Joshua Hopkins

 

            It was during high school that Josh Hopkins first discovered his interest in photography. He went on a field trip to D.C. and visited the Corcoran Gallery of Art, where they were showing Ansel Adams pieces. Josh knew what photographs were, but he did not know they could function in such a way. It changed his perspective about photography. As he ventured out in DC that same day and photographed the things around him, Josh realized it wasn’t that simple to get the results he wanted.  The challenge of it fed his interest.

            The first images he made were expressive, exploring the medium. It was exciting, and Josh was happy that people reacted positively to his images, but he was not impressed himself. He was reacting to the things in the world but the pictures weren’t more interesting to him than the actual place. Many of the pictures at the start of the career had no relevance to Josh. He knew what he liked, but did not quite know how to create it yet.

            Josh briefly talked about his visit to the Eastern state penitentiary. The way he first photographed the place was influenced by what the public was generally interested in. And then 3 years later when he went back and photographed, the images reflected the way he saw it. He was able to look much more at what he was interested in, and capture that. Over the years, Josh’s ability to make images in a way that reflects his own interests and perspectives has become matured and strengthened. This connects to the way Josh approaches photography now.

            A specific series of images Josh shared with me were the ones taken in Ocean City. I asked him if there was theme, and he said that he knows that he feels a certain way, although he doesn't say what that is exactly. Josh make images by “allowing the complexity of human emotions to decide what types of images are going to be made based on a certain mood or certain feeling, instead of consciously trying to find those things in images”.

            For the most part, people equate places such as Ocean City with words such as: summer, beach, fun, happy, sun, friends, relaxing, stress-free. There is a preconceived notion of certain places, and Josh’s images challenge those notions; challenging what a place is suppose to be verses what it really is, to him.

 He has a certain attitude and perspective of Ocean City, and that is revealed through the way he photographs individuals in the images, as well as the way the image is composed and created. 

In taking time to look at each photograph in the Ocean City series, I really began to appreciate the consistent mood of the work despite the variety of the subjects. There was a feeling of sadness evoked from the images that I could familiarize myself with. Josh’s work tunes in to things that we as society grow to accept, or ignore.  And by looking at the work, viewers are forced to face another reality different from the one they’ve grown accustomed to.

            Josh always thought a self-portrait is more of the pictures you make of the world, than pictures you make of yourself. His ability to utilize the content in his images as a self-portrait is subtle, yet powerful.  

review by: Eunice Yu