Comments on: victor cobo – american dreams [EPF Finalist]

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:59:30 +0000

I don’t think it’s a mess. I can’t claim to get it, but I looked at all the images and felt I’d been somewhere. I think these are pictures you could spend time with and not regret it.

By: Levi

Levi — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 05:39:49 +0000

What a mess.

By: andy levin

andy levin — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:14:17 +0000

I love it…..and I am glad that Harvey is running work like this. My immediate reaction is that the medium is the message, and the medium here is emerging. But in the context of a larger discussion, I think this work by Cobo has great value. But by itself, this is a bit too much like an cut and paste art project, something from Yale.

Anyway, my vote goes to Rodrigo Cruz, based on his stills. Wait, he isn’t a finalist, is he……? But he will be in the next issue of 100eyes!

By: Tommy

Tommy — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:02:46 +0000

I like No 11 but for the overall essay I feel it may be to localised and I from a different society have grave difficulties understanding your portrayal of the subject. It doesn’t speak volumes to me. I’m sure it is deep but I think your potential audience will have difficulty in assimilation.

Having viewed a number of times ,I feel isolated from the subject matter – cold towards it. It doesn’t strike emotion in me. I’m sorry that I don’t understand it but that is how it has left me – Complete indifference to the subject matter. I don’t feel sadness or pity towards the subject – not that it was begging forgiveness or anything like that but it didn’t stretch my heart.

I guess you may also choose not to be too concerned with those that don’t get it. Perhaps we are too far removed culturally from your intention. That is no criticism of your approach but a statement of reality on sections of the audience.

I have viewed some of your other work and you are obviously a talented emerging talent. Congratulations on being selected and good luck with it.

Cheers.

By: SAIBAL GUPTA

SAIBAL GUPTA — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:27:23 +0000

The art which can’t be understood is truly a modern art.The peculiar approach stunned & shaked the judges.

By: Patrick Taylor

Patrick Taylor — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:22:16 +0000

Wonderful photographs. A glimpse into a world most of us will never get to see, except possibly thru these photographs. Truly nice work here.

By: bruno dosca

bruno dosca — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 07:54:41 +0000

First of all thanks to DAH for his generosity of making burn and EPF.

All that follows is just my opinion but I have to say that or I haven’t the slightest idea of photography, or somebody has chosen the finalists using a scale that says the more unpleasant the better. For me this last essay is the straw that broke the camels back. In the world there is more than misery, squalor and sordidness. In news photography we already have the problem of considering that “only bad news are news”.

This grant was for every stile of photography and by now I see it was only for “conceptual” (whatever this word means: strange? incomprehensible? ugly?). What happens with documentary photography? I’m sure that between the over 1200 essays submitted to EPF there is people that have make wonderful efforts trying to show something unknown about a place or about people.

Between the eight finalists I have already seen there are only two that I like: “Aftermath” and “Sakhalin”. Many of the rest are still acceptable, but not good enough to be finalists between 1200 essays! Is really this all the best we have?

And I see many people here trying to look smart by attributing overwhelming depth to something that is just superficial.

I said before that may be is that I haven’t the slightest idea of photography, in that case I would be grateful if somebody tried to explain it to me.

Thanks.

By: Tim Ripley

Tim Ripley — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 06:57:02 +0000

Victor,

I like this piece. I view this essay like each image as a chapter tile..

By: Mimi Mollica

Mimi Mollica — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 06:50:38 +0000

I have looked at these photos over and over again, and I think that, if you would have picked photos like the 06, 10, 11, 16, and 20, maybe your message would have been delivered more straightforwardly.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 05:08:04 +0000

First of all, I agree with Jim´s, Stupid´s and Kathleen´s opinion.
From my point of view as a Central American, I don´t understand the context of these pictures, it´s a subject treated superficially and with very badly managed information. It talks about “indigenous people” and most of the subjects in the pictures don´t even have indigenous factions. It talks about “memory, spirituallity, longing and isolation”, photographing from a trivial perspective without conceptual deepness, which leaves lots to think about what the photographer really wants to communicate.
Its the typical cliche of the first world photographer that observes the third world as if being at the top of the ladder, creating a really vague image of the central americans y their migratory processes.
Photographically it lacks coherence, it doesn´t leave a clear mature vision of a photographer.
Concluding, i´m impressed that essays like these one have been selected, creating only superficial images of different cultures, in which there is evidence of no investigation, not even in the most basic terms.
As a Central American I think of these essay as an intelectual insult for people who live here.

