Lisa Hogben describes her relationship to photography by saying, “I think that the camera is a very simple tool. People seem to have the impression that great photographs are just the result of pressing a button at the right time, perhaps even at a random time. But I think that the art is the empathy that you have with your subject and the personal vision that you take with you when you point a camera in a particular direction. The immediacy of the medium is what separates it from all others, it’s a very powerful connection that you can make when you communicate and react with your subject in the here and now. The fact that you can document that process while it is happening is the unique thing. I guess there are always going to be stylistic revolutions, I mean that when certain theories reign supreme you are always going to see adherents to those theories. But to me it’s all about being there, the photo is just the by-product of the encounter. If I was a writer and I had nothing to say would I bother writing? So if being a photographer doesn’t involve me in the process why would I bother taking photos?” Lisa Hogben has made the search for ‘little truths’ her life’s work. The daily lives of her subjects are intertwined into our own, spilling out with the ‘little truths’ of our being. Her photographs are a testament to her ability to see with tolerance, honesty and love.
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Australia: February Dragon
By Lisa Hogben
Posted in all, features, asia-pacific on 9 April 2009
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While phrases such as ‘holocaust’, ‘a tidal wave of fire’ or ‘being at the center of a perfect fire-storm’ were bandied around in the small groups of traumatised residents clustered in what remained of their friends and neighbours houses after Australias most devastating bushfires, almost nothing could adequately describe the complete anihilation of the village [...]