On December 4, 2017 Eoin Murry published an article on Sean Hemmerle’s portrait series THEM on the website of the British Journal of Photography.
“I photographed the towers as they fell, the people at the sight, ground zero. Somehow I got in there. I guess some of those pictures ended up becoming sort of ‘iconic’, and from them I made what, to me, at that time was a tonne of money.” The portrait series THEM is a reaction to the political atmosphere in the United States post 9/11. After having documented – or portrayed – the events of 9/11, Hemmerle felt the moral duty to picture “something of value” and decided to photograph the “minefields, battlefields and surrounding architecture” in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002 and 2003, but eventually started taking black-and-white portraits of people he encountered. These sensitive portraits showing individuals, fell through with the collectively incorporated concept of an enemy formed by the people in the United States.
The book THEM is published by Kehrer Verlag, priced €39.90 and is also available at Galerie Julian Sander.
The article in the British Journal of Photography is available under the following link:
http://www.bjp-online.com/2017/12/sean-hemmerle/