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:30:34 +0000

No…

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:05:44 +0000

I too can’t understand how this essay got chosen, or the photographer for that matter. Some decent pictures there, but really nothing more than a collection of singles. Absolutely no cohesion or attempt to tell a story.

By: gabriele lopez

gabriele lopez — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:53:30 +0000

very inspirational job…this work reminds me of my not so far daily photo-wanderings, in a period after i lose my job, before deciding that photography was a thing I wanted to live on..

By: Dietmar

Dietmar — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:45:23 +0000

I agree with Jim, PT.

By: PT

PT — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:37:11 +0000

I have to agree that this looks like a collection of mismatched pictures without continuity. Frankly I’m surprised this is a finalist

By: wendy

wendy — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:43:28 +0000

photos…
drenched in milk….
girls
in bed,
on the ground….
jesus
and
walmart…
**

By: Jonathan VDK

Jonathan VDK — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:02:37 +0000

i honestly didn’t get it.
and as has been mentioned, i shouldn’t have to check his site to understand it better.
for me, it felt like these were just some images thrown together.
i’m glad that some people could view this and understand and get their heads around it, but i was not one of those people.
this i not an attack on victor. he obviously has talent to get this far!
j.

By: martnb

martnb — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 05:48:40 +0000

embracing the contingency… an essay that demands intelligence from the viewer. I say bravo to this.
But now, the real question is… ladies and gentlemen, place your bet, who’s next? (Will Erica McDonald be third, second or first?)

By: ::)

::) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:47:59 +0000

This Gringo likes this mix..

…Four Eyes

By: Kathleen Fonseca

Kathleen Fonseca — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:05:09 +0000

This essay is shallow, annoying and offensive to me. The photographer says this is a ¨complex, anthropological tour through the landscape of the indigenous Central American¨ Which country in Central America? There are five CA countries and no, they are not interchangeable. I do not think it is fair to lump all the countries and all the histories and all the struggles and all the experiences together. It is not only the Central American indigenous who struggles to go to the US and achieve the American dream. But i have no idea which country these people are from and that would tell me a great deal. History, political repression, dictators, right wing death squads, human rights abuses, gangs, kidnappings, personal insecurity, poverty..these can make a huge difference in the psychology of one immigrant group from another. The American dream might be the same but the baggage is completely different.

i don´t really see the struggle of a journey here. In fact i have no idea what side of the border i am even looking at most of the time. If they´re in the US, well they don´t look/dress/act any differently there than they did back home. So the struggle to achieve the American dream is not clear to me either, aside from the dollars in the photo with the religious figure and the bus stop with a sign about immigrants. The photo of the big parking lot and the street light i have no idea what the heck that one´s about at all. This essay does not inspire any particular sentiment or empathy in me or remind me of the humanity that i share with these individuals. In fact the photo of the poor girl passed out on the sidewalk makes me think you don´t feel much empathy either.

¨Lives are concentrated with a vibrancy, an intensity of being that many of us have never experienced.¨ Bullshit. I mean, really….¨by commitment to family and the need for survival at all costs¨, Yes, this is true..probably the only thing in your text or your photos that makes any sense to me and that does typify the poor Latino struggling to rise above his circumstances, whether at home or in the US. There is a terrible tension and ambivalence between needing to survive and also take care of the rest of the family who is not as fortunate. If you are to continue with this subject and if you can express this deep ambivalence, well, then you would be getting somewhere.

By the way, the one photo that i really love is the Polaroid of the guy in front of the Walmart. This alone expresses to me the position of an immigrant in the US. It is so incredibly poignant, profound and personal to me.

best of luck
kathleen