Gloria Oyarzabal (Spain): Usus Fructus Abusus – La Blanche et la Noire

Jim Casper, editor-in-chief of LensCulture: ‘This rich and complex work attempts to interrogate ethical issues related to colonisation, rights of ownership, the plunder on display in museums, cultural art and artefacts, and stereotypical prejudices and biases. The ongoing project consists of several formal, narrative and discursive layers, and it poses a lot of critical questions that deserve attention. The diptychs and staged images capture your attention immediately, then reveal nuance as you dig in deeper’

The new film The Bikeriders (2024) brings us into the ranks of a motorcycle gang dubbed the Vandals, whose members are navigating the true cost of freedom and rebellion. At its heart is Benny (played by Austin Butler), the group’s newest recruit, who is drawn in by its charismatic founder and leader, Johnny Davis (Tom Hardy). But the Vandals’ increasing violence eventually alienates Benny, testing both his loyalty to the club and his marriage to Kathy (Jodie Comer).

Uniquely for a motion picture, the movie was adapted by director Jeff Nichols from a series of photos shot by Danny Lyon from 1963 to 1967. Then a budding photographer, Lyon spent years riding with the Chicago arm of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, documenting their adventures and relationships in audio recordings and images that made their way into a book.

Jodie Comer as Kathy and Austin Butler as Benny in The Bikeriders (2024). Photo: Kyle Kaplan/Focus Features © 2024 Focus Features, LLC. All RIghts Reserved.

The Bikeriders (1968) captured Lyon’s gritty, somewhat romantic view of life in the motorcycle club, depicted in high-contrast black-and-white photographs. Bookending the volume are recollections by its members, including the real-life Benny, Kathy, and Johnny, as well as characters like Funny Sonny, Zipco, and Cal (played in the film by Norman Reedus, Michael Shannon, and Boyd Holbrook respectively).  

“You had all of the details and you even had some of the greatest lines written for you in this book,” Nichols said about his adaptation. “I just needed a structure I could hang them all on.” 

While the movie gives a fictional spin to the events in the book, Lyon’s book already boasts actual drama. “Being an Outlaw,” Lyon recalled in his new memoir, “was exciting enough.” Here’s the story behind the celebrated photo series that inspired The Bikeriders. 

How did Lyon find his subjects? 

The photographer’s earliest image of bike riders was incidental. In 1963, while in a car with his friend Skip on their way to a motorcycle race in Wisconsin, he eyed a group of riders ahead of them, speeding across a bridge over a railroad. He grabbed his Nikon F, centered the five bikes in frame, and hit the shutter. The resulting photo would eventually grace the cover of The Bikeriders. 

“I made the picture through the front window of the moving car, and I would go on to make some of my most successful pictures from moving vehicles,” he wrote in his memoir, This Is My Life I’m Talking About (2024). “Motion excites me.” 

Danny Lyon (with flag) and Mark di Suvero (foreground, right) at a rally in Washington, D.C., 1967. Photo: Leif Skoogfors/Corbis via Getty Images.

Inspired by the “absolute realism” of Walker Evans, Lyon earned his stripes photographing civil rights demonstrations as a staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. At the same time, motorcycle culture enraptured him: he bought his first bike, a Triumph TR6, at age 19 and was a regular attendee of races and field meets.  

Around 1965, he made contact with the Chicago Outlaws via his mechanic, Jack, who was a member. Lyon first met the gang at a diner on a Friday night, including members Kathy, Cal, and Andy, who insisted on posing for a number of pictures. He immediately fell in with them: “I had found my subject.” 

He’s not the first to find a subject in a motorcycle club, though. 

Definitely not. As early as 1953, the Marlon Brando vehicle The Wild One had fixed in popular consciousness the image of the rough-riding rebel. Interestingly, in one of Lyon’s photos can be glimpsed Johnny’s scrapbook, which is affixed with a picture of the leather-clad Brando (the shot is recreated in the film). That same image would later be appropriated by Andy Warhol for his 1966 silkscreen Four Marlons. 

Before Lyon set out with the Outlaws, he also sought advice from Hunter S. Thompson, the gonzo journalist who had just spent a spell embedded with the Hell’s Angels. Thompson, whose time with the gang would eventually be documented in an unsparing 1967 book, wrote Lyon: “Dear Danny, I think you should get the hell out of that club unless it’s necessary for photo action.”  

