UK photographer David Hamilton dies at 83 amid rape scandal

<p>David Hamilton died ( http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38111636 ).<br /> I think <em>Der Spiegel</em> summed it up pretty well ( http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/david-hamilton-fotograf-nach-vergewaltigungsvorwuerfe-tot-aufgefunden-a-1123225.html )</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Kitschige Bilder junger Mädchen machten ihn weltberühmt.</p>

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<p>trans: "Kitschy pictures of young girls made him world famous"</p>

<p>Kitschy pictures indeed.</p>

<p>Some one)s) made the words and publicity to make them famous. </p>

<p>You just have to wonder about their involvement.</p>

<p>Highly successful commercially, virtually ignored or dismissed by critics - I was never sure what to make of DH. In today's ultra-PC environment, his work would unquestionably be illegal. We must of course be mindful that the rape allegations were unproven, to me they seem not impossible. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>David Hamilton was certainly a controversial photographer. When I was in college, I liked some of his photographs of young (teenage and pre-teen) girls doing ballet, etc., using soft focus. However, later on, his books of nude girls led to protests. There were protesters outside of bookstores (in New York, etc.) selling those books.</p>

<p>BTW, the German article in <em>Der Spiegel</em> has lengthier discussion of the allegations and responses.</p>

<p>British press has more, too:<br>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/25/british-photographer-david-hamilton-dies-paris-police-source/</p>

<p>David B: The <em>Telegraph</em> is a fairly right-leaning paper. Nothing wrong with that, mind, but I think that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/nov/26/david-hamilton-found-dead-amid-allegations-of-historical">this article</a> from the <em>Guardian </em>is a better account. I will add that, while rapists should be jailed for a long time, recovered memories are very questionable evidence.</p>

<p>As to the photographs, I rather like them. If they are "porn", they certainly have very soft cores.</p>

<p>I remember in the 60s seeing his photo books in better book stores. Very beautiful photography and no big deal. In those days, you could take a picture of a baby in a bath tub (as was common for that time) and not have the local photo processor call the police on you. (exaggeration but it did happen) </p>

<p>Les, to be honest I see very little difference in tone of the 2 articles - the verbatim quotes are the same, the only slight difference is that the Guardian article is a fraction more defensive on the basis of "innocent until proven guilty".</p>

<p>Les, from your Guardian account: "Under France’s statute of limitations, charges must be brought within 20 years for rape and 10 years for sexual abuse." If these charges are valid, as they seem to be and will possibly be supported by Hamilton's apparent suicide, it is unfortunate that the young women were not counselled earlier in order to bring charges against him.</p>

<p>I realize that there is much difficulty for young women of that period (even today) to do that, which is understandable, but hopefully those psychological barriers are disappearing. Whatever the facts are in this case, situations of inequality where one person is in a position of power and abuses the other can only illicit hate for the former person.</p>

<p>I think that what I appreciated when looking at his early atmospheric and blurry photographs was solely his technique. His artistic approach and communication was perhaps important for others.</p>

I am no prude but even when I was in my late teens and early twenties (late 70s and early 80s) and regularly looking at

magazines like Penthouse where his work was sometimes featured...I thought his work was creepy faux

porn - porn with dishonest pretentions of art that lacked the honest straightforwardness of real porn.

 

The rape allegations don't surprise me.

 

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

i had 'im in the back of the cab one christmas

<p><em>creepy faux porn</em><br>

Interesting to read in the Guardian piece that when he felt he needed some new models:<br>

<em>One of the girls who came forward after Flament accused Hamilton told Le Nouvel Observateur that he would send his girls off to find a new “mouse” on the beaches in the south of France. “Mouse”, she revealed, was the word he used for the girls’ genitals.</em><br>

Convention has it it that, even if a photographer regards his work primarily as a way of "attaining relations" (edited by moderator), he refrains from saying so explicitly :-) if he wishes to be regarded as a serious artist.</p>

<p>David, if Hamilton was speaking in French, then, it might just be, that he called his models "souris" just like anyone would know the concept of "Petite souris "— or rather "petit rats" : of the Paris Opera and ballet school for very young girls being trained there. <br>

But again, in the context of today, it can be used for what it is used for in the articles of Nouvel Observateur. We will now after the death of Hamilton, never actually know.<br>

</p>

<p>I have no knowledge of whether Hamilton ever acted with impropriety or not. However, he always had parents' permission and signed parental releases for his work.<br>

