“Heroes next door”-Chow Ka Hoo,2012
Photography
This photo is produced by Chow Ka Ho, a graduate of School of Creative Media of Hong Kong City University. Chow is an emerging artist who specializes in fine art photography. And this photo is one of his art work which was showed in his solo show and group show at Shin Hwa Gallery,2011-2012. The theme of this set of photography is called “Heroes next door”.
‘Heroes, like superman, blackman and spiderman, are all western comic heroes. But, why Hong Kong doesn’t have these kinds of heroes? When I was young, I thought that Hong Kong really needs a public hero. And when I grew up, I realized that there are so many unfair social problems in the Hong Kong. So, I created this set of photography. Can you imagine how well the society will be if these kinds of heroes are really alive?’ Chow said.
Photography is a channel for artists to reflect the messages they want to send out to the masses. However, social issues seem to be used too much and become a very common theme for artist to produce artworks again and again. It will easily make audiences feel bored. Nevertheless, the saving grace is that those artworks can always get people sympathetic responses.
Chow’s photography can be seen as a ‘tradigital art’[1] which combines both traditional and computer-based techniques to create an image. According to the structure of the photo, it doesn’t look like a traditional photography. No more only black and white to make the photo seem as a memory. It also doesn’t seem like a realistic photo taking place in a market, as something seems not to be realistic in the real life. ‘Wolfman’ was using his claw to sell pork in the market. This photo seems to be produced occasionally because it is planned to be, to make the public figure from the film industry to become a possibly subversive vision of the real life.
Let’s track in the details of this photo, the setting background of the photo is a typical market, vegetables placed behind, bright orange light lighting on the meat, people passed by, and a woman buying pork from the butcher “wolfman”. This photo seems to let the “wolfman” blend with the background, but it actually doesn’t mean to be. The main idea of the photo actually aims to sticking out the public figure. Inside the background, the lighting of the market is not too bright and it looks greenish because of the complementarity of the bright red meat. And for the people who was passing through the “wolfman”, dark purple clothing made her quite matched with the background and the photo painstakingly captured the motion of her steps. It opportunely made the woman become another element to form the photo’s background. By following her direction ,it then led you to focus on the arm which was handing 20 dollars towards the butcher. This capture is also being well planned. The people who was handing money ,was not being captured in the photo, but we can still know that she was a woman because of the bracelet on her hand. She was not being showed in the photo as her body is not necessary to be showed , besides her arm. Her arm is a hint to let people focus on the “wolfman” butcher. Following the direction of her hand, audiences can then pay attention to the “wolfman” .his clothing is bright white in color. Compare with the people next to him and the dark background, it properly made him become the focal point of the photo. His vest and the surroundings made him nearly look like a normal butcher in the market. The focal point is that he is not using a chopper to chop pork, but using his pairs of claw, which is using computer-based techniques to create. This is the point which can then blend the « public figure » from the film industry to become a possibly subversive vision of the real life to reflect the social economy problem oportunely. Although the ‘wolfman’ becomes a butcher in the photo, he is still smoking a cigar. It is really not common to see a butcher smoke in a market. But Chow still tried to keep this screen, since smoking cigar is one of the wolfman’s characteristics. Some people call this as ‘re-creation’. The feeling of this set of photography Chow wants to show to the audiences is the concept of conflict and contradiction.
To conclude, by comparing this photography with the traditional one, the photo first produced in 1826 and even in these twenty years were just reflected the real image which was captured by the camera, Chow’s artwork is much more creative and unique by using the computer-based techniques to do the photoshop effect. It is far different from his earlier works [2] since it leads the photography promote to become another type of arts─a new media art, some people call it as ‘traditigal art’. This set of photography also attracted a great response. The United States « The Huffington Post » and the British « The Independent », as well as dozens of other media have also reported the photography of “Heroes next door”.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradigital_art
[2]: http://www.chowkarhoo.com/#!album/get/100