Lyon joined the club instead, becoming a full-fledged member from 1965 to 1966. But he also saw photo action. 

So, what of the photographs themselves? 

Danny Lyon, USA. Elkhorn, Wisconsin. 1966. Cal. (1966). © Danny Lyon/Magnum Photos.

Lyon’s Bikeriders series was shot during the Outlaws’ runs across the Midwest. The thrill of the open road is apparent—as seen in the kineticism of Crossing the Ohio River, Louisville (1966)—as is the camaraderie that binds its members. Intimate moments are scattered throughout, from Big Barbara’s meditative stance by a jukebox to Kathy taking a cigarette break in a bathroom. 

“I was deep into a subject: stunning-looking young men and women, all in black leather, on Harley Davidsons, outlaws,” Lyon wrote of his time with the club. “Every roll produced something great.” 

The photographs debuted in 1966 at Lyon’s first museum showing at the Art Institute of Chicago, where they were displayed in a small inside room. Curator Hugh Edwards (to whom The Bikeriders was dedicated) wrote in a letter to Lyon: “This time, you have gone farther on and present the exciting subject without getting between it and the camera… In [these pictures] you evoke and provoke emotions and are modest about your own self-expression.” 

Lyon brought a group of about 25 Outlaws to the exhibition. “Most of them had never been downtown,” he recalled. “Many were dressed as if they were going to church.” 

What happened after Lyon’s Bikeriders project? 

Danny Lyon, The Bikeriders (2014). Courtesy of Aperture.

First, Lyon had to know when to be done with the project. He approached Edwards, who had mentored the photographer since he was an undergrad at University of Chicago, with the question, “When am I done?” As Lyon recalled, “Edwards’s answer… was, ‘Oh, I suppose when you have covered every aspect of it.’ And I answered, ‘Then I am done.’” 

He also recalled becoming disillusioned by the club’s growing violence and paranoia, as new members arrived with new tensions. “I was kind of horrified by the end,” he said. “By then, I had realized that some of these guys were not so romantic after all.”

The Bikeriders was published in 1968, priced at $2.95 in soft cover and $5.95 in hardcover. However low its price tag, the book would be remaindered, before later being republished at least four times. Today, a first edition of the book could cost you upwards of $1,000. The volume also purportedly served as inspiration for the 1969 film Easy Rider; Bikeriders director Nichols called it “the coolest book I’d ever come across.”

Tom Hardy as Johnny and Austin Butler as Benny in The Bikeriders (2024). Photo: Kyle Kaplan/Focus Features © 2024 Focus Features, LLC. All RIghts Reserved.

While Lyon would continue to photograph social activist movements in the following decades, it’s his images of riders that endure as potent hallmarks of a vanished time, shot as they are with urgency and intimacy. Lyon said he’s heard now and then from the children of his subjects, many of them long deceased, “often asking about parents that I knew and they didn’t.” 

“They were outsiders and I was drawn to outsiders,” he said of the Outlaws. “From my involvement in the civil rights struggle, I knew the best way to get good pictures was to get involved. I was a participant who also happened to be a photographer.” 

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Jun 27, 2024 05:54 AM IST

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According to the jathedar, the devotees should keep their phones switched off on the premises of the holy shrine keeping in mind the maryada.

Days after fashion designer and lifestyle influencer Archana Makwana triggered a row by performing yoga at the Golden Temple, Akal Takht jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh on Wednesday called for upholding the maryada (code of conduct) of the shrine. He instructed the devotees to refrain from using mobile phones at the shrine complex. He also called for not using the sacred place for film promotion and clicking pictures.

Addressing an event organised at the Takht to mark the foundation day of the highest Sikh temporal seat, he said, “However, some non-Sikh people, who are not aware of the Sikh maryada, sometimes do acts which are against the maryada. The SGPC got an FIR registered against her (Archana Makwana) besides punishing its three staffers. This is not a centre of photography.”

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According to the jathedar, the devotees should keep their phones switched off keeping in mind the maryada. “It has also been noticed that for the past some years, artistes pay visit to Darbar Sahib to promote their movies. This is not the place of film promotion,” he said.

