack those in power who neglected the existence and conditions of those groups. What made Lyon different from other photographers was his way of integrating with his subjects on an emotional level which sparked a sense of understanding. His subjects ranged from rebellious motorcycle gang members, mistreated prisoners, transvestites, prostitutes, and abandoned children.

Joselin, is an example of the photographs he took of abandoned children in Santa Marta, Colombia in 1972. Lyon shot 20,000 feet of film of Josélyn, a thin preteen boy wearing torn shorts and an old t-shirt, and his friends. In the photo, Josélyn is sitting on the ground smoking a cigarette while in the background one of his friends is lying down near a piece of cardboard. The children slept on the steps of a cathedral, but they – according to Lyon – “seemed better off than most Americans.” [vi] The children lived off of garbage and had nothing but each other and pieces of string “which they kept under a manhole cover they called the oficina.”[vii]

From this photograph alone, Josélyn’s face shows signs of exhaustion and sadness and does not hint at any signs of happiness. Additionally, he was a part of a group of abandoned children in Colombia during a time where many conflicts involving drug trafficking and guerillas were going on. Usually these children were either abandoned by their families or they chose to leave their families to join the groups of children on the streets; they represented “the will to survive,” according to Lyon.[viii] In actuality, they were united as a group of playful young children who stole leftovers from restaurants, sang songs about their troubles, and played games. To the rest of society they were a bunch of scoundrels, ignored by the authorities because of their large numbers and because it would be too expensive to arrest or support them.[ix] Together they faced the challenges of survival and managed to hide their suffering with their daily routines. The reality of it all was that they could not ignore their place in society as unwanted children separate from everyone else because of who they were.

In order to tie in the idea of conscience, the photograph appears dark and lacks vivid colors. By choosing to make the portrait black and white, Lyon exemplified Josélyn’s condition of survival and suffering. Thus, it is no surprise that Lyon labeled his work as advocacy journalism. He believed that “everyone should be more aware of the pain and struggle around them in a consumerist, media-saturated world that tends to encourage isolation and apathy.”[x] As a result, he achieved this goal in Joselin because the stark contrast of the colorless print showed the suffering amongst subjects without blatantly photographing subjects in their suffering. This method could hopefully spark feelings of empathy; it was a way of pricking at the conscience and opening oblivious eyes to the reality of human life.

J.M.N