There is a larger societal question. I'm 74 years old and there has been a huge chance in the last 50 years in what is often improperly called "child pornography" laws and social norms. During the 1970s and 1980s, photos of nude minors that were not sexually explicit were perfectly legal. At that time, the British magazine "Young and Natural" published nude pictures of children and teens that had been taken at nudist camps. I can remember when EVERY newsstand and convenience store in my city openly displayed and sold them. During the same period, Hamilton's work was quite popular. Many pediatricians had framed prints of his work on display in their waiting rooms. At the end of that period, there were several feature length films directed by Hamilton that featured similar photography ("Laura", "Bilitis", "A Summer in Saint-Tropez", "Tender Cousins"). They were shown in "respectable" theaters without controversy. Here in Québec, they were rated "tous" (all, i.e., G-rated).<br>

Hamilton married one of his models, Mona Kristensen, born in 1950, when he was 17 years older than she. I believe she was with him until he died.<br>

Some of us are too young to know that the age of consent has been 18 (or even 21) for a fairly short time in Western civilization. In 1900, the age of consent in most U.S. states was 12. In Canada, it was 14 until just a few years ago.<br>

When Canada raised the age of consent, it passed a draconian child pornography act that basically outlawed any photograph or drawing and any written text that involved child nudity or child sexuality--even drawings or writings not based on any actual people or events. Until an amendment was added to allow some material because of its "artistic" value, Canadian museum directors were concerned that displaying renaissance painting of the Virgin and Child sort where Baby Jesus was depicted nude would be illegal. <br>

<br />Since around the 1920s, we have invented a new stage of life called "adolescence". Before then, there was childhood and adulthood. The word "adolescent" was used to define young men and women who were no longer considered to be children but who had not reached full maturity. The "line in the sand" that distinguished children from adults was puberty. Women (girls) married very young and men (boys) went to full-time work very early but married later, because since women did not hold jobs, men had to provide for the family and it was important for a suitor to be mature and have stable employment.<br>

When the founder of Québec City, Samuel de Champlain, married Hélène Boullé, he was 43 and she was 14 (some historians say 12). No one raised an eyebrow. Much later, when Jerry Lee Louis legally married his third cousin, Myra Gale Brown, he was 22 and she was 13. When the public found out, he was shunned. His star dimmed and Elvis Presley's brightened. <br>

Even under the 1983 revision of Roman Catholic Canon law, the age of consent is 16 for men and only 14 for women. <br>

Hamilton's public success ended in the 1990's when he was no longer able to publish work depicting minors. He published a few albums using 18-20 year olds but they were not successful in the marketplace.<br>

The word "pedophile" used to be a technical term in psychology and psychiatry that referred to a sexual interest in prepubescent children. We have now extended the meaning to cover such interests or activities until age 18.<br>

It will be interesting to see what the situation is in 100 years and what anthropologists and historians think about our 21st century sexual mores.</p>

 

<p title="Puberty">An excellent presentation, Benoit. The world has indeed changed. As you say, paedophilia is now routinely applied in a rather too scattershot way. Hebephilia is sexual interest in early adolescents and ephebophilia if interest is in later adolescents. It is also worthwhile to mention that homosexuality was once (somewhat controversially) classified as a mental disorder (until 1973 (DSM I-II)) and still is considered so in some parts of the world. I rather admired Hamilton's soft focus technique, but of course there was a definite soft porn/voyeuristic overtone to it. One of my (male) friends used to called his shots "romantic", which I think would have been a fairly common viewpoint in the 1970s.</p>

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<p>even if a photographer regards his work primarily as a way of getting some @#$%*(edited by moderator)</p>

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<p>And you're judging the way someone else talked? Even if you meant this ironically, you should be ashamed of yourself. My apologies to all the women and other caring beings who had to read this.</p>

<p>Fred, call me a reactionary crypto-fascist if you will, but I do perceive a slight difference between somebody who uses the pretext of photography to rape underage girls and another person who uses a slang expression for female genitals which all this person's female friends use without hesitation among themselves and to the person in question. If you take the ultra-PC view that speech crime is the worst of all crimes, there's probably very little more that I can say.</p>

<p>Don't give me that PC trope to excuse misogynistic talk. It's not "PC" to show women respect. It's a thing to do. In today's ridiculous new world order, calling out bigotry and disrespectful statements has become frowned on and is labeled PC. Well, it's not going to work with me. And please don't be so intellectually dishonest as to say I compared your word choice to the crime of rape. I compared your word choice to the word choice of Hamilton which is what you were talking about in the post just above my response to you. You obviously know different women than me.</p>