‘Turning back on Akal Takht weakened Sikh politics’

Without naming the Shiromani Akali Dal that witnessed debacle in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, Akal Takht jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh said Sikh politics was becoming weak as politicians concerned had turned their back on Sri Harmandar Sahib and Sri Akal Takht Sahib. He said such politicians had turned their faces towards Delhi.

Recalling the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, he said the Sikhs had to perform their religious and political duties only under the shelter of Akal Purkh (Timeless Being). “That is why Sri Akal Takht Sahib has always been seen as a challenge in the eyes of worldly thrones,” he said.

Emphasising the need to guard Sikh principles, traditions and maryada, the jathedar said, “Today, we need to gather under the umbrella of Akal Takht Sahib to get out of the situation of fruitless efforts.”

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News / Cities / Chandigarh / Akal Takht jathedar: Golden Temple not for photography, film promotion

The late Baltimore-based photographer Steven Cuffie’s personal archive had been left untouched for years when his children Marcus and Morgan Cuffie began digging through his cache. While they knew their father’s journalistic and professional work—much of it shot for the City of Baltimore as an official photographer—they were surprised by the breadth of the artistic photos he’d taken in the 1970s and ’80s. Portraits of women both clothed and undressed, in the studio and in domestic spaces, the photos balance pensiveness with insistent human presence, a kind of consideredness which suspends moments and produces intimacies.

Today, numerous boxes of prints and negatives reside in Marcus’s apartment. In an effort to share the collection, he curated the first exhibition of his father’s work for New York Life Gallery in 2022, and currently three photos and a number of negatives are on view at the gallery again until July 27, pegged to the release of Karen, a 26-photo zine of one of the women whom the elder Cuffie depicted in 1979.

While poring over these archival elements in the Chinatown gallery, Document spoke to Marcus Cuffie about the process of discovery and recovery and about expanding his relationship to his father through his art.

Drew Zeiba: What was the process of bringing this work to life? When were you going through the archive and were like, Let’s show this?

Marcus Cuffie: My sister and I went down to our house in Baltimore. We were packing it up because it was being sold. I think it was Christmas of 2018. My dad had died in 2014, and we came back up with a bunch of his prints. So we started going through them.

Growing up, our dad was a photographer, so we saw his work. But this work is all from the ’70s and ’80s, and we hadn’t seen it before. Partially because a lot of it is erotic photography or portraits of women that we didn’t know. And a lot of the early images also featured my mother. Those works were from when we were younger, but they had been kept in boxes, unseen. My sister and I started going through them and were like, Oh, these are actually really amazing photos.

When we were growing up, our dad was a photographer, but he worked for Baltimore City. His photography was utilitarian. He was taking pictures of the mayor at public events, construction, things that were needed for the public record. And he took portraits of children and our family on the side, but we thought of that as more of a hobby than anything.

I did some research, and he had been in a few group exhibitions in the ’70s, but by the time he would’ve been married, which was the early ’80s, none of his work was being shown. There’s also no real record of what was in those early exhibitions. The only thing I’ve seen was in this literary magazine in Baltimore called Chicory that was put out through the library—which was mostly children’s and teenager’s writing and poetry. They would get different photographers to do the covers. That would’ve been when my dad was in his mid-20s. Some of his photography is on the cover of those. But a lot of this work has been totally unseen.

Once I started showing some images of the prints on Instagram, other people’s interest led me to think, Oh, something is possible. Ethan James Green [of New York Life Gallery] and I started to chat about the work, and at the same time a friend of mine wanted to do a portfolio of my dad’s work in a magazine. At that point, I felt I could show the photos and begin to have a proper archive. Before, it was at my sister’s or still in Baltimore, but now I have all the negatives, I have all the prints that he made in my home. I have the full body of work. There are probably 1,000 prints. And then negatives, I have probably 20 boxes, each having 300 negative strips in them. I’m still going through it.

A lot of what was in the first show were portraits of women. And it was all work from ’74 to ’85, because I felt in that period he embraced the idea of being an artist the most.

Drew: The exhibitions and zines have focused mostly on nudes and portraits of women. Is that the bulk of the work? Or are there other threads?

