Critics’ Forum: Visual Arts
Raffi Hadidian’s Los Angeles Photographs:
Isolation and Movement in the Big City
by Ramela Grigorian Abbamontian
Lebanese-Armenian photographer Raffi Hadidian (b. 1972) has had a
camera in his hand since the age of 19, but his love of images and his
realization of their power in storytelling began many years earlier.
At the age of six, Hadidian arrived in Los Angeles from war-torn
Lebanon. Soon thereafter, he was using visual images to reconstruct
and make sense of his birthplace. The first time, around age seven,
he used Matchbox cars and small paper boxes to create a makeshift city
in the sandbox with his brother Ara. As his brother lit a match,
Hadidian photographed (using a 110 Kodak camera) the flames of a
burning city. This early memory of image-making reveals a desire to
understand the city of his origins as well as its conditions. The
pictorial series he has created in the last decade reveal a
deep-rooted desire to comprehend his current home of Los Angeles, to
present a democratic photographic representation of its inhabitants,
and ultimately – as I suggest – to transform himself, as well as his
viewers, from voyeurs to witnesses and participants.
Like many photographers, Hadidian works serially. The late social art
historian Albert Boime suggested, in conversations with the author,
that artists work serially because their experiences cannot be
captured in a single image. In other words, the very act of creating
a series becomes a process through which the artist explores not only
his subjects, but himself as well. Hadidian’s series’ subjects are
varied and include the following: fellow drivers in nearby cars in
“Portraits in Motion” (2005-ongoing), people and places photographed
while driving in “Drive By Shootings” (2005-ongoing), street scenes in
“Boulevard of (Broken) Dreams” (2005-ongoing), cyclists around town in
“Wind in My Face” (2006-ongoing), quiet moments in “Tranquil Stills”
(2007-ongoing), architectural stability in “Structures” (2009),
nature’s wonders in “Backyard Living – It’s a Jungle Out There”
(2008-ongoing), espresso pulls in “Holy Shot!” (2008), and
breathtaking scenery in “Yosemite 2011.” (There are sometimes over
400 images in each series. None of the individual photographs in the
series is given a title, confirming the necessity of multiple images
to capture the subjects and experiences.)
Geoffrey Batchen, in “Forget Me Not: Photography and Remembrance”
(2004), asserts that “[p]hotography is privileged within modern
culture because, unlike other systems of representation, the camera
does more than just see the world; it is also touched by the world”
(31). In a similar way, Hadidian’s photographic series allow him to
explore his contemporary reality: a displaced diasporic artist making
his home in multi-ethnic Los Angeles. Each series, therefore, is a
process through which he engages the environment around him, uncovers
the subtleties of the city, grapples with his role as an artist, and
attempts to decipher the experience of living in Los Angeles.
As Hadidian explores the fast-paced experience of living in Los
Angeles, in some ways he appears to capture an alternate reality. For
example, we are always in motion in Los Angeles – in cars and freeways
– rushing from one location to the next. But through his photographs,
Hadidian slows us down long enough to draw attention to the things
typically overlooked: the homeless on city streets, drivers in nearby
cars, people on their bicycles. By creating engaging photographs, he
draws viewers into a dialogue with realities that are often avoided.
It is almost as if the work unveils the “white noise” of big city
living.
In “Boulevard of (Broken) Dreams,” Hadidian captures people often
disregarded on the streets: “[It] focuses on our daily lives and
people who live in and among it, but somehow we have deleted their
presence from it” (conversation with author Oct. 18, 2014). The
subjects of this series are wide-ranging and include homeless people
sitting at bus stops and curbs, pedestrians rushing across crosswalks,
consumers pushing shopping carts, vendors walking with their ice cream
carts, and men playing checkers on the sidewalk. By their very
nature, these photographs require inclusion of more of the environment
in order to place the subject in a specific context. As such, the
environments become extensions of their inhabitants and a critical
part of their identities. Hadidian uses well-known photographer Paul
Strand’s dictum to explain his motive for this series: “It is one
thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about
them by revealing the core of their humanness” (quoted on Hadidian’s
Facebook page). Could it be suggested that a witness to turmoil and
upheaval in another country develops a sensitivity to the plight of
humanity’s suffering in his new home? Hadidian states: “Armenian
struggle in the diaspora of surviving [has] made me more sensitive to
human beings surviving” (conversation with author Nov. 1, 2012).
[Figure 1 – see attachment]
One of the key themes that emerges from this series is the human
disconnect that is prevalent in our contemporary lives. In a specific
photograph from this series [FIGURE 1], two seated men parallel one
another’s folded arms and crossed legs. This visual congruency is
paradoxically contrasted with the disengagement of one with the other.
Instead of conversing with one another, the men are isolated in their
own worlds – visually emphasized by the bars separating their spaces
on the bench; engrossed only with their own thoughts, their gazes are
directed outside the composition. Further, the men are in the
partially-enclosed space of the bus stop, waiting for the bus, thus
emphasizing the decline of public space in large car-driven
metropolises such as Los Angeles.