<p>For your consideration, here's a good description of what you're doing by calling me PC:</p>

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<p>Political correctness is a controversial social force in countries with guarantees of freedom of expression, and it raises legitimate issues well worth discussing and debating. But that’s not what many people are doing when they employ the term against someone else. They are not rebels speaking unpopular truths to power. They are not standing up for honest discussions of deeply contentious issues. They are not out there defying rules handed down by elites who want to control what we say. All they're doing is defying common decency.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>We're now in a cultural situation where groups of people can label Mexicans rapists and criminals and when they're called out on it, they resort to labeling their accusers PC and people in droves buy into that kind of nonsense. As you have.<br /> <br /> Megyn Kelly, here in the U.S., was called politically correct for questioning women being called fat pigs and dogs. <br /> <br /> Sorry, your tactic toward me is reprehensible as was your use of that word and no attempted PC-deflection will change that.</p>

<p>David Bebbington wrote: "... which all this person's female friends use without hesitation among themselves"</p>

<p>Not by me. And not by any female that I have ever personally known.</p>

<p>Thanks to Benoit for placing the general aspects of age, consent and varying social perceptions into some context that one can relate to now, and in the past. It doesn't answer the questions suggested by the OP about one photographer, but it allows reflection on the possible events that may never be fully known. </p>

<p>I would not enjoy, for example, being a politician and aspiring to be clean cut, fair and honest. Although not a deterrent if I was so motivated, I think that whatever I would do at least someone or some interest would be able to make some case of a failing or error that, real or not, would show me in bad light. A professional photographer is also a public person, like a politician. He may err and not be seen, or he may not err and be judged wrongly on a supposition. He may err and his victims, for one reason or the other, may have not spoken when it might be more effective to do so. Harcelement today is quickly noted, visible. Ask the RCMP or the Canadian army how many complaints have been raised by women (mainly) and men in their service. The numbers are high. How all this relates to the present case may not be known. Coming to a conclusion of sorts is difficult without having all the facts. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Some suggestions here on how to redirect and refine this discussion:</p>

<p>https://fstoppers.com/originals/suicide-david-hamilton-and-debate-over-child-nudity-portraiture-155228</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Don't give me that PC trope to excuse misogynistic talk. It's not "PC" to show women respect. It's a thing to do. In today's ridiculous new world order, calling out bigotry and disrespectful statements has become frowned on and is labeled PC. Well, it's not going to work with me.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

Nor does it work with me, or with anyone I consider to be a friend or care to associate with, whether they be male, female, or trans, queer or straight.<br>

<br>

</p>

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<p> That doesn't mean bigotry or disrespect towards women.</p>

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<p>It's the definition of bigotry and disrespect. I agree with you, it's common. But the fact that it's so common doesn't mean it's not misogynistic and disrespectful. The fact it's so common, in fact, may just show how ingrained such misogyny is in our everyday life. <br>

<br>

In any case, what one does in the privacy of a small group and the way one talks in that comfortable group is bad enough, but normalizing it by using it in public forums is a horse of a different color and I'm glad I called it out and will do so every time. <br>

<br>

I doubt very much you know or should be claiming to know how women talk or think when they're not talking to you, a kind of patriarchal move in itself, which probably shows with just how much ease misogyny has infiltrated or continues to infiltrate our culture.<br>

<br>

Talking like that doesn't make one a misogynist at all times in their life and in all aspects of their being. I'm sure some otherwise very kind people use that word and think they are just being funny, ironic, or sexual in the moment. But using that word cavalierly is misogynistic and should be recognized as such. <br>

<br>

How we talk matters, if not to ourselves than to others and to others' level of feeling safe. Every time I hear the word "f _ _ _ o t" I don't think it's a sign of pure, unadulterated homophobia, but it often does make me feel less safe. And I would ask people who use that word who don't think of themselves as homophobic to consider my feelings of safety and not use it, no matter how they think they mean it. I think the same should apply to the vulgar word that was used in this thread.</p>

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<p>What's just as if not even more patriarchal is to assume that women are so easily offended by the word and can't discern the differences of context in which it may be used.</p>

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<p>LOL. This is a very similar argument some people use when they use religion to bash gays. When gays fight back or say they're offended, they're called anti-religionists. Now, I have to hear that someone fighting for women to be respected is patriarchal. Good call, Phil.</p>