Marcus: There are others. The nudes and these portraits are only really from the late ’60s to the early ’80s. Past that, it’s pictures of the city, portraits of children. The portraits of women and of children are probably the two largest bodies of work. Then there are events around Baltimore. I’ve been focusing more on the portraits of women because I think those are the images people connect with the most. And I think they’re also the most distinct. Because when I was thinking of other photographers working at the time, and specifically other Black photographers, you don’t really have another Black photographer working in this erotic, intimate space, especially not in the ’70s or ’80s. You have Black Power movement images. And you have Blacksploitation imagery of Pam Grier and people like that, which would’ve veered into the erotic. But those things relate to these ideas of Blackness, whereas I feel my dad’s are more personal. Also, coming from a fashion background myself, and with Ethan who runs the gallery also being a fashion photographer, it seems this has been the work people are attracted to and understand. So I’ve tried to make a clear body of work as a starting point for getting it out there.

Drew: Getting the photos out there, do you feel you’re detaching from it a bit—as in it could be anyone’s art you’re passionate about? Or do you feel like it’s a way to relate to your father differently?

Marcus: It’s been nice to connect with the work because he was making a lot of it in his late 20s, early 30s. So our ages overlap. It’s interesting to think about my dad working in parallel with me. I think it has definitely helped me connect with this idea of him more as an artist and to see the things in his work I’m attracted to and find this appreciation for it.

I feel like I have this detachment from it, where I do look at these things purely thinking, ‘What image is the most interesting?’ But I also choose images that don’t veer too much into feeling exploitative. I think when I was first going through the work and showing the images of women, I did have this anxiety because I didn’t have names or years for a lot of the work because I hadn’t gone through the negatives yet. I did ask myself, ‘What is my responsibility to the women in these images?’ I know some of the work had been shown and printed, so obviously he was going to show it or at least was in the process or conversations with people that would have been aware of it. But I didn’t want it to look like I was showing my dad’s personal erotic images or something. I tried to position the work differently, and to select the images that give a more rounded feeling.

Drew: How did you begin to find out who some of these women, like Karen, were?

Marcus: He’d write it on some of the negative strips. Karen was the first woman I came upon where all her negatives were labeled with her name, the day, and the year. I would say two thirds of the archive is labeled. Some might have the location or year but no name. Some aren’t labeled. Karen, I don’t even know her last name, but some I do.

When I was doing this zine, I was like, How do I start to build on this imaginary narrative? Because I don’t know my dad’s relationship to this woman. And obviously, some of the images can be quite intimate. So it was like, How can I make a collection of these images and a small publication that might begin to build a narrative for who she was? Because I feel like that respects what she means inside the work. I want to expand on that with some of the other women, like this woman Katrina, who features a lot in my dad’s work. Her photos are usually labeled and named. But they tend to all be nude and in the studio, whereas with Karen, she was in her home. There are some studio shots, but hers are primarily in her home or outdoors.

It’s also interesting because I think there are some different periods where I see my dad working in the studio, or I see him working in homes—there are these different threads. There are these different moments in the work where my dad was exploring different things.

Drew: What was the orientation or vision for this particular zine?

Marcus: I wanted it to feel like you were following my dad while he was doing this. It wasn’t about, like, Can I choose the most singular images? But, Can you almost feel like you’re with my dad? It goes from outside to indoors and ends with these more intimate images of her on the couch. It becomes this moment of undressing. My dad was a very stoic and quiet person, so it’s interesting to look at these photos and be like, Who is this guy? This Lothario who’s fucking these women and having relationships with them? How can I put myself in this place and make it understood so that you can see his position in the photos too?

Drew: It’s weird, when a parent or someone like that dies, often people start telling you about them, and you get versions of this person and their impact on someone else that feels really alien from the person you knew—you start seeing them through others’ eyes. This project seems like both the same but also the inverse of that. You’re reinterpreting him through these moments of his life you weren’t there for. Did he ever tell you about anything you discovered in these images?

Marcus: By the time my dad died, I was 22. He was very supportive of my artistic career when I was younger, and I went to art school all through middle school, high school, and college. And a big part of it was because my dad was a photographer and he supported it. But we never talked about his craft. I did photo in high school, so we talked in a technical way. But in terms of what he was doing, what the work is about exactly, I don’t have as much context.

I was doing research and I found a photo of his in a children’s magazine, which had a Facebook page, and I reached out to them. Through that, someone who knew my dad contacted me and sent me this body of work that I guess he had mailed to this other photographer, who now lives in DC and is very old. I want to say it was like 12 to 15 photos. And the letter my dad had written basically explains the work; he was reaching out to this photographer to get a critique on it. But that’s the only letter I have that really talks about his interests in his work. He has a ton of journals, but his shorthand is so insane. He would journal every day, but they’re so illegible that I don’t know exactly what’s in them or if they give some keys to his explorations or what his ideas were.

He was young. He was an artist. He had a camera. You can get a lot of women to stand in front of a camera. And some of the things that happened may be accidental. How many of these repetitions are intentional? I do a lot of work on my own trying to understand what exactly the choices mean, but I also give my dad a lot of leeway in saying that I think he was thinking intensely about these things. Growing up, we had so many photo books with photographers from Steichen forward. He knew photo history. So I know those things affected his work—like Eadweard Muybridge, and other early photographers he loved, like Gordon Parks or Dorothea Lange. He had his influences and definitely was someone who looked at photography really intensely. So I do have that as a basis of like, Okay, I know some of what he was looking at. And one of the boxes of negatives has this whole collection of clippings, just different articles about photojournalism and interviews with photojournalists. I have some basis for understanding what he was doing, but a lot of it still has to be built just through me looking at the images and interpreting them myself.

“Untitled” by Eric T’Kindt. Overall Winner and Gold, Gymnastics.

A dynamic image of Japanese gymnast Daiki Hashimoto has won the 2024 World Sports Photography Awards. The image, shot by Belgian photographer Eric T’Kindt, shows Hashimoto twisting in the air during his horizontal bar routine at the 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. The routine netted Hashimoto a gold, so it’s only fitting that the image also garnered T’Kindt the top prize.

The Belgian photographer’s image beat out more than 9,000 that were submitted to the photo contest by more than 1,400 professional sports photographers from over 80 countries. It also topped the Gymnastics category, one of 24 in the competition. From aquatics and equestrian to baseball and basketball, a full range of sports are represented in what is the only global award for sports photography.

“I am once again astounded by the exceptional talent showcased in this year’s entries,” says Sophie Collins, chief marketing officer at MPB. MPB, the world’s largest platform to buy, sell, and trade used photography and videography equipment, is the contest’s primary sponsor. 

“Photography has the unique ability to capture the raw emotions and intense moments of sports, telling stories that resonate deeply with viewers long after the moment has passed,” she continues.

Scroll down to see some of our favorite winners across the 24 categories, then hop over to the official gallery to view all the winners and finalists.

Here are the winners of the 2024 World Sports Photography Awards.

“Duck Dive” by Ryan Pierse. Overall, Third Place and Gold, Aquatics.

“A new superhero? The perfect match between a spotlight and a head” by Issac Julián Morillas Sánchez. Overall Runner-up and Gold, Other.

“Untitled” by Benjamin Lau. Gold, Racquet Sports.

“Rainbow Hair” by Steph Chambers. Gold, Basketball.

“Dobbsanity” by Kevin Sabitus. Gold, American Football.

“50th Anniversary Score” by Bruce Bennett. Gold, Ice Hockey.

“Tennis” by Marc Aspland. Gold, Tennis.

Over 9,000 images by more than 1,400 professional sports photographers were entered into the contest.

“The Dynamic Duo” by Andrew Moss. Gold, Boxing.

“Luciano Benavides” by Pavol Tomaskin. Gold, Motor Sports.

“Mikaelas World – Ski Weltcup” by Alexander Hassenstein. Gold, Winter Sports.

“The Sprint” by Tetsu Lee. Gold, Athletics.

“Untitled” by James Startt. Gold, Cycling.

“Maul” by Morgan Treacy. Gold, Rugby.

“World Sports Photography Awards tell compelling stories of the emotion, passion, athleticism, and focus that are at the heart of sport.”

“Submerged” by Sean M. Haffrey. Gold, Swimming & Diving.

“Cristiano Ronaldo Odyssey” by Marcelo Guelber Goes. Gold, Football (Soccer).

“Dunk” by Lindsey Wasson. Gold, Baseball

“Upside down – Judo Paris Grand Slam 2023” by Victor Joly. Gold, Martial Arts.

“Glorious Mud” by David Davies. Gold, Equestrian.

“Reflection” by Volodya Voronon. Gold, Urban & Extreme.

World Sports Photography Awards: Website | Facebook | Instagram

My Modern Met granted permission to publish photos by the World Sports Photography Awards.

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