Mr. Diggles & You » Graeme Mitchell

graeme mitchell’s new site

mr. diggles — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 16:05:58 +0000

graeme and i have been friends for over 20 years. working on his website is something i have always enjoyed.

last night we launched another. the last one was up for a long ass time. that’s a good thing. take a moment to check it out. photo galleries online is one of the trickiest executions. you can’t have the best of everything. no matter what you compromise at least one element.

as an added bonus – this song is rad!

keep it up graeme. you darsh.

portrait by graeme mitchell

mr. diggles — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:00:25 +0000

this was taken about 3 years ago. i used to enjoy a clove cigarette from time to time before they banned them in the u.s.

graeme posting this image on his blog seems to be timely for some reason.

graeme is number one for graeme

mr. diggles — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:14:08 +0000

when graeme and i first launched his site he was like i want to be number one for my first name and my response was slow down turbo – and sure as shit it happened.

i have only mentioned this to a few people that i would think would care and they all say the same thing – yeah but isn’t it spelled weird? and my response is well, apparently 9 million results think differently – awe snap! nerd slap right to the face to a person who could give a shit less. but still. coooooool. help the link juice by clicking here: graeme mitchell – he is also consistantly in the top 3 for the term nyc journal which is pretty impressive as well.

graeme, julian and jeff – nyc february 2010

graeme mitchell + stenchman

mr. diggles — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:10:08 +0000

here a picture i rather enjoy from graeme mitchell and a cool dubstep track to ~~boot~~ boost.

Stenchman – The Number One

graeme mitchell nyc journal #66

mr. diggles — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:44:58 +0000

graeme mitchell yet again makes an impression with the latest installment in his nyc journal series.

check it out here

graeme mitchell – 28yo elder

mr. diggles — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:56:48 +0000

happy birthday graeme. 28 years old today. i am right behind you.

partners in crime since 89.

i know we have a lot of pictures together – these are just some of my favs. i wish i had one of when we were kids on my computer.

cheers friend

graeme mitchell wins pdn’s 30

mr. diggles — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:27:56 +0000

my best bud graeme mitchell made pdn magazines top 30. he even landed the contents page image.

for those that do not know what pdn is – it is the leading industry magazine for photography. i may be wrong, but that has been my perception thus far.

it is kind of a big deal considering how many fucking people out there have a camera, take pictures of the sky and flowers and claim to be a professional photographer. graeme truly is the real deal so it is nice to see it continually reaffirmed.

and i am not just posting this because they happened to use one of my portraits for his profile in the magazine. but as a special offfer: if you go to borders, pick up the latest pdn and stick it under your pillow – you will solve world hunger.

love you graeme, thanks for taking picture for all of us to enjoy.

new york now, and then a dawn of a new era

mr. diggles — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 05:27:13 +0000

ah the splendors of having a best friend who is a professional photographer. this picture was taken half a decade ago. yes, i had black fingernails… and graeme had a camera. these days he makes me pay for the film. the least i can do.

i am currently in new york visiting graeme. we have known each other since we were about 8 and my beautiful girlfriend tracy bought me a ticket to nyc to visit him so we could connect before i became an honest man.

and here i am on my blog…lolzlzolzl.

and as my grand finale to end the bachelor lifestyle, here is a video of my apartment i lived in for 4 years. i just cleaned it before i hopped a jetblue flight to nyc. when i return i will be moving into a new place preparing for my future life with my future wife. i am ready to turn the pages. i love you tracy!!

benjamin diggles

mr. diggles — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:11:56 +0000

my closest friend graeme was in town for two weeks to spend time with his family. he asked me if he could shoot my portrait while he was here. honored, i said yes.

i figured i just wanted the image to show how tired i have been these last few years since there was no way of hiding it.

he has a couple more on his site and you can check them out here. i will post a couple more on my site once i see the proofs.

thank you graeme.

the dog’s master: by pieter hugo

mr. diggles — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:19:58 +0000

my friend graeme is a photographer and he is constantly sending me pics of cool stuff other photographers are up to.

this one is mr. diggles note worthy. damn cool. click the image above to visit pieter hugo’s website and or read below to read about his journey behind the images. very captivating stuff – imagine one of those beasts loose in a safeway. the little ones would probably go first.

THE DOG’S MASTER

These photographs came about after a friend emailed me an image taken on a cellphone through a car window in Lagos, Nigeria, which depicted a group of men walking down the street with a hyena in chains. A few days later I saw the image reproduced in a South African newspaper with the caption ‘The Streets of Lagos’. Nigerian newspapers reported that these men were bank robbers, bodyguards, drug dealers, debt collectors. Myths surrounded them. The image captivated me.

Through a journalist friend I eventually tracked down a Nigerian reporter, Adetokunbo Abiola, who said that he knew the ‘Gadawan Kura’ as they are known in Hausa (a rough translation: ‘hyena handlers/guides’).

A few weeks later I was on a plane to Lagos. Abiola met me at the airport and together we took a bus to Benin City where the ‘hyena men’ had agreed to meet us. However, when we got there they had already departed for Abuja.

In Abuja we found them living on the periphery of the city in a shantytown – a group of men, a little girl, three hyenas, four monkeys and a few rock pythons. It turned out that they were a group of itinerant minstrels, performers who used the animals to entertain crowds and sell traditional medicines. The animal handlers were all related to each other and were practising a tradition passed down from generation to generation. I spent eight days travelling with them.

The spectacle caused by this group walking down busy market streets was overwhelming. I tried photographing this but failed, perhaps because I wasn’t interested in their performances. I realised that what I found fascinating was the hybridisation of the urban and the wild, and the paradoxical relationship that the handlers have with their animals – sometimes doting and affectionate, sometimes brutal and cruel. I started looking for situations where these contrasting elements became apparent. I decided to concentrate on portraits. I would go for a walk with one of the performers, often just in the city streets, and, if opportunity presented itself, take a photograph. We travelled around from city to city, often chartering public mini-buses.

I agreed to travel with the animal wranglers to Kanu in the northern part of the country. One of them set out to negotiate a fare with a taxi driver; everyone else, including myself and the hyenas, monkeys and rock pythons, hid in the bushes. When their companion signalled that he had agreed on a fare, the motley troupe of humans and animals leapt out from behind the bushes and jumped into the vehicle. The taxi driver was completely horrified. I sat upfront with a monkey and the driver. He drove like an absolute maniac. At one stage the monkey was terrified by his driving. It grabbed hold of my leg and stared into my eyes. I could see its fear.

Two years later I decided to go back to Nigeria. The project felt unresolved and I was ready to engage with the group again. I look back at the notebooks I had kept while with them. The words ‘dominance’, ‘codependence’ and ‘submission’ kept appearing. These pictures depict much more than an exotic group of travelling performers in West Africa. The motifs that linger are the fraught relationships we have with ourselves, with animals and with nature.

The second trip was very different. By this stage there was a stronger personal relationship between myself and the group. We had remained in contact and they were keen to be photographed again. The images from this journey are less formal and more intimate.

The first series of pictures had caused varying reactions from people – inquisitiveness, disbelief and repulsion. People were fascinated by them, just as I had been by that first cellphone photograph. A director of a large security company in the USA contacted me, asking how to get in touch with the ‘hyena group’. He saw marketing potential: surely these men must use some type of herb to protect themselves against hyenas, baboons, dogs and snakes? He thought that security guards, soldiers and his own pocket could benefit from this medicine.

Many animal-rights groups also contacted me, wanting to intervene (however, the keepers have permits from the Nigerian government). When I asked Nigerians, “How do you feel about the way they treat animals”, the question confused people. Their responses always involved issues of economic survival. Seldom did anyone express strong concern for the well-being of the creatures. Europeans invariably only ask about the welfare of the animals but this question misses the point. Instead, perhaps, we could ask why these performers need to catch wild animals to make a living. Or why they are economically marginalised. Or why Nigeria, the world’s sixth largest exporter of oil, is in such a state of disarray.

Text by Pieter Hugo