Hadidian explicitly articulates his desire to be a witness, yet also
admits to feeling like a voyeur when taking these photographs,
concerned that he might be “taking something from them [or] from that
moment.” In general, the boundary between voyeur and witness is
thought to be indistinct; Hadidian’s images mediate between these
roles. As one art commentator has observed, “There is the image as an
act of witness, concerned to convey a reality we ought to know about
or bring awareness of a situation that requires a response. And there
is the voyeuristic image, driven by the delight in seeing, in the
exhibition of suffering or the exposure of privacy. On the one side,
a means subordinated to an end: on the other, the means as an end in
itself: on one side, some kind of reaching out to the other, on the
other, nothing but self” (“Witnesses and Voyeurs,” Art Press,
Nov. 2001). Hadidian, whenever possible, engages the subjects in
conversation. During these exchanges, he explains that he wants to
publicize an issue – the streets and the reality of the conditions
that exist. In response, subjects have asked him to “show them
properly” (Hadidian, interview with author, Oct. 18, 2014). Hadidian,
with raw and powerful images, empowers his subjects by giving them
pictorial space – they become central subjects of the photographs’
compositions. Consequently, Hadidian and his photographs become
witnesses to the absent presence in Los Angeles.
“Drive By Shootings” is comprised of photographs taken while Hadidian
is driving and “spots something or mostly someone interesting in [his]
view.” I believe that our lives are very product-oriented – our
primary focus seems to be entirely on the end result. I suggest that
our home of Los Angeles visually conveys this movement from one point
to the next: the environment abounds with infinite streets and
unending freeways, often with lonesome travelers headed to their
destinations. Rather ironically, Hadidian is driving while he takes
these photographs of interesting subjects in his view – many in their
cars, others on the streets. In this way, his “still” photographs
appear to stop time and motion long enough for us to witness the
details.
[Figure 2 – see attachment]
Whereas the compositions in “Drive By Shootings” include the subjects
within the larger context of the environment, “Portraits in Motion”
contains up-close photographs of people in their cars (taken while
Hadidian is also driving). In this example [FIGURE 2], it appears as
though the older gentleman is totally unaware of Hadidian’s camera;
his younger passenger, on the other hand, confronts the camera – and
therefore, Hadidian – directly. Her calm face, with its quiet gaze
and expressionless lips, conveys deep sadness. Yet she engages the
camera so honestly that one might ask if she is yearning for human
contact of any kind, even if it is through the lens of a camera. The
photograph seems to expound on the isolation and loneliness
experienced in an urban environment where human contact exists, but
only superficially. The two subjects sit in the same intimate space
of a car, yet are disconnected on a personal level with no
conversation between them. It might then come as no surprise that the
subjects in Hadidian’s photographs are anonymous. Is contemporary Los
Angeles comprised of such a large population that any type of
meaningful contact has become rare? Does this alienation and
isolation define our contemporary lives, our relationships?
An important signifier in this photograph is the window that
separates, both literally and figuratively, the photographer from his
subjects. Indeed, it begs the question: Where is the boundary between
private and public space? Hadidian himself is aware of this and
comments, “I find it interesting to see where we might cross the line
between public and private. Is a piece of glass a false sense of
privacy?” (from Hadidian’s Facebook page). As the window negotiates
the boundary between the public and private, the act of photographing
also mediates between the roles of voyeur and witness noted above.
[Figure 3 – see attachment]
Hadidian’s fascination with vehicles of transport as a means of
exploring our experiences in Los Angeles is also highlighted in
another series, “Wind in My Face,” that includes people from all walks
of life on their bicycles, as shown in this example [FIGURE 3]. His
photographs add another dimension to the viewer’s perception of Los
Angeles as a city dominated by lonely cars and endless freeways; it is
indeed a city that has a cycling subculture. Once again, Hadidian is
photographing people with objects of movement, yet his photographs
appear to stop time and their actions long enough for the viewers to
notice.
[Figure 4 – see attachment]
In the example [FIGURE 4] from “Holy Shot!” Hadidian has subverted the
signifier of communal activity: cups of espresso. It could be
suggested that the half-full espresso cups might indicate a drink
interrupted by a busy life. Further, the lone cups might come to
represent the illusion of getting together with family and friends,
but highlight the reality of the disconnect and isolation that is
symptomatic of our contemporary lives. The aerial perspective – and
therefore, distanced viewpoint – further exemplifies this notion of
contemporary disconnect characteristic of our lives in Los Angeles.
In conclusion, Hadidian’s photographs assert the presence of the
subjects that are often purposely deleted from our everyday
experiences. Social and critical theorist Roland Barthes claims in
“Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography” (1981) that “every
photograph is a certificate of presence.” In other words, the
photograph’s strength as a medium potentially also lies in its ability
to serve as proof – of existence and of survival. This very facticity
of photographs, I would argue, reveals the preservation impulse at
play in the works of many diasporic Armenian artists: the desire to
record and preserve aspects of their history, whether past or
contemporary. This impulse to preserve transforms the photographer –
and by extension, the viewer- into a chronicler, a witness, and even a
“voice” for his subjects and their experiences. As a firm believer in
art’s power to transform us, I suggest that Hadidian’s photographs
acquire a certain urgency: as they reveal the modern human condition
of life in Los Angeles, they simultaneously awaken our consciousness
to the disconnect and isolation that is prevalent in our culture.
Consequently they prod us to consider change. And possibly, our
position as bystanders or voyeurs can transition to witnesses and
participants . . . in one another’s daily lives.
Hadidian’s photographic series have not been exhibited anywhere but
may be viewed on Flickr and Facebook. Hadidian is also a professional
commercial photographer, having photographed well-known international
clients in the luxury goods industry. His photographs have appeared in
over 90 magazines worldwide, including “Vanity Fair,” “Vogue,” “Town &
Country,” “WhiteWall,” and “Elite Traveler.” You can view his works
at and
All Rights Reserved: Critics’ Forum, 2014. Exclusive to Asbarez.
Ramela Grigorian Abbamontian received her PhD in Art History from
UCLA. She is currently an Associate Professor of Art History at Pierce
College.
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