JACOB HOLDT IS NOT A HIPPIE
SOME NEW PHOTOS FROM AMERICA’S GREATEST DANE
Published February, 2010
BY HENRIK SALTZSTEIN
PORTRAIT BY CAMILLA STEPHAN
http://www.viceland.com/int/v17n2/ht...hippie-330.php
Jacob Holdt is one of America’s most important photographers and he’s not even American. His book American Pictures did as much to revolutionize documentary photography as it did to paint an entirely new image of the country in the 70s, so it’s at least a little fair that Americans stuck their flag in him. In truth, he’s a Dane.
As the American Pictures story goes, Holdt, facing multiple criminal charges after some nefarious left-wing activities during the late 60s, left Denmark intent on joining one of Latin America’s various guerrilla movements. He got sidetracked, hitching some 80,000 miles back and forth across America and bedding down with gangsters, junkies, prostitutes, and Klan members. His parents, wary of the outrageous letters he sent from the road, sent him a $30 Canon Dial half-frame camera to document it all. Five years later he’d taken nearly 15,000 of the country’s most indelible photographs.
Holdt still travels the States visiting with his subjects. He’s even brought his two-year-old son on trips through urban ghettos and rural slums to make sure he didn’t become a racist prick. This is not at all unexpected from a guy who funneled all the profits from his book toward the anti-apartheid struggle in Africa and says the best way to deal with the odd gay rape is to instantly embrace your attacker. In addition to the enlightening little chat that follows, Holdt was kind enough to share some new photographs he took of a mass-murderer named Dave hanging around with his family.
Vice: Can you tell us a bit about these new images?
Jacob Holdt: I met Dave in ’96 through his brother, Snoopy, whom I’d picked up in my car back in ’91. I’d given up hitchhiking by then since no one would pick you up anymore. Snoopy had been waiting on a ride for three days when I came along. When he eventually started talking, he told me his brother and him had killed more people than he could even count. Naturally, I was skeptical and just dropped him off where he needed to go.
Had he actually killed anyone?
I didn’t know at that point, but five years later I tracked him down—me and a journalist, who was intrigued by this random mass-murderer story. Snoopy was in prison. Apparently, two days after I had dropped him off, he had broken into a house and tried to butcher the family living there, cutting up the woman’s stomach. She barely survived. There was no reason to doubt him and his brother having murdered all those people.
And that motivated you to track down his brother, Dave.
I was curious about where all that hate comes from and what makes people act in such desperation. Dave and his family lived in the middle of a deserted swampland and everyone was afraid of them.
Were they friendly with you, though?
At first we were met with shotguns pointed at us, but you have to understand that people like that are potentially the easiest to befriend because of their hunger for love and acceptance. Obviously, me knowing Snoopy smoothed the waters. I watched Dave and his wife, Connie, smack each other around and beat on their kids. Getting actively in between them wouldn’t have helped anything. I mean, I wouldn’t get very far if I was perpetually criticizing people in their own homes. I just hang around and observe and help where I can. By doing that, you can enable people to believe in themselves. Dave and Snoopy probably didn’t kill people because they hated them, more likely they did it because they hated themselves.
And then in May of last year you went back to visit.
Yep. I brought a friend with me, and when I told her we were going to see a mass murderer she thought I was joking. When we arrived at Dave’s, the front lawn was covered in blood. I thought, “Oh no, oh no.” But it turned out to be blood from his cow.
He’d killed it?
Yes. He told me he’d been drunk the previous night and used his cow as target practice. As it was trying to escape he got his shotgun, started up his old pickup truck, went after it, and eventually killed it.
MORE:
http://www.viceland.com/int/v17n2/ht...hippie-330.php
PHOTOS BELOW BY: JACOB HOLDT
Snoopy, Dave’s brother, after hitching a ride with Holdt in ’91.
Dave’s wife, Connie, disciplining their daughter Mel at their house in ’96.
Dave showing his oldest daughter Mary how to fire a rifle in ’96.
Mel with a picture of her uncle Snoopy in ’96.
Dave with the youngest of two babies his daughter Mary left behind, in ’09.
More images and full article:
http://www.viceland.com/int/v17n2/ht...330.php?page=